President Trump said Thursday that the “favor” that prompted him to hire attorney Michael Cohen was service on a condo committee at Trump World Tower.
“Years ago, many years, like 12, 13 years ago, he did me a favor. He was on a committee and he was so responsive and so good, and I said, ‘He’s a nice guy,'” Trump said during a Fox News interview.
Cohen purchased an apartment in the building in 2001, five years before he was hired by the Trump Organization in 2006.
Trump first alluded to the “favor” last month, after his former “fixer” agreed to plead guilty to lying to Congress about efforts to open a Trump hotel in Moscow.
Trump did not provide details about Cohen’s condo-committee service, but said that Cohen was “a very big supporter of mine on that committee,” and that “in retrospect, I made a mistake” in hiring him.
Describing Cohen’s condo-committee service in general terms, Trump said: “When you build a building, people always get together at the end and they make a settlement with the owner. They say that the ceiling painted wasn’t the right color or something. Sometimes serious stuff, but in my case, it was a great building.”
Former Trump adviser Roger Stone previously told the Washington Examiner the “favor” was Cohen purchasing “a number of Trump condos at top-of-the-market prices.” Cohen’s wealthy in-laws also purchased units.
Stone said he stands by the claim that the favor was property purchases, which a person close to Cohen previously denied.
Cohen attorney Lanny Davis did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump and Cohen’s once-close relationship imploded as the attorney cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. He pleaded guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud, and campaign finance charges in August, before pleading guilty last month to lying to Congress.
Prosecutors in New York contended Friday that Cohen violated campaign finance law “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump in 2016 while arranging payments to women alleging affairs. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Trump told Fox News that Cohen pleaded guilty to “campaign finance charges that are not criminal … to embarrass me.”
