James Devaney/GC Images
- Michael Cohen believes Trump may have given away classified information while traveling.
- The Washington Post had reported that Trump would take unorganized boxes of documents overseas.
- Cohen posited that Trump likely took the documents with him for "nefarious reasons."
Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer for 12 years, believes Trump may have given away top-secret information while traveling around the world during his tenure in the White House.
In a TikTok on Monday, Cohen reacted to a recent article by The Washington Post that reported on how Trump would take unorganized boxes of classified documents with him on overseas trips and store them in hotel rooms, even in countries that were considered adversaries to the US.
Stephanie Grisham, who served as White House press secretary under Trump, also told the Post that documents her former sent for would often "just disappear."
Cohen said in his TikTok: "Let me be very clear, considering I know this 'Mandarin Mussolini' extremely well. Donald doesn't take boxes of material around the world for no reason at all. He took it for nefarious reasons."
"I stand firm when I say that Donald wants to use this in order to hold the country hostage," he later said. "That's his goal. His goal, because he knows his ass is in the grinder right now. He knows that he's cooked, that he's going to use this information, look for all we know, he's already given it away, but there's definitely more that's there."
Cohen posited that Trump would try to use the classified information to "ensure that he doesn't spend the rest of his natural life behind bars charged with treason."
He previously theorized that the former president intended to use the classified documents he kept at his Mar-a-Lago home as a "bargaining chip" in case he was ever at risk of being indicted or jailed.
"The second that they put him in handcuffs, he'll turn around and say: 'You don't seem to understand. I have the documentation showing, for example, where our nuclear launchpads are, or other information — sensitive national security information," he said.
Cohen suggested a situation in which Trump could threaten to have his supporters release the top-secret information to Russia or Iran. "My prediction, indictments are coming soon," Cohen said in his Monday TikTok.
Cohen has been known to criticize Trump and make bombastic comments about the former president, such as when he told CNN that the former president may have kept "love letters" from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un among the documents in his home.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to committing crimes including tax evasion, campaign finance violations, and bank fraud and was later sentenced to three years in prison. The New York Supreme Court disbarred him in February 2019.
Cohen's claims come as Trump faces scrutiny over the classified documents seized by the FBI following its raid on the former president's Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month. Trump is also facing three criminal investigations, a civil investigation, four lawsuits, and an indictment against the Trump Organization over what prosecutors say is a payroll tax-dodge scheme.
One of the lawsuits against Trump was filed by Cohen, who seeks $20 million in damages for time he spent behind bars and lying to Congress about Trump's dealings.
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