Michael Cohen Has Said He Would Take a Bullet for Trump. Maybe Not Anymore.

By MAGGIE HABERMAN, SHARON LaFRANIERE and DANNY HAKIMAPRIL 20, 2018

For years, a joke among Trump Tower employees was that the boss was like Manhattan’s First Avenue, where the traffic goes only one way.

That one-sidedness has always been at the heart of President Trump’s relationship with his longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who has said he would “take a bullet” for Mr. Trump. For years Mr. Trump treated Mr. Cohen poorly, with gratuitous insults, dismissive statements and, at least twice, threats of being fired, according to interviews with a half-dozen people familiar with their relationship.

“Donald goes out of his way to treat him like garbage,” said Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s informal and longest-serving political adviser, who, along with Mr. Cohen, was one of five people originally surrounding the president when he was considering a presidential campaign before 2016.

Now, for the first time, the traffic may be going Mr. Cohen’s way. Mr. Trump’s lawyers and advisers have become resigned to the strong possibility that Mr. Cohen, who has a wife and two children and faces the prospect of devastating legal fees, if not criminal charges, could end up cooperating with federal officials who are investigating him for activity that could relate, at least in part, to work he did for Mr. Trump.

Last week federal agents raided Mr. Cohen’s office and hotel room and seized business records, emails and other material as part of what Mr. Trump has called a “witch hunt” by his own Justice Department. The trove included documents dating back decades, as well as more recent ones related to a payment in 2016 to a pornographic film actress who has said she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, which Mr. Trump denies.

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/us/politics/trump-michael-cohen.html

-----------------------------------------------

Trump’s legal team bracing for Cohen to cooperate with federal investigation: report

BY MAX GREENWOOD - 04/20/18 03:24 PM EDT

President Trump's legal team is bracing for the possibility that Michael Cohen could flip on the president and cooperate with prosecutors, according to a New York Times report.

Cohen, a longtime personal attorney and fixer for Trump, has repeatedly pledged his loyalty to the president, insisting that he would go to any length to protect his former boss.

But now, as details of a months-long criminal probe into Cohen's work emerge, Trump's lawyers and advisers have come to terms with the idea that Cohen could ultimately cooperate with investigators.

Sam Nunberg, a former aide to President Trump's campaign, told the Times that such a prospect puts Cohen in an unusual position of leverage over the president.

"Ironically, Michael now holds the leverage over Trump," Nunberg said, noting that Cohen "should maximize that leverage."

more
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/384180-trumps-legal-team-bracing-for-cohen-to-cooperate-with-federal