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(Contains profanity)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney for President Donald Trump, alleges in a new book that Trump made disparaging comments about the world’s black leaders, including former South African President Nelson Mandela, as well as minorities. Americans in general, the Washington. Post reported Saturday.
Cohen worked closely with Trump for years before turning against him, most publicly in his testimony before Congress last year before Trump’s impeachment.
Now Cohen is serving a three-year sentence for, among other things, making false statements to Congress. In a book to be published next week, Cohen alleges that Trump described Mandela as a poor leader, according to the Washington Post, which reported that it obtained a copy of the book.
According to the newspaper, Cohen wrote that after Mandela’s death in 2013, Trump said, “Mandela screwed up the whole country. Now he sucks. F — Mandela. He wasn’t a leader.”
Cohen also alleged that Trump said: “Tell me a country run by a black person who is not an idiot. They are all complete toilets.”
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany responded by attacking Cohen’s credibility.
“Michael Cohen is a disgraced criminal and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it is not surprising to see his latest attempt to profit from the lies,” McEnany said in a statement.
Trump has called Cohen “a rat” and a liar, and Cohen has said he faced repeated death threats from Trump supporters.
Trump, a Republican, is seeking re-election and will face Democrat Joe Biden at the polls on November 3. At the Republican convention in August, where Trump was formally nominated to appear on the ballot, speakers defended Trump against accusations of racism in the past.
Cohen alleged that Trump despised minorities and that Trump said during his 2016 presidential campaign that he would not win the Hispanic vote, the Washington Post reported. According to Cohen, Trump said, “Like blacks, they are too stupid to vote for Trump.”
Cohen is serving time for tax evasion, false statements and campaign finance violations, the latest related to payments to silence women who alleged affairs with Trump before the 2016 presidential election.
He was placed in home confinement in May due to the risks of contracting COVID-19 in prison, but was then briefly incarcerated again in July. A federal judge later ruled that Cohen had been retaliated against for planning the publication of his book and ordered that he be released again.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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