Lawyer Michael Avenatti on Tuesday predicted that President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, will cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller to save himself.
“Mr. Cohen will eventually flip but not for ‘love of country,'” Avenatti, who is representing Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against Trump and Cohen, tweeted.
“He will do it to only when he has to – in order to save himself. The @GMA ‘interview’ was a weak publicity stunt meant to try and rehabilitate his image,” Avenatti added.
Cohen said in an interview with ABC News that aired Monday that his first loyalty is to his family, not the president.
“To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter and my son, and this country have my first loyalty,” he said.
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Those remarks fueled speculation that Cohen will cooperate with Mueller in the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Avenatti took a different view of the interview, saying that Cohen is “playing games with the American people.”
Cohen is under investigation for possible bank and wire fraud and campaign finance violations. The probe stems in part from a $130,000 nondisclosure payment Cohen gave to Daniels before the 2016 election. Daniels says the payment was given to her because of an affair she had with Trump more than a decade ago.
On Monday, federal prosecutors gained access to 1.3 million documents related to the April FBI raids of Cohen’s office, hotel room and home.