IT firm hired to create fake Twitter account to portray ex-Trump lawyer
Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen reportedly hired a man to create a Twitter account which portrayed him as a sex symbol, as well as rigging online polls to sway towards the president.
Mr Cohen has confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that in early 2015 he paid the head of a small technology firm, Redfinch Solutions, to write computer script that would place multiple votes for Trump in an online poll of news broadcaster CNBC.
They repeated the effort in an online poll of website Drudge Report, which is popular with conservatives.
Mr Cohen also reportedly paid John Gauger to create a Twitter account, @WomenForCohen, in May 2016, but he has not confirmed this claim.
The account, which was reportedly run by a female friend of Mr Gauger, was used to promote Mr Cohen’s looks and character as well as his public appearances and statements.
The page sports the bio “women who love and support Michael Cohen. Strong, pit bull, sex symbol, no nonsense, business oriented, and ready to make a difference.”
It had posted more than 780 times before going silent in December 2016.
“No wonder @RealDonaldTrump chose @michaelCohen212 as his right hand man! He’s charming, intelligent, & handsome!” one tweet read.
Another reads: “Look at that smile! Thankful for you and all your hard work!!!”
“Never doubt a respected, educated man fighting for freedom and honesty!” read another.
“What a guy! You are seriously a hero @michaelCohen212,” and another.
“Love seeing #selfies of our number one! @michaelCohen212 you look so handsome! #MAGA.”
The account even accuses Hillary Clinton and her campaign team of lies and deception.
“What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @RealDonaldTrump @PotUS. “I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it,” Mr Cohen wrote on Twitter in response to the poll rigging claims.
The Journal claims Mr Gauger, who is chief information officer at Liberty University, an evangelical Christian school in Virginia, was paid over $12,000 in cash for the job, allegedly less than the $50,000 he was promised.
Mr Cohen disputed that, insisting that Mr Gauger was paid by cheque.
Mr Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani said the president was unaware of the rigging.
“The president has no knowledge of the polls being rigged,” Mr Giuliani told Reuters.
Mr Cohen, who was Mr Trump’s right-hand-man and fixer at the Trump Organisation in New York at the time, pleaded guilty last year to charges that he violated campaign finance laws by arranging hush payments ahead of the 2016 election to women who claimed credibly to have had extramarital affairs with Trump.
Mr Cohen implicated Mr Trump in that crime, saying he directed the payments.
He was sentenced to three years in jail for the campaign finance violation and other charges.
But his incarceration has been delayed while he provides support to ongoing investigations into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia and Trump’s finances.
He is scheduled to testify to the newly Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee on February 7 on his work for Mr Trump.
LAWYER: ‘TRUMP NEVER COLLUDED WITH RUSSIA’
Meanwhile Mr Giuliani has issued a new statement aimed at clarifying earlier comments that appeared to leave open the possibility of collusion between members of Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.
Mr Giuliani says he represents only Mr Trump and not the campaign, and that there was no collusion by Mr Trump “in any way, shape or form.”
He also claims he has “no knowledge of collusion by any of the thousands of people who worked on the campaign.”
Mr Giuliani insists that he’d never said there wasn’t any collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump has repeatedly denied that there was any collusion.
His comments, said on CNN overnight directly contradict the position of his own client, who’s repeatedly insisted there was no collusion during his successful White House run.
Mr Giuliani himself has described the idea of Russian collusion as “total fake news.”
He has said that even if some on the campaign did something wrong, there’s “not a single bit of evidence” tying Mr Trump to a Russian hack of Democratic emails.
His comments came after he was asked about the revelation in court papers that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had shared campaign polling data with an associate the US has tied to Russian intelligence.
