allen weissenburg how to set it up with familiar funding. yes. >> michael cohen says he's going to confirm with allen weissenburg, the trump organization's cfo, but he's a legacy employee for the trump family. he was trump's accountant, donald's father's accountant, been with the trump family since the 1970s. >> he took aim at the president in the hearing. >> michael cohen went into court to plead guilty. he knew he needed to say, "i paid money in order to conceal information that would be bad for the candidate i was working for and in order to influence the election." he went a step further and he said he did that at the direction of the president, which was an unnecessary statement by him in that proceeding, so it is interesting that michael cohen is taking the opportunity under oath in court to implicate the president when that was something neither the prosecutors alleged nor something he had to do. >> these pleas coincided to the hour with another conviction of another member of the president's inner circle in another federal court. >> paul was convicted of eight felonies today including filing false income tax returns, failing to report foreign bank accounts, and another foreign bank fraud charge. >> the day after that, the president offered support to paul manafort on twitter, but not to michael cohen. i feel badly for paul and his wonderful family. unlike michael cohen, he refused to break, make up stories in order to get a deal. he went further and took a sarcastic tone regarding his once loyal supporter. if anyone is looking for a good lawyer, i would strongly suggest you don't retain the services of michael cohen. >> in the end, his arc, which was on a very upward trajectory with donald trump, was undone by the person who gave him that lifeline, donald trump, himself. >> few people who knew michael cohen as a young man would have predicted he's going to be embroiled in a presidential crisis. by all accounts, he had an upper middle class childhood in upper new york, attended new york university in the 1980s as a brash realtor was becoming a celebrity and "art of the deal" was a best seller, striving for cohen to have an equally glamorous future. >> he said as a teenager he admired donald trump, not only for real estate acumen, but admired his personality and brashness, approach to life. michael was drawn to him. >> after graduating in 1988, cohen dabbled in politics, volunteering on the presidential campaign of democrat michael dukak dukakis. he attended law school where classmates noted his big ambitions. >> michael could handle stress. he was a bright guy, and he had a good sense of humor, and i liked that. >> he talked to a lot of people, he was very personable. >> he was very motivated. he had his eye on the fall. no question about that. he was a doctor, going to be a lawyer, going to go back and do big deals, and be successful in new york city. >> his legal career began in new york city working for a personal injury lawyer. in 1994, he married his childhood sweet heart, laura, at the swanky pierre hotel. this marriage opened doors for cohen. >> michael got involved with business and personal dealings with associated with. >> some broke the law, including his own father-in-law. >> he was convicted of tax fraud in the early '9 0s, and he got probation. >> following in his father-in-law's footsteps, cohen got involved in the taxing industry. >> afill yamted with a fleet of 200 in new york city and chicago, and in 2012, he was reporting $90,000 a month from taxing business. >> but two taxing medallions, simon and the taxi king were eventually convicted of multiple crimes. >> this is one of the vulnerabilities he created for himself by being in business with someone who got on the wrong side of the law. freedman like garber has a checkered background. he pled guilty to tax fraud. >> all the charges are unrelated to michael cohen, but the company he keeps is noticeable. >> after running for new york city council in 2003 and losing in a landslide, cohen turned attention to real estate. he used his earliest deals to attract the attention of a man whose brash per sewn that and glamorous lifestyle made him a reality tv star. >> you're fired. >> donald j. trump, enjoying fame on the hit show, "the aparen sapre apprenti apprentice." >> bought a $5 million property on park avenue where ivanka trump lived. >> after becoming treasurer for the trump world tower, he proved the value to trump for the first time. >> donald trump is impressed by the effort that michael cohen helped lead to oppose a tennis movement in the building to reorganize the building. he took trump's side against the other owners in the building, and trump was grateful. >> cohen's ambition was rewarded in 2006 when he became a lawyer for donald trump and shortly after, executive vice president of the trump organization. micah cohen found a seat at the table with the mogul he long admired. >> it was an alluring universe to be in trump tower. this is a man who idolized him for many years before he ended up working there. it was a dream come true. >>> coming up -- >> michael cohen was a thug. he was an absolute street thug in the way he went about defending trump and trying to intimidate people that they perceive ed crossing donald tru. