Cohen at sentencing says Trump was right to call him weak: ‘It was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds’

by Emily Birnbaum - 12/12/18 12:07 PM ET

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen at his sentencing in federal court on Wednesday said the president was right to call him weak because it was his “duty” to cover up Trump’s “dirty deeds.”

“Recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak, and it was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying,” Cohen said, according to multiple reports. “It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”

{mosads}Trump last month blasted Cohen as a “weak person” for pleading guilty to lying to Congress in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

Cohen was sentenced Wednesday to three years in federal prison for a series of crimes he committed while working for Trump, including campaign finance violations stemming from payments to two women alleging to have had affairs with Trump.

Trump’s former longtime lawyer and “fixer” on Wednesday said he has been “leading a personal and mental incarceration” ever since he began working for Trump in the early 2000s.

“This may seem hard to believe but today is one of the most meaningful days of my life,” Cohen said, Bloomberg reported. “The irony is today is the day I get my freedom back. I have been leading a personal and mental incarceration ever since the fateful day that I accepted the offer to work for a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen I greatly admired.”

Cohen also lamented the impact his legal woes have had on his family.

“There is no sentence that can supersede the suffering I live with on a daily basis knowing that my actions have brought undeserved pain and shame upon my family,” Cohen said. “I deserve that shame, they do not.”

Toward the end of his remarks, Cohen handed a tissue to his crying daughter, according to Bloomberg.

Federal prosecutors in New York last week recommended Cohen serve “substantial” prison time, despite his ongoing cooperation in the Mueller probe and other law enforcement investigations.

The prosecutors also said Cohen committed the campaign finance violations at the direction of “Individual-1,” who is widely believed to be Trump.

Cohen concluded that he takes responsibility “for each act that I pled guilty to: The personal ones to me and those involving the President of the United States of America.”

After Cohen spoke, District Judge William H. Pauley III said Cohen has pleaded guilty to a “veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct.”

Tags Donald Trump Robert Mueller