Michael Cohen was new on the job, and anxious to please his new boss that he was worth his new $375,000 salary and Fifth Avenue skyscraper office.
So in an early display of his tough guy lawyer chops, he went to work on an outstanding billing conundrum at the ill-fated Trump University. About 50 vendors had not been paid, with a total that 'far exceeded' the $2 million available in the venture's bank account.
The personal injury lawyer got to work, creating a hand-written spread sheet that 'came up with basically 20 percent of everyone’s invoice' – denying each of them 80 per cent of what they were owed. (Two other vendors 'just went away.') He called each of them one-by-one to tell them what they were getting.
Donald Trump's response when Cohen told him what he accomplished? 'Fantastic,' Cohen testified. It made him feel 'like I was on top of the world,' at a company that he described as like 'a big family.'
Years later, it would be Cohen's turn to feel what it was like to feel stiffed, even after helping guide Trump to the White House. His annual bonus came in at two-thirds of what it had been before.