What More Can Michael Cohen Do to Donald Trump?

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump sure seem to hate each other, yet the two men have been inextricably linked for over 20 years. In fact, there was a time when Cohen was Trump’s fiercely loyal right-hand man and was willing to “take a bullet” for him.

Now Cohen is at the heart of Trump’s latest court battle—the hush money trial prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that’s currently underway in New York. Especially since it seems that some of Trump’s defense will hinge on attacking Cohen’s credibility and character, it’s a good time to revisit the rise and fall of their relationship.

Cohen buys his first Trump-owned property in New York City at Trump World Tower, and convinces his parents and in-laws to do the same, buying properties at Trump Palace and Trump Park Avenue. In a five-year period, Cohen and people connected to him end up buying $17.3 million worth of Trump real estate.

It eventually catches Trump’s attention, and he told a reporter in 2007 that “Michael Cohen has a great insight into the real-estate market. He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money—and he does.”

Trump is locked in a power struggle with a group of apartment owners in his New York Trump World Tower property who want full control of the condominium board. They accuse Trump of financial impropriety, and in order to handle the situation, Trump turns to Cohen. Details of the deal are secret because of a confidentiality agreement, but Cohen managed to pull off a coup that handed back full authority to Trump.

Trump officially hires Cohen as an executive vice president at the Trump Organization—the same title given to Trump’s three adult children who were also employed at the company. He works with Ivanka, Trump’s eldest daughter, on a golf course project in California and also helps Trump launch a Trump Tower in Georgia, the former Soviet republic. This is when Cohen really earns the label of “personal fixer,” leveraging his relationships with Russian and Ukrainian businessmen—Cohen’s father-in-law is a Ukrainian immigrant and became his business partner—in order to help Trump land lucrative business deals.

Cohen launches a website, Shouldtrumprun.com, and starts campaigning for Trump to run for president. In 2012, Trump briefly does it, launching a presidential bid against Barack Obama. He ultimately drops out because, he says, he is “not ready to leave the private sector.”

In June, Trump famously descends on the gold escalator at Trump Tower and announces he’s once again running for president. A couple of months later, he and Cohen meet with David Pecker, former CEO of American Media Inc., in Trump Tower, where they discuss how Pecker would leverage his tabloid, the National Enquirer, to buy negative stories about Trump in order to bury them. During that meeting, Pecker agrees to run positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. (The former AMI CEO told the jury as much in court testimony last week.)

Cohen makes a payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump. (Trump denies this.) The payoff was partially an attempt at damage control, since the Washington Post published a bombshell in October: The outlet got ahold of an old 2005 recording of Trump on the set of Access Hollywood where he bragged about kissing and groping women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” said Trump.

According to an investigation by the New York Times, Daniels’ agent first reached out to editors at the Enquirer to publish her affair allegations, but Pecker, then the CEO of AMI, refused since AMI had recently made a separate hush money payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who also alleged that she’d had an affair with Trump. Cohen then regrouped with Trump and they decided Cohen would pay Daniels from his own pocket.

Trump, now president, begins to reimburse Cohen for the Daniels hush money payment over the course of 12 monthly installments. Prosecutors say the payments were billed as legal services in order to cover up their true purpose. During his hush money trial, Trump has insisted he was simply “paying a lawyer,” that his accountant marked it down as a legal expense, and “that’s exactly what it was.”

At the same time, Cohen is hoping for a senior administration role, but Trump offers him no such job, according to unnamed sources who spoke to the Times. However, Cohen is named to the Republican National Committee’s finance committee and he continues to fundraise for Trump.

A Wall Street Journal story reveals publicly for the first time that Cohen arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels one month before the 2016 election in order to suppress her allegations of an affair with Trump.

The FBI raids Cohen’s home and offices after a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller. Agents seize documents, cellphones, and laptops in an effort to find a paper trail for the Daniels hush money payments. From the White House, Trump tells reporters that Cohen is a “good man” and that the raid is a “disgraceful situation.”

Shortly after this raid, Cohen’s lawyer inquired about getting his client a presidential pardon. Cohen and Trump were reportedly still on good terms at this time, with the two dining together and speaking on the phone. Attorneys for Cohen and Trump worked together to strategize about what documents should be declared off-limits under attorney–client privilege to prosecutors.

Cohen edits his Twitter bio to remove any mention of working for Trump and does his first interview since the FBI raided his home and office. Cohen tells Good Morning America, “My wife, my daughter, and my son have my first loyalty and always will.” He repeatedly rejects opportunities to reaffirm his loyalty to Trump.

Up until this point, Trump’s reelection campaign had been footing Cohen’s legal bills in federal prosecutors’ ongoing investigation into the hush money payments and Trump’s dealings with Russia. But as of July 2018, the two men’s attorneys stop working together and the former president also ceases paying for Cohen’s legal defense.

This marks the official end of any amicable ties between the two men. Cohen pleads guilty to eight counts, including tax evasion, making false statements to a federally insured bank, and campaign finance violations. In order to gain more lenient terms, Cohen implicates Trump for the first time during his plea hearing, telling a judge that hush money payments were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office.”

Trump takes to Twitter to say: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison. Meanwhile, Trump says Cohen is “a weak person” and is lying, and that he only implicated Trump “to get a reduced sentence.”

Cohen starts cooperating with federal prosecutors in New York, dishing on Trump’s involvement in coordinating hush money payments while also sharing how business dealings went down at the Trump Organization and intel on donors who contributed to Trump’s inaugural committee.

The FBI closes its investigation into Trump and Cohen, releasing documents that for the first time publicly identify Trump and his role in the Daniels hush money payment. The agency declines to charge anyone besides Cohen.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg takes office, but declines to pursue charges against Trump related to hush money payments that prosecutors in the DA’s office were previously working on. However, Bragg insists that the investigation is still ongoing.

Cohen starts talking to prosecutors again and by March he’s testifying before a New York grand jury in Bragg’s revived investigation into hush money payments. As Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, puts it: “Michael has spent a long and productive afternoon answering all questions, all facts, and completely responsive.”

Trump’s former attorney, Joe Tacopina, hits back by framing the hush money payments as “plain extortion” while maintaining that the former president never had an affair with Daniels.

Bragg officially indicts Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree for a “catch and kill” scheme meant to bury negative information about himself ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen and Trump face each other in court for a separate civil fraud lawsuit. Here Cohen repeats a similar tune: Trump directed him and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen Wiesselberg, to inflate Trump’s net worth. Cohen says Trump “speaks like a mob boss” and “tells you what he wants without specifically telling you.” Trump, visibly angry, storms out of the courtroom after Cohen’s testimony.

Trump’s hush money trial begins, and Cohen is expected to testify.