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. kayak compares hundreds of travel and airline sites so you can be confident you're getting the right flight at the best price. cheers! kayak. search one and done. this is the angel oak. some say the oldest living thing east of the mississippi. it's weathered countless storms. battered, but never broken, it stands for the resilience within us all. ♪ >>> in the summer of 2015, donald trump descended an escalator in trump tower and sent the nation on an unexpected course. >> i am officially running for president of the united states, and we are going to make our country great again. >> the donald flirted with presidential runs before. >> welcome to new hampshire. >> in 2011, he tested the waters with a full support and encouragement of the trump organization's most loyal aide, chief among them, attorney michael cohen. >> i watch you every night on tv. >> well, you better. >> for cohen, it was the way to merge political ambitions with his business affairs. >> i think this, before the election, michael cohen is more political than donald trump was. this is someone who encouraged donald trump to run for president, had been involved in campaigns before. >> cohen flew to iowa in trump's private plane to meet republican operatives. >> michael cohen, who is the one who set up this website, shouldtrumprun. >> trump mentioned the site in a campaign video that ran on aol. >> recently a group formed, a very dependent group, formed shouldtru shouldtrumprun.com. >> perhaps foreshadowing events to come, that triggered a complaint. >> that complaint alleged that michael cohen could not be independent of donald trump because he worked for donald trump, although he said he was independent of donald trump. >> in 2011, the fcc ruled in cohen's favor. the win was another way of proving his loyalty. >> the way he initially described it to me was a father-son relationship. when i asked him why he had blind loyalty, he always threw the question back to me, would you do this for your father? >> at the end of the day, the only people donald trump really considers his family are his own family. anyone who considers themselves to be almost a trump family member should really take a reality check because they tend not to stay around very long. >> but cohen did stay and proved his willingness to fight for his boss by aggressively attacking donald trump's enemies, real or perceived. >> not only a war of words, between a beauty queen of organizers of the miss usa pagea pageant. pennsylvania's representative claims the competition is rigged. >> just after the 2012 miss usa pageant, co-owned by donald trump, they claimed the finalists were predetermined. >> my message is very simple. i want the truth made known. >> the father spoke with michael cohen's about her daughter's claims and said cohen was by ledge rant. >> it is terrifies for cohen working for donald trump to get you on the phone and intimidate, but part of what a lawyer is supposed to be doing is intimidating people to keep them away from the case. >> allegations were not proven and president trump won. he was an attack dog against donald trump's most hated adversaries, the press. the news websites, the daily beast, felt cohen's wrath. >> they wrote a story about a deposition that trump's first wife had given in a case, and in that deposition, she said he was raped by trump. >> she later withdrew the claim saying it was not a literal or criminal sense, but in 2015 when the daily beast reporter contacted trump campaign for comment, michael cohen increasingly assertive in the role of fixer responded viciously, and npr released the audio. >> i'm warning you, tread very [ bleep ] lightly because what i'm going to do to you is disgusting. do you understand me? >> michael cohen was a thug. he was an absolute street thug in the way he went about defending president trump and defending people that they perceived to be crossing donald trump. michael cursed, i'm going to go after you and take you down. that's what people do in business. >> this is not the way that most attorneys operate. this is why he became a valued member of the trump organization. >> over the next few years, cohen would take his loyalty to a whole new level. >> he was someone who was a pit bull, never shies away from a fight, someone who never hesitates to defend donald trump and the trump family. >> and we will make america great again. >> michael cohen was not just helping with politics. while donald trump's 2016 presidential campaign gained momentum, cohen sought real estate deals for his boss. during several efforts to develop a much-coveted trump megatower in moscow, cohen turned to his friend, felix, who had alleged ties to russian organized crime. >> michael cohen and felix jointly tried to propose the construction of the new trump tower in moscow during the presidential campaign, and donald trump was aware of that effort. >> it would be an alleged trip to meet with russian officials that earned cohen a chapter in the dossier. >> the dossier is the famous report put together by the former british agent, paid for by the hillary clinton campaign, so a lot of allegations in this that have to do with the president trump campaign colluded with russia, and that michael cohen was a prize, met with russians to discuss hacking of democrats. >> he continues to emphatically deny allegations that were made concerning him in the dossier. >> cohen's