Trump on Michael Cohen Plea: Flipping ‘Almost Ought to Be Illegal’

By Ted Johnson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, commenting on his former attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea this week, said that the practice of “flipping” is something that “almost ought to be outlawed.”

In an interview with “Fox & Friends” host Ainsley Earhardt that aired on Thursday, Trump said that “this whole thing about flipping — they call it. I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful, and then they get 10 years in jail and the flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It almost ought to be outlawed.”

He added that “if someone defrauded a bank, and he is going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail, but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump, and you go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that.”

“I have seen it many times, I have had many friends involved in this stuff. It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal. You get ten years in jail but if you say bad things about somebody, in other words make up stories if you don’t know. They just make up lies.”

Cohen plead guilty on Tuesday to eight counts, including tax fraud, making false statements to a bank and two campaign finance violations. Cohen told a federal judge that Trump directed him in 2016 to arrange for hush money payments to two women who alleged to have had sexual relations with him, and that the purpose of the payments was “for the purpose of influencing the election.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters multiple times on Wednesday that the president  “did nothing wrong” and noted that there were no charges against him.

Trump expressed his irritation at Cohen, once steadfastly loyal to him, and “flippers” in general.

“They make up things, and now they go from 10 years to a national hero,” Trump told Earhardt. “They have statue erected in their honor. It is not a fair thing, but that is why he did it. He made a very good deal.”

Trump also talked about the possibility of impeachment, as has been advocated by some lawmakers on Capitol Hill but is a topic that Democratic leadership is trying to avoid. He said he didn’t “know how you could impeach somebody who is doing a great job.”

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash,” Trump said. “I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking [pointing to his head], you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.”