Michael Cohen claims Trump ogled his 15-year-old daughter in new memoir

Cohen writes in new memoir that the president is ‘guilty of the same crimes’ that got him sent to jail

Michael Cohen claims that Donald Trump ogled his teenage daughter in his explosive new memoir, according to the Associated Press.

The disgraced attorney, who was one of the president’s closest confidants and “fixer” for years, describes an uncomfortable incident in the book when Mr Trump allegedly leered at Cohen’s 15-year-old daughter.

It took place in 2012 at the president’s New Jersey golf resort, the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.

When Mr Cohen told Mr Trump that the girl was his daughter, the president followed with a question: “When did she get so hot?” he asked, according to Cohen’s book, The Associated Press reported.

Mr Trump was married to First Lady Melania Trump at the time.

The White House has dismissed Mr Cohen’s book as “fan fiction," pointing to the disgraced lawyer’s conviction for lying to Congress about his pursuit of a Trump Tower in Moscow during Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer, who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it's unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement to The Independent, in response to an email seeking comment about Cohen’s claims. 

Stories of the president’s alleged harassment of women pervade the book.

In another episode, Cohen describes Mr Trump bragging at the Miss Universe pageant that he could “have all of them,” referring to the contestants, if he wanted.

The president’s former lawyer also claims that he has seen his ex-boss forcibly kiss women in his office.

The anecdotes in Cohen’s new book fit into Mr Trump’s pattern of public behaviour over the years towards women.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, audio tapes emerged of him boasting behind the scenes of an "Access Hollywood" episode about forcibly groping women, who allow him to do such things because he's famous.

“You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Mr Trump says in the audio recordings.

“Grab 'em by the p****. You can do anything,” he said.

The president has also made several strange comments over the years about his daughter Ivanka Trump, who is a senior White House adviser.

In an appearance on the Howard Stern show in 2003, Mr Trump bragged that he helped “create” such a beautiful woman.

“You know who's one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her — Ivanka,” Mr Trump said.

"My daughter Ivanka. She's 6 feet tall, she's got the best body. She made a lot money as a model — a tremendous amount," he said.

In Cohen’s book, he describes how he is still coming to grips with how he completely gave himself over to Mr Trump psychologically and emotionally.

"I care for Donald Trump, even to this day, and I had and still have a lot of affection for him," Cohen writes.

The convicted felon, who is serving the rest of his three-year prison sentence under home confinement due to concerns over Covid-19 exposure in prison, apologises for his role in aiding Mr Trump’s political ascent.

He claims he helped the president reach the Oval Office because he wanted “the power that he would bring to me.”

Mr Trump’s charisma was intoxicating, Cohen writes, and he still does not know how he fell so hard under his spell.

“It seemed to [my family and friends] that I wouldn’t listen to anyone, not even the people who loved me most, as I gradually gave up control of my mind to Trump,” he writes.

“I confess I never really did understand why pleasing Trump meant so much to me. … To this day I don’t have the full answer,” he writes.

In congressional testimony from 2019, shortly before his prison sentence began, Cohen explained how he helped Mr Trump commit financial fraud by inflating the worth of his assets to attain bank loans, but deflating those same assets on his tax forms to pay less in taxes.

The New York attorney general and a district prosecutor in Manhattan are both investigating allegations that Mr Trump has committed financial crimes.