efforts to fulfill trump's dream to develop a trump m mega tower never came through. cohen continued to fight hard for his boss, showing his teeth after the first republican debate on fox news in 2016, during which megyn kelly challenged then candidate trump. >> you called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, and disgusting animals. >> only rosie o'donnell. >> he struck back on twitter. >> he tweeted about megyn kelly, who trump was critical of, and she was upset about this, understandably so. it's simple. if she or anyone else was in his mind going after his boss, he was going to fight back. it's a kind of lawyer trump would want. >> during the campaign, cohen continually took on the media and one target in particular, cnn. >> you guys are down, and it makes sense that -- >> not true. >> and it -- >> not true. >> most of them? all of them? >> says who? >> while they surprised some, nothing was as surprising as election night. >> here is the first projection in the trump column of decision 2016. >> trump had a lot more support in that lot more states with a lot more people than the polls detected. >> i just received a call from secretary clinton. [ cheers and applause ] >> as trump filled out the role in his new administration, michael cohen reportedly hoped to become the chief of staff, but the loyal attorney was overlooked. >> there were people around the president who were not big fans of michael, and so they encouraged him to keep his distance. but at the same time, the russian investigation was heating up, and michael cohen was testifying in front of the house and congress, and to the advice of counsel on both sides, they were not doing a lot of talking. >> michael cohen got a rude awakening before trump got to the white house. he felt shoved aside and not given a position in the white house that he wanted, and he was making his disappointment known about that, and i don't think trump or his family particularly cared. to a certain extent, he disappeared off of their radar screen when trump went to washington. >> he would soon reemerge and play a pivotal role in trump's presidency. >> there was substantial information prior to to the election and that made him a particularly dangerous person to the president. -♪ he's got legs of lumber and arms of steel ♪ ♪ he eats a bowl of hammers at every meal ♪ ♪ he holds your house in the palm of his hand ♪ ♪ he's your home and auto man ♪ big jim, he's got you covered ♪ ♪ great big jim, there ain't no other ♪ -so, this is covered, right? -yes, ma'am. take care of it for you right now. giddyup! hi! this is jamie. we need some help. need a change of scenery? the kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. so you can be confident you're getting the best price. giddyup! kayak. search one and done. ♪ one look at you and i can't disguise ♪ ♪ i've got hungry eyes applebee's new 3-course meal starting at $11.99. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. i'm begging you... take gas-x.ed beneath the duvet your tossing and turning isn't restlessness, it's gas! gas-x relieves pressure, bloating and discomfort... fast! so we can all sleep easier tonight. we are the tv doctors of america, and we may not know much about medicine, but we know a lot about drama. from scandalous romance, to ridiculous plot twists. (gasping) son? dad! we also know you can avoid drama by getting an annual check-up. so we're partnering with cigna to remind you to go see a real doctor. go, know, and take control of your health. it could save your life. doctor poses! dad! cigna. together, all the way. >>> cohen's role as a fixer for donald trump meant doing just that. fixing trump's problems. >> of all the individuals in trump's orbit that knew where the bodies were buried, if you will, michael cohen was at the top of the list. >> days before the election, the "wall street journal" reported there was an agreement with a former playboy model who claimed a long-term relationship with the mogul starts in 2006 and she tweeted photos of them together. ami purchased rights to her story. >> they paided karen $150,000 tort story, and the story was not published before the elections. >> she said she was silenced with well-known tabloid tactic, a claim the media giant denied. >> called catch and kill, basically, they pay you for the rights to the story, and then they kill it. if she had told her story publicly, this would have been something that voters would have considered when they went to the polls. >> it's been alleged michael was the puppet master, certainly made aware of it, and was involved in the negotiations and ensuring, in fact, the story was, a, purchased, and, b, killed. >> that same article reference the another alleged affair with an adult film star, stefanie clifford, aka, stormy daniels, she said she met him in a golf tournament in lake tahoe as shown on this facebook page. >> he repeatedly denied relationships. >> when the article was published, news was dominating the head looi t headlines. >> couldn't do anything. grab them by the [ bleep ] -- >> with daniels and karen refusing to comment, that 2016 article got buried. in january 2018, the same journal reporters broke another story about the alleged affairs. this time, they revealed stormy daniels had been silenced just before the next by michael cohen. she signed a nondisclosure agreement