Disloyal: A Memoir

The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump

Michael Cohen

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781510764699
• eBook ISBN: 9781510764705
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Law Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A #1 New York Times Bestseller!

"I read it cover-to-cover. I did not intend to, but I started at the beginning and didn’t put it down until it was over."—Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

This book almost didn’t see the light of day as government officials tried to bar its publication.
The Inside Story of the Real President Trump, by His Former Attorney and Personal Advisor—The Man Who Helped Get Him Into the Oval Office

Once Donald Trump’s fiercest surrogate, closest confidant, and staunchest defender, Michael Cohen knows where the skeletons are buried.

This is the most devastating business and political horror story of the century. As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,” Cohen not only witnessed firsthand but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.

This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or electronic fraud by rigging an online survey, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches.

He shows Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips off small business owners, a con man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country.

At the heart of Disloyal, we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic "Boss" and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass.

The real "real" Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.

Chapter One

The Apprentice

Donald Trump’s seduction began the way it would continue for years, with flattery, proximity to celebrity and power, and my own out-of-control ambitions and desires. For me, it started on a nondescript day in the fall of 2006. At the time, I was a successful, if little-known, middle-aged midtown Manhattan attorney and businessman on the make, sitting in a tidy nondescript office with two of everything arranged before me on my desk, a function of my obsessive nature: two staplers, two tape dispensers, two phones, two cups with sharpened pencils. I was thirty-nine and I worked for the mid-sized white-shoe law firm Phillips Nizer. As a lawyer I’d long had a busy practice in personal injury and medical malpractice, but my real passion and talent was in dealmaking, and I had accumulated a multi-million dollar fortune in the rough-and-tumble taxi medallion industry. Wealthy, with a beautiful wife and two healthy, happy young children, I had just purchased an apartment in the Trump Park Avenue building for $4.9 million and I tooled around the city in a Bentley and considered myself semi-retired.

I had it made, in other words, but I didn’t know that I was on the precipice of a mid-life crisis that would lead to an all-consuming fixation and my downfall.

On this fall day, in 2006, sitting at my desk doing the paper-pushing drone work of practicing the law, my secretary buzzed on the intercom.

“It’s Donald Trump, Jr. on line one,” she said.

I was half expecting the call. I knew the younger Trump from my recent purchase of three units in the new Trump Park Avenue, a project then under construction to be converted into my family home; two one-bedroom units and a two-bedroom apartment on the 10th floor of what had been the high-society Delmonico Hotel were being consolidated into a single residence with sweeping views of the iconic avenue from the living room running half the length of the building. Don Jr. was handling the construction job on behalf of the Trump Organization, so we talked often.

I picked up the call—news about the Trump Park Avenue, or TPA as insiders knew it, was a welcome distraction from my routine legal work. Besides, I’d become friendly with the younger Trump and enjoyed our banter and shared New York real estate tough guy personas. I had long cultivated the image of a hard-ass, the kind of lawyer who could solve any and every kind of problem, not necessarily through my legal acumen, but as a hyper aggressive, take-no-prisoners fixer—kind of a knock-around version of the TV character Ray Donovan, but in real life.

“Hey, D, what’s up? How are things going at TPA?” I said.

“I’m not calling about TPA,” Trump, Jr. said. “Can you meet with me and my dad at his office? It’s about something else and very important. My dad thinks you could be very helpful.”

Everything with the Trumps was always “very,” I would learn, but I didn’t hesitate. A meeting with Donald Trump? Hell, yeah. I’d met Trump once before a few years earlier, at a political fundraiser for a Republican candidate for New York Attorney General, but that had only been in passing.

