Trump to resign, request pardon if he loses election: Cohen

Michael Cohen, Trump's disgraced former lawyer says the president has a plan if he doesn't win reelection

Sep 10, 2020

This week, Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump‘s former lawyer, has dropped a new book in which he claims the president made plans to implant an inside man in the Manhattan US attorney’s office so he could arrange to be federally indicted and then pardon himself if he loses the election in November.

Tuesday, Cohen’s tell-all “Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” hit bookshelves and one of the most stunning allegations made by Trump’s former fixer involves an elaborate scheme to ensure the president gets pardoned for any bad behavior in the event that he doesn’t see a second term.

Cohen alleges that Attorney General William Barr attempted to oust the Manhattan US attorney, Geoffrey Berman, to replace him with Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Cohen writes that Clayton, “not coincidentally, was a golf buddy of the President and almost completely inexperienced in criminal law,” adding he was “exactly what Trump and Barr wanted: a lackey.”

https://twitter.com/lindyli/status/1303517327275765762

He then goes on to say that he “knew better than anyone” that the reason the president wanted to replace Berman with Clayton “was so that while in office, he could arrange to be federally indicted” and then, “in the event he loses the election in November, he could then pardon himself, as he’s long claimed to be his right.”

“The reason behind that unprecedented and serpentine thinking was that Trump knows perfectly well that he’s guilty of the same crimes that resulted in my conviction and incarceration,” Cohen continued.

Monday, during an interview with MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow, Cohen elaborated on his claims explaining, “Well, my theory is that if he loses, there’s still the time between the election and the time that the next president would take office.”

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!