about the exact same time the trump campaign was dealing with the fallout from that "access hollywood" tape. >> stepped up this company, and the only purpose is to pay stormy daniels so that she will not tell her story. she will not go public. he says, without telling donald trump, he paid $130,000 to stormy daniels so that she would not speak about the story. >> daniels also alleged the parent company of in-touch magazine offered her $15,000 for the story back there 2011. >> our understanding is that then they reached out to mr. cohen for comment in advance of running the story, and mr. cohen was able to convince them or threaten them that if they ran the story, there would be serious consequences. they decided not to proceed with publishing the story. >> then things took a darker turn. >> daniels alleged she was in a parking lot going to a fitness class, and someone approached her in her car with the daughter in the backseat saying, stop talking about donald trump, it would be a shame for your young daughter to grow up without her mother. this is something that terrified her. >> cohen denies playing a role in the alleged threat. >> he une kwifly denied it. said, i never threatened her or spoken to her or e-mailed her or texted her, never seen her in person. i don't have any knowledge of any threats being made to her, but, certainly, i was not the one to make those throats. >> she kept quiet before the election, helping trump avoid a huge scandal in the home stretch of the campaign. >> god bless you. >> but after the election, the story was making headlines, and not just about an affair, but about the coverup. >> let me be clear about way we know and what's in the article. it does not allege nonconsensual behavior, but alleges an effort to hide the behavior that allegedly occurred. >> armed with a new attorney, daniels wanted to take control of her own story, and she started talking and suing. they filed a lawsuit saying the nda signed was invalid because donald trump never signed it. >> so, for years, mr. cohen has played by a different set of rules or, should we say, no rules at all. >> and suddenly, actions of candidate trump were catching up with president trump. >> do you know of anything of payments? >> why did michael cohen -- [ inaudible ] >> ask the attorney. >> do you know where he got the money to make the payment? >> no. >> just four days later, cohen would face a crisis of his own. >> we have new report in the fbi has reportedly raided the office of president trump's long time personal lawyer. >> investigators seized e-mails, tax document, and business records. >> bombs are dropping. >> if a link to michael cohen woke up in the hotel he was living, at 7:30 about a dozen fbi agents knocked on the door, did not break it down, and that's the cell phone snatched from his hand, and began a raid of the hotel room. >> simultaneously, the fbi searched cohen's apartment and his office at rockefeller center. >> the goal is to execute search warrants simultaneously for surprise and to make sure that nobody gets tipped off, and that evidence does not disappear. >> fbi agents seized a massive haul of information including documents, computer hard drives, phones, and other devices. they also seized some other crucial evidence. over 100 audio recordings. >> the president addressed the media about it, and in very stark terms, really went after the justice department. >> president trump interrupted a critical national security meeting about looming action against syria to denounce the fbi and raid on the lawyer's office. >> so i just heard that, as i broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man, and it's a disgrace. frankly, it's a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. >> hours later, at 4:00 a.m., the president was clearly still enraged, firing off tweets about the cohen rage including attorney-client privilege is dead. >> attorney-client privilege is not a magic wand, but a carefully defined privilege. anything you say to an attorney is not by definition privileged, and it's certainly not privileged if the attorney is helping you commit a crime or conceal a crime. >> cohen was not charged with anything at the time, but the fbi seizures parked a fire storm that is still burning for michael cohen and for the president. >> big news of the russian witch hunt. - [narrator] the typical vacuum head has its limitations, so shark invented duo clean. while deep cleaning carpets, the added soft brush roll picks up large particles, gives floors a polished look, and fearlessly devours piles. duo clean technology, corded and cord-free. and fearlessly devours piles. so let's promote our falle a homecomingtravel dealame, on choicehotels.com like this. touchdown. earn a free night when you stay just twice this fall. or, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? today, life-changing technology from abbott is helping hunt them down at their source. because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. the most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. life. to the fullest. >> days before one allegation of sexual misconduct, a second woman came forward saying kavanaugh exposed himself to her as students at yale university. kavanaugh denied both allegations. cosby's final chapter in a fall from grace in the world's most famous entertainers. he could get