Former White House communications director Alyssa Farrar Griffin told the court on Thursday that Michael Cohen never wanted a job in the White House during testimony in former President Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial. He said he was surprised to hear that.
“When I heard Trump deny it, my jaw dropped,” Farrah Griffin, Trump’s former personal lawyer and ex-fixer, said in response to questioning Thursday as she took the stand for the third time this week to testify against Trump. I hit the floor,” he said on CNN. .
Farrah Griffin, who worked in the Trump administration, said Cohen never personally told her he wanted to work in the White House, but that it was “widely known and believed.”
“At the time, I was working for several Republicans, some of whom went on to serve in the administration, including Mick Mulvaney, a Democrat.” [Office of Management and Budget] director, and it was widely known and believed. Now, Michael Cohen never directly said to me, ‘I want to go to the White House, I want to go,'” Farrah Griffin said.
“But it was widely discussed that he was aiming to become attorney general or White House counsel. I mean, there are dozens of people around Washington who could corroborate that. ” she added.
In a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche repeatedly asked Cohen whether he would like to be offered a White House post if Trump becomes president in 2017. .
Mr. Blanche twice asked Mr. Cohen if he “really wanted to work” in the White House, to which Mr. Cohen replied, “No, sir.”
“Did you want to be appointed White House Chief of Staff? Did you want to be appointed as White House Chief of Staff, not just considered?” Blanche said.
“No, sir,” Cohen replied.
The topic came up during prosecutors’ questioning on Monday. Cohen admitted he was disappointed that President Trump did not include him as a candidate for White House chief of staff after the election.
“I didn’t want the role. I didn’t believe the role was right for me, and I didn’t think I was capable of being chief of staff. I just didn’t want my name. I just wanted it to be included,” Cohen said.
He further added, “It was more about my ego than anything.”
Mr. Cohen also suggested that Reince Priebus, who ultimately won the chief of staff position, had offered Mr. Cohen the opportunity to become assistant general counsel in the White House, but that Mr. Priebus did not want the job.
Mr. Cohen is a key witness for prosecutors in the Manhattan criminal case, with 34 business records filed over a $130,000 hush-money payment he sent to a porn actor to keep him quiet about an alleged affair with a then-candidate in 2016. Trump has been charged with falsifying the information.
Contributed by Zach Schonfeld and Lauren Sforza.
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