President Donald Trump former personal lawyer Michael Cohen said in a tweet on Friday that he is cooperating with officials probing the president and his family.
“I have been asked and have agreed to cooperate with multiple government agencies to provide testimony on the wrongdoing by #Trump and the #TrumpFamily,” Cohen wrote. “I am doing this in large part as #Trump and family have tried, and thankfully failed, to destroy America’s democracy.”
Cohen, who worked for Trump for years as his personal lawyer and self-described “fixer,” began serving a three-year prison sentence in 2019 for financial crimes and lying to Congress. He was released in July to serve the rest of his sentence at home following concerns that unsafe prison conditions could put him at risk for the coronavirus.
In recent years, Cohen has turned on his former boss in spectacular fashion, calling him a “con man” and “a cheat” during dramatic testimony before Congress in 2019. He’s written a book about his time working for Trump called, “Disloyal, a Memoir.”
Trump and his family have already faced intense scrutiny over their business dealings. In 2019, a federal judge ordered Trump to pay the $2 million in damages after the Trump Foundation, which was also managed by his three eldest children, admitted in a settlement that the president personally misused foundation funds to help his 2016 presidential campaign, among other abuses.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is also continuing to move forward with its criminal investigation of Trump and his business operations. In addition, a pair of House Democrats have asked FBI Director Christopher Wray to open a criminal probe into Trump after a leaked phone call showed him pleading with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn his state’s election.
He also faces the possibility of federal tax investigations and an array of issues involving the Trump administration — from his administration’s child separation policy to possible conflicts of interest and potential violations of campaign finance law.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