anything from probation to 30 years in prison. now back to "headliners: michael cohen." >>> after the surprise raids of michael cohen's, home, hotel, and office by the fbi in april, president trump said the operation showed the problems with the special counsel probe. >> i have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. >> but the search warrant did not come from robert mueller's office in the first place. it came from separate federal prosecutors in new york. >> it sounded like in the investigation, he uncovered some evidence of wrong doing by michael cohen, and he referred it to the district of new york because it didn't seem to fall within the investigation of russian interference. >> the week after the raid, the federal inquiry into cohen's business practices broadened. when a judge ordered cohen to expose his roster of recent clients. other than president trump, it turns out there were only two more, fox host sean hannity and prominent trump donor named elliot brady. >> a wealthy financier for the republican party and reported that cohen helped arrange another hush money payment, in this case, to a playboy play mate who said she got pregnant by elliot brady. >> brady agreed to pay that model $1.6 million to stay silent about they're affair. >> it's very similar to the karen and daniels cases in which a payment is being made to keep embarrassing information out of the public eye. >> cohen struck a deal with the attorney, keith davidson. if that name is familiar, it's the same davidson who represented both karen and daniels. karen and daniels and bushard all have pending cases against davidson alleging he was working in collusion with cohen and against their interests. davidson denies those claims. just weeks after the fbi raid on his home and office with the legal pressure on michael cohen building, he invoked the 5th amendment right in daniel's other lawsuit, the one against trump and cohen to invalidate her mda, and in a live call to foxx and friends," he defended cohen and himself amid speculations campaign funds were used to pay off daniels. >> he did nothing wrong. there was no campaign funds -- >> why is he pleading the 5th? >> because he's got other things. he's got businesses. but i'm not involved. >> in that civil litigation with daniels, they folded, withdrawing their part of the suit in saying they would not enforce the mda, but as problems multiplied, many wondered how the loyalty to trump would last. >> everybody slips. >> what if he flips over? >> if he flips, you're in trouble. >> in the following weeks, president trump turned to rudy to turn to the court of public opinion and contradicted the president's statements claiming he didn't know about the payments with a may 2 interview be sean hannity. >> oh, i didn't -- he did? >> yes. >> intentionally or not, he confirmed what many alleged. michael cohen did pay hush money to stormy daniels, and the president was fully aware of the payment. >> the president's story and parroted by his television lawyer has consistently be shifting, and it is no coincidence they started shifting after the fbi searched michael cohen, and now all the sudden, they started to say, oh, yes, the president knew, and he reimbursed him. >> as the story dominated the media universe, daniels made a surprise appearance on "saturday night live." >> this is michael cohen, are you alone? >> yes? >> what are you wearing? >> excuse me? >> three days later, daniels' lawyer dropped another bomb on cohen, this time, allegations about the consulting business and one client, a private equity firm linked to a russian oligarch who had close ties to vladimir putin. nbc news reviewed financial documents that appear to support the claim that the firm paid cohen a half million dollar consultant fee, funneled through the exact same show company used to pay off daniels. as the summer wore on, the growing sense of legal jeopardy took its toll. the already strained relationship with president trump further deteriorated. >> the relationship soured, i believe, first over money. over who is going to pay for the lawyers. >> there was another problem looming. the feds had seized more than 1 million pieces of potential evidence from cohen including an audio tape of the president. >> once they started the document sharing process and seeing what cohen had including those tapes, there was a sense of, this guy could bring us down. >> cohen began complaining to friends he felt abandoned by the man he worked so hard to defend. >> this is a man increasingly angry and upset and isolated. >> on june 20th, he resigned as post as finance chairman at the republican national committee. and after years of putting his boss first, michael cohen sent a new message in an interview with abc news saying, quote, my wife, my daughter, and my son have my first loyalty and always will. i put family and country first. >> he did not want to be seen as the guy who was going to take a bullet for the president. he wanted to be seen as a guy who would, perhaps, take the president down. >>> coming up, a new strategy for cohen. >> hiring the attorney randy davis, permanent democratic operative, and a close clinton ally. oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (vo) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. oh! under seven? 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