WASHINGTON -- Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer, said in a television interview broadcast Friday that Trump knew it was wrong to make hush-money payments to women who alleged they had affairs with him, directly contradicting claims from the president.
Cohen, who has admitted facilitating payments to two women in violation of campaign-finance laws, told ABC News that he knew what he was doing was wrong.
Cohen said Trump also knew it was wrong to make the hush-money payments, but Cohen did not provide any specific evidence or detail in the interview. Federal law requires that any payments made "for the purposes of influencing" an election must be reported in campaign-finance disclosures.
His comments, in an interview that aired on Good Morning America, are at odds with those Trump made Thursday in tweets and in a television interview.
Trump denied that he had directed Cohen to break the law during the 2016 campaign by buying the silence of former Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and adult-film star Stormy Daniels. He also said Cohen, as his lawyer, bore responsibility for any campaign-finance violations.
"I never directed him to do anything wrong," Trump told Fox News on Thursday. "Whatever he did, he did on his own. ... I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong."
Trump also dismissed the significance of the campaign-finance allegations, which he said were civil violations at best. But he said if there were any legal issues, he had expected Cohen, as his lawyer, to know that.
In his interview with George Stephanopoulos, Cohen, who once vowed that he would "take a bullet" for Trump, flatly disputed the president's assertion. He said Trump was well aware of important decisions involving his business.
Cohen said "nothing at the Trump Organization was ever done unless it was run through Mr. Trump. He directed me to make the payments. He directed me to become involved in these matters."
The former lawyer and Trump fixer added: "He knows the truth. I know the truth. Others know the truth. And here is the truth: People of the United States of America, people of the world, don't believe what he is saying. The man doesn't tell the truth. And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds."
"I am angry at myself because I knew what I was doing was wrong," Cohen said, but added that he had come to terms with the value of telling the truth.
"I am done with the lying," he said. "I am done being loyal to President Trump."
Cohen said he had been loyal "to someone who truthfully does not deserve loyalty."
"One of the hopes that I have out of the punishment that I've received," he added, "as well as the cooperation that I have given, I will be remembered in history as helping to bring this country back together."
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Friday that reporters were "giving credence to a convicted criminal."
When asked specifically about Cohen's claims that Trump had directed Cohen to make the payments, Gidley said: "I understand that. He's a self-admitted liar. You guys all know that and for him to say, 'I'm going to start -- I'm going to stop lying starting now,' is somewhat silly."
The hush money wasn't initially reported on campaign-finance documents and, in any case, far exceeded the legally acceptable amount for in-kind contributions. The federal limit on individual contributions is $2,700.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement that was signed days before the 2016 election, and she's currently suing to dissolve that contract.
In August 2016, the parent company of the tabloid National Enquirer reached a $150,000 deal to pay McDougal for her story of a 2006 affair with Trump, which the tabloid never published, a practice known as catch and kill.
Cohen insisted that he just reviewed the McDougal deal and said the payment was negotiated directly between Trump and David Pecker, the chief executive officer of the tabloid's parent company.
Cohen and American Media Inc. now say they made hush-money payments to help Trump's 2016 White House bid. The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan reached a non-prosecution agreement with the company.
Cohen, who began working for the Trump Organization in 2007, said the Trump of today is not the same person he once knew.
"It was just a change," he said. "I will tell you that the gentleman that is sitting now in the Oval Office -- 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- is not the Donald Trump that I remember from Trump Tower."
One possible reason, he added, is that the pressure of the job is much more than what Trump thought it was going to be.
Cohen said he now sees himself as the person tasked by fate with helping the country.
"It's never good to be on the wrong side of the president of the United States of America, but somehow or another this task has now fallen onto my shoulders," he said, then added, "I will spend the rest of my life in order to fix the mistake that I made."
Cohen's comments were his first since being sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for what U.S. District Judge William Pauley called a "veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct" -- crimes that included tax violations, lying to a bank and lying to Congress, as well as those related to the hush-money payments.
Federal prosecutors contend that Trump directed the payments in a bid to help his election prospects. Trump has denied the affairs and initially denied knowing anything about the payments, but he has since shifted his story.
Cohen is scheduled to report to prison on March 6.
In the ABC interview, Cohen declined to answer specific questions about the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible coordination between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. "I don't want to jeopardize any of their investigations," he said.
But asked whether he thinks Trump is telling the truth about the Russia investigation, Cohen replied, "No."
Trump has denied any "collusion" with Russia, and has repeatedly criticized Mueller and his lawyers, accusing them of conducting a "witch hunt."
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner of The Washington Post; by Maggie Haberman and Eileen Sullivan of The New York Times; and by Michael Balsamo and Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/15/2018