Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pushes podcast as criminal probe continues

Podcasts sure make for strange bedfellows.

Michael Cohen, who for years toiled as Donald Trump‘s personal lawyer and fixer, is now allied with people who are criminally investigating the former president — and is using a podcast to promote both his criticism and fellow critics of Trump.

Cohen’s ironically titled show “Mea Culpa” — a Latin phrase for “through my fault” — premiered last year with Rosie O’Donnell, a longtime target of Trump, who among other things made juvenile cracks about her personal appearance.

Cohen, 54, recently had as a guest on his show porn actress Stormy Daniels. In 2016, Cohen paid her $130,000 to buy her silence before the presidential election over her allegation that she once had sex with Trump years earlier.

“You and I both went through hell and back,” Cohen told Daniels. “I’m sorry for the needless pain I put you through.”

“Our stories will be forever linked with Donald Trump but also with one another,” Cohen said,

That likely is an understatement.

Trump denies Daniels’ allegation and also denies claims of an affair with another woman, Playboy model Karen McDougal, who herself received hush money from the Trump-friendly publisher of The National Enquirer before the 2016 election.

Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for paying off Daniels.

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Exposure of that payment led to a federal criminal investigation of Cohen, a Manhattan resident who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations for arranging both the Daniels and McDougal payoffs, and to other financial crimes unrelated to Trump.

Cohen, who was sentenced to three years prison, says Trump directed him to arrange the hush money deals to avoid harming his chances of winning the presidency.

Those payments likely were the first subject to be investigated by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office, which eyed how the Trump Organization accounted for them.

But court records suggest that investigation has possibly since expanded to include potential bank and insurance fraud, and tax crimes.

Those areas became a focus after Cohen told Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., during testimony before Congress in early 2019 that Trump had provided inflated property asset values to insurance companies and had also undervalued assets in order to reduce his taxes.

“You deflate the value of the asset, and then you put in a request to the tax department for a deduction,” Cohen told Ocasio-Cortez.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has credited Cohen’s testimony for setting in motion her own ongoing civil investigation of the Trump Organization’s asset valuations.

“I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a con man. He is a cheat,” said Cohen during his testimony. He also called himself “fool” for having worked for Trump and believed in him for so long.

Even was he was in prison, Cohen was helping Vance’s probe, and he reportedly continued assisting it after he was furloughed early from prison last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The concept of creating the podcast came when I was furloughed,” Cohen told CNBC in an interview.

“Mea Culpa” promotes its host as a man who “once vowed to take a bullet for the President.”

“But that was before the country was brought to its knees by the President’s own lies and personal madness,” the podcast’s homepage says.

“Now, imprisoned in his home, his life, reputation and livelihood destroyed, Cohen is on a mission to right the wrongs he perpetuated on behalf of his boss.”

Rob Ellin, CEO of digital media company LiveXLive, said of Cohen’s podcast, “The traffic is just skyrocketing.

“The competition of podcasts is way harder than it used to be,” Ellin said. But, he added, “I can’t think of one that has come up as fast as his.”

Ellin’s publicly traded company owns PodcastOne, which distributes and handle sales for “Mea Culpa,” and also owns another firm that handles merchandising for the podcast. Another unaffiliated company, Audio Up, produces “Mea Culpa.”

Cohen’s show this week added a new line of apparel for sale, one that reflects his current view of Trump.

The items include a jumpsuit in prison inmate orange, which can include the initials “DJT” —…