White House reporter says new 'Trump document dump' vindicates Michael Cohen
A new document dump paralleling the one in prosecutor Alvin Bragg's criminal case against Donald Trump appears to show the ex-president has been deceitful about his former lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Brian J. Karem, the former White House correspondent who has previously given insight into how the ex-president might be feeling, wrote in an article published on Saturday that he had filed his own public records request on the Trump and Cohen case several years ago.
"The government lies," Karem declared before describing the multi-year process to obtaining the doc dump.
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"Two and a half years ago, while doing some research, I filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for information on former Trump fixer Michael Cohen and the investigation that led to his prosecution. Cohen gave me permission to pursue the information; he wanted it too," the reporter wrote. "So for the last two and a half years, with the assistance of brilliant FOIA attorney Mark Zaid and his firm, we have pursued the information to no avail. I’ve sat in Zoom meetings listening to excuse after excuse. I’ve appeared in court. Nothing has ever been done."
That, however, changed when Bragg got his dump.
"Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said federal prosecutors had provided about 73,000 pages of records since March 4 in response to a Trump subpoena filed in January. They appeared 'largely irrelevant,' but 172 pages were witness statements that Trump’s team could review before trial, according to a court filing from state prosecutors. For that reason, the Manhattan case has been delayed by 30 days," he wrote Saturday. "Not so coincidentally, around the same time the federal government responded with documents that I had requested on that same case two and a half years ago. But I didn’t get 73,000 pages. The government reviewed 32 pages and sent me 31."
According to Karem, the data dump backed up what Cohen has said.
"There is very little that is new that the DOJ provided me – but it does help verify what Michael Cohen has long said – and been accused of lying about by Donald Trump," the report says. "Trump has long said that Cohen cannot be trusted – which makes you wonder why he ever hired him. But the evidence released shows that it was quite the contrary. Trump trusted Cohen with good reason – he carried out the Donald’s wishes as a good foot soldier."