Michael Cohen says Ivanka and Jared were involved in setting up false documents to protect Trump

‘The problem with everybody in the Trump Organization is that they all lie,’ Michael Cohen tells MSNBC

Michael Cohen has said that members of Donald Trump’s family were involved in the criminal activity of the Trump Organization, and he claims there is proof.

The former president’s personal attorney made these claims to Ari Melber, host of The Beat on MSNBC, during a discussion of a story reported by The New York Times that alleged prosecutors may soon indict Allen Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump Organization, in their criminal investigation into the former president’s company.

The report states that a grand jury is currently looking at all the evidence surrounding Mr Weisselberg. Most of the investigation is centred around if he paid taxes due on gifts provided to him by Mr Trump, such as private school tuition, cars and an apartment lease.

Mr Weisselberg is believed to have worked alongside Donald Trump for decades. Mr Cohen said he believed that Mr Weisselberg would be cooperating with federal authorities to save himself and his adult sons in the case.

He told the MSNBC, "So, Allen has a choice. The choice is, do you want to spend the golden years of your life behind bars while remaining loyal to Donald Trump, knowing that Trump would absolutely 100 per cent not be loyal to you, or are you going to allow yourself and your sons to go to prison versus pass along the information and try to get yourself some sort of leniency?"

He continued, "On top of that, they have, again, documentary evidence – you know, the problem with everybody in the Trump Organization is that they all lie."

He explained that they omit the truth frequently, knowing this from personal experience of both doing it himself and witnessing it, such as the “the entire set up for the hush money for Stormy Daniels”, which he alleges Mr Weisselberg helped orchestrate, alongside himself.

"And they will continue, as I did, including with Congress. We all lied in order to protect Donald. The problem, though, is that there are documents that show the opposite, that I wasn’t the only one that lied in the creation of that document. It was Ivanka and Jared and the lawyers. All of them were involved in the setting up of that – of that information to Congress. So, yes, I’m the one that suffered the consequences, and my belief is that Allen is going to suffer the same consequences," the lawyer-turned-author-and-podcast-host said.

The investigation the The Times’ article refers to is the one by Cyrus R Vance Jr, the Manhattan district attorney.

There is a parallel investigation being led by New York state Attorney General Letitia James. “We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organisation is no longer purely civil in nature,” the attorney general said in a statement last month.

“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Ms James continued.

The investigation was started in 2019 following Mr Cohen’s testimony in a congressional hearing that Trump had told shareholders his assets were worth more to obtain loans. However, he would make the value lower for tax purposes.

Trump, a Republican, has denied the need for the investigations as both Ms James and Mr Vance are Democrats, therefore he labelled them political in nature.

The Independent reached out to Allen Weisselberg, Jared Kushner and a representative for the Trump Organization for comment.