Within minutes, I was walking excitedly up Fifth Avenue towards Trump Tower. To me, the elder Trump wasn’t just a celebrity and billionaire real estate developer. As an undergraduate at American University, in Washington, DC, I’d read The Art of the Deal when it was published in the 1980s not once but twice, and I considered the book a masterpiece. Ruthless, relentless, insatiable, brilliant, innovative, hard-edged, hard-driving, above all always a winner—the self-portrait of Trump contained in those pages, however fictional and far from the truth, had enthralled me. Secretly, in my heart of hearts, I thought I possessed some of Trump’s best qualities. I saw myself as deal-driven, relentless, a hard worker, never afraid, prepared to be brutal and heartless in pursuit of my ambitions. I already had wealth but I wanted it all: power, the good life, public acclaim, fame, big deals, fast cars, private planes, the excess and glamor and zest for life that Trump appeared to personify so effortlessly.

Walking up Fifth Avenue, I had an inkling what the meeting might be about. In recent weeks, as Don Jr. and I had discussed progress on the renovation of my TPA apartment, he’d told me about a fight that was brewing at another Trump property in midtown near the United Nations, this one called Trump World Tower, or TWT. I also owned an investment unit in TWT, which I rented out for $15,000 a month, and I’d encouraged my parents and mother- and father-in-law to also buy into the building, meaning that together my family owned more than half a dozen apartments in the East Side skyscraper that had boasted celebrity residents like Harrison Ford and the New York Yankee Derek Jeter. The 72-story tower (which claims to have 90 floors on the elevator push button, classic Trump) was in turmoil because the condo’s board of directors had gotten into a blood feud with Trump, the elder, about disputed fees and who should get the benefit of a city tax abatement of $100 million.

Both the board and Trump had engaged lawyers as the fight grew more and more bitter and personal, the younger Trump had told me. Now the board was trying to remove the Trump name from the building, on the grounds that it was more valuable to the owners without the association with The Apprentice reality TV star. The threat was not only an affront to the elder Trump but also a real and serious threat to the brand—and the Trump name was basically all that the Trump Organization had left to sell by 2006. If the TWT disassociated itself from Trump, what would happen next? Who else might see the name as a liability? The name Trump was attached to a seemingly endless string of golf courses and products, and any threat to the brand was taken to be existential.

I’d sympathized and expressed outrage at the offense to the Trumps, even offering assistance, if desired. I believed in the Trump brand and the value it brought to real estate and that he was rightfully due a payment of nearly $15 million for securing the tax abatement. Don Jr. knew of my reputation as a tough-guy attorney, so I figured that was why I’d been called.

Entering the revolving doors of Trump Tower, with an appointment with the proprietor, I was in awe at the majesty of the famous atrium: the grand escalator, the pink marble walls, the brass of the place, literally and metaphorically. The sheer scale and class of the building were incredible, at least to my way of thinking. The building had been designed to create such an impression, of course, but it worked on me.

Presenting myself at the security desk, I was told that Mr. Trump was expecting me. This acknowledgement of my existence by the great man provided a jolt of excitement. Escorted to the 26th floor, headquarters of the Trump operation, I was greeted by a beautiful young blonde woman who also said that Mr. Trump was expecting me—giving me another moment of pleasure. I was immediately ushered through glass doors into a large office with a sweeping view of Fifth Avenue and Central Park.

Sitting behind a large, cluttered desk was the elder Trump, talking loudly on a call on speakerphone. To me, the hulking Trump was even larger in life than he appeared on television. His presence filled the room, as I surveyed the office, an homage to Trump, with a vanity wall boasting scores of magazine covers with Trump’s image, along with shelves packed with glass awards and deal mementoes and sports memorabilia, including a garish and glittering version of Mike Tyson’s heavyweight world champion belt. Three red-velvet executive Egg chairs were arranged in front of Trump’s desk, with Don Jr. seated in one and the Chief Financial Officer of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, in the other. I was directed to sit in the middle seat, where I waited as Trump conducted what seemed to be a private conversation with us all listening in.

