Michael Cohen (Image source: The Eric Trump Foundation)
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A lawyer for Donald Trump threatened a reporter with what he described would amount to a "f***ing disgusting" consequence if the journalist published a story about sexual assault accusations reportedly once made by the Republican hopeful's ex-wife.
“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up…for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet … you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump, told The Daily Beast reporter Tim Mak.
Michael Cohen (Image source: The Eric Trump Foundation)
Cohen was referring to accusations Ivana Trump reportedly made about a 1989 incident. During a deposition, reported on in 1993 book "Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump," Ivana alleged that Donald became upset after a painful surgery to remove a bald spot and confronted her because she had previously used the same surgeon. Claiming "your f***ing doctor has ruined me," Trump violently sexually assaulted Ivana, she reportedly said during the deposition. Trump has denied the accusation.
Asked about the deposition Monday, Cohen told the liberal-leaning news outlet that "it's not the word you're trying to make it into." He added that Ivana "felt raped emotionally...she was not referring to it [as] a criminal matter, and not in its literal sense, though there's many literal senses to the word."
“You cannot rape your spouse,” Cohen continued. "There’s very clear case law.”
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Trump's lawyer then threatened Mak if he were to publish the story.
“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very f****ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f***ing disgusting. You understand me?”
He added to The Daily Beast, “There is nothing reasonable about you wanting to write a story about somebody’s usage of the word ‘rape,’ when she’s talking [about] she didn’t feel emotionally satisfied.”
“Though there’s many literal senses to the word, if you distort it, and you put Mr. Trump’s name there onto it, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. So you do whatever you want. You want to ruin your life at the age of 20? You do that, and I’ll be happy to serve it right up to you,” he continued.
“I think you should go ahead and you should write the story that you plan on writing. I think you should do it. Because I think you’re an idiot. And I think your paper’s a joke, and it’s going to be my absolute pleasure to serve you with a $500 million lawsuit, like I told [you] I did it to Univision,” Cohen added.
The Daily Beast ultimately published a story about the accusations Monday night. A representative for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheBlaze.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story perviously misidentified the reporter's name. It has since been amended.
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