Michael Cohen Shares Details of 'Only' Trump-Epstein Case He Worked On

Newsweek

a day ago

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Michael Cohen, formerly President Donald Trump's personal attorney and so-called "fixer," said recently on a podcast that he never met or spoke to Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell and "only" ever worked on one case involving allegations of criminal sexual conduct.
Newsweek reached out to Cohen via email for comment.
Why It Matters
The Trump administration has received blowback for weeks now for questions from the public and some lawmakers regarding the president's true ties to Epstein. The wealthy financier and convicted sex offender died by suicide behind bars in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges involving dozens of women and girls as young as 14.
High-ranking officials within the Trump administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi, promised either during the presidential campaign or once in office that files about Epstein would be available for public consumption.
After a July memo by the FBI and Justice Department said there was no Epstein "client list" and that no further charges would be brought, allegations and conspiracies have swirled—even leading to a meeting reportedly including Patel, Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles, Bondi, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
What To Know
Cohen, whose relationship with Trump all but vanished after he served a prison sentence for charges of tax evasion and tying Trump to the Stormy Daniels scandal, spoke with journalist Tara Palmeri on her podcast, The Tara Palmeri Show.
She asked Cohen about his knowledge of Trump's friendship with Epstein and whether allegations leveled against the president could be perceived as true in some instances.
Cohen then discussed a Trump-Epstein case he worked on about a decade ago, before he and the president officially cut ties.
"And as far as the only case that I was involved with was a Jane Doe, an infant, by and through her mom, Mary Jane Doe, as legal guardian," Cohen said.
Michael Cohen departs from his home in New York City on May 14, 2024.
Michael Cohen departs from his home in New York City on May 14, 2024.
DavidHe was referencing a lawsuit filed in the months before the 2016 election by an anonymous plaintiff using the name "Katie Johnson."
That lawsuit, filed in federal court in Riverside, California, in April 2016, named Trump and Epstein as defendants. It claimed the men held Johnson as a "sex slave" in 1994 when she was 13 and forced her to perform sex acts.
A judge dismissed the case in May that year, ruling that the complaint didn't raise valid claims under federal law.
"I turn around and I receive this summons in a complaint, and the aversions in it are awful. They're despicable," Cohen said. "It talks about the basic rate of an underage female claiming and alleging that Donald was involved in it and all that other nonsense. I ended up taking a private investigator and trying to find out who this person was.
"We went to the address that allegedly this minor lived at in the Bronx. Well, lo and behold, the investigator responds back and says, 'The only thing that's there is an empty parking lot. There's no building there, it's an empty lot.' I reached out to the lawyers and I asked them, 'Have you ever met your client?' Their answer was no. I said, 'Well, how the hell did you sign the case up?' And they're like, 'Listen, we screwed up...'"
Palmeri also asked Cohen about any ties to Trump, Epstein and Maxwell. He replied that "trolls" attempt to include him in such allegations.
"I've never met Jeffrey Epstein," Cohen said. "There's so much misinformation, disinformation, malinformation about me, which goes all the way back to the Steele dossier.
"I've never met [Maxwell]. I've never spoken to her, you know," Cohen said.
What People Are Saying
Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday: "We know that Jeffrey Epstein had a lot connections with left-wing politicians and left-wing billionaires. And now President Trump has demanded full transparency from this, and yet somehow the Democrats are attacking him and not the Biden administration, which did nothing for four years."
Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, on X in July: "For years I've been demanding release of the Epstein files, and I was hopeful this administration would do it. When it recently became apparent that no one was seriously working on it, I moved to force a vote on legislation to release the files. Is your congressman on board?"
What Happens Next
Maxwell, who was jailed for 20 years in 2022 for various crimes related to sex trafficking over her role in grooming girls for Epstein to abuse, was recently transferred to a minimum security prison in Texas shortly after meetings with Blanche over two days in July.
Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California said this week that the Epstein survivors would join them at a news conference on September 3.