The call over, Trump yelled out for a Diet Coke, stood, and offered his hand to me. Like all New Yorkers, I had followed Trump in the tabloids for years and knew about his foibles and idiosyncrasies, but as an ardent fan and true believer, I knew more than most, including reports that Trump was a germophobe, so I reluctantly offered my hand in reply as he gave me his power grip.

“Don tells me great things about you,” Trump said, as half a dozen employees of the company filed into the office and arranged themselves behind me, standing at attention. “You do know I gave you a great deal on your new apartment,” Trump continued.

I blinked. I didn’t know what to say in reply. This was Trump’s first tell, if I’d had the ability to see what was unfolding, but events were moving so fast and in such a tantalizing way that I didn’t have the presence of mind to consider what had just occurred. I had paid the asking price on the Park Avenue apartment; there had been no discount or special consideration—it had never even come up. But there it was: within the first few seconds of our meeting, Donald Trump had lied to me, directly, demonstrably and without doubt. What was I supposed to do, if I had possessed the wherewithal to gather my wits and take on the implications? Call Trump on it? The lie seemed silly, harmless, and childish, the kind of fib that was pointless to contest; it occurred to me that Trump might actually believe it, too. In a matter of a couple of sentences, with no conscious thought or understanding of what was actually happening, I had given my unspoken consent to start to play along in a charade that I would come to learn was all-devouring and deadly serious.

For now, I parried with a joke, of a kind. “Would you like to buy the units back?” I asked.

“No, no,” Trump said quickly. “You made a great decision to buy at TPA, just like you did at TWT.”

The blonde assistant entered with Trump’s Diet Coke, and she offered me one. Trump took a sip of his soda and revealed what the meeting was really about.

“There is an issue I would like your help with,” he said. “I have a rogue board at TWT. We’re in litigation and they’re looking to take the Trump name off the building.”

Trump smiled.

“You more than anyone understand the value of the Trump brand, as you own apartments in a few of my buildings. You had your parents and in-laws and friends buy as well, and you all have made a lot of money.”

“Yes, yes, that is true,” I replied. “Tell me why the board is doing what it’s doing at TWT.”

Trump replied by way of introducing me to the employees now crowding into his office. The top executives and lawyers for the Trump Organization were all in the room and, it seemed, astonishingly, that they were now to be put at my disposal—a perfect stranger to Trump, a relatively small-time attorney, and someone with no apparent connection to the matter other than my unit in Trump World Tower and whatever Don Jr. had said to recommend me.

“All of these individuals will walk you through whatever questions you may have and will provide you with any support you need,” Trump said.

I was incredulous, excited, overwhelmed. I was a graduate of the University of Western Michigan’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School, perhaps the least-prestigious institution in the nation from which to receive a legal education, and I was being asked to assess a serious situation and determine strategy on a critical business matter on behalf of billionaire celebrity Donald J. Trump? Don Jr. had evidently suggested that I might be able to help, but it appeared that I was being put in charge of a project that clearly was of great import...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: The Real Real Donald Trump
• Chapter One: The Apprentice
• Chapter Two: The Fixer
• Chapter Three: The El Caribe
• Chapter Four: Laura
• Chapter Five: Catch and Twist
• Chapter Six: Trump For President (Part One)
• Chapter Seven: Stormy Weather (Part One)
• Chapter Eight: That’s What Friends Are For
• Chapter Nine: The End of the World
• Chapter Ten: How to Fix a Poll
• Chapter Eleven: Trump For President (Part Two)
• Chapter Twelve: Russia (Part One)
• Chapter Thirteen: Russia, If You’re Listening (Part Two)
• Chapter Fourteen: Hurricane Stormy (Part Two)
• Chapter Fifteen: Election Night
• Chapter Sixteen: Typhoon Stormy (Part Three)
• Chapter Seventeen: The Conviction Machine
• Chapter Eighteen: Otisville Federal Satellite Camp
• Epilogue: Retaliation
• Appendix: Documents, Tweets, and Photos