Disloyal: A Memoir; The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump is a 2020 book by Michael Cohen. In the memoir, Cohen recollects his time working as an attorney for Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018, his felony convictions, and other personal affairs. Throughout the book, Cohen alleges numerous incidents of wrongdoing by Trump.
Content
As his lawyer and "fixer", only Michael Cohen had insight into the shadiest side of Donald Trump. His book describes Trump's racist remarks towards South African President Nelson Mandela, former President Barack Obama, and other minorities, particularly Blacks and Hispanics.
According to Cohen, the book also describes the cruel and humiliating remarks Trump leveled against his own family and members of his staff. As he once testified before Congress, Cohen describes how he personally witnessed Trump engaging in tax fraud by inflating his wealth. Cohen also alleges how he, at Trump's direction, had John Gauger of Liberty University buy IP addresses to rig an online poll for CNBC that listed the greatest CEOs of the past 25 years. Later Cohen described how Trump instructed him to have Gauger rig an online poll that listed the place of early runners in the Presidential race, putting Trump fifth. The book examines Cohen's insights into Trump's views towards women, and Trump's use of payments to women with whom he was alleged to have had extra-marital affairs, an offense for which Cohen was personally tried. Cohen is ruthless and brutal in detailing the behavior he exposes in his former employer.
Peaceful transition of power
One of the book's most interesting predictions, stated first in Cohen's February 2019 testimony before the Congressional Oversight Committee, was that if Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, as he did by seven million votes two months after the book's publication, he would find a way to stay in office even if it required bending the election rules or engaging in what might be potentially illegal actions. As his book noted, Cohen concluded his congressional testimony with the words, "Given my experience working with Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power." Though the election results may still be in doubt by many of his followers, Trump's consistent attempts to use the courts, Republican governors, and election officials to override election results that after investigation the courts consistently found valid and with no evidence of fraud, seem to give some credence to this claim, as did Trump's discussion with Vice- Mike Pence to consider interfering with the reading of election results to take place in Congress on January 6, 2021.
In the book, Cohen describes what he believed to be Trump's capacity to lie and tell half truths, to exaggerate, to willingly mislead, and to manipulate his followers and the press. Trump is portrayed as a heartless man who looks for the help of conservative Christian leaders while later viciously criticizing them, and who claims he supports the common man yet fails to pay money he owes to small and large businesses. He is described as a charlatan who will do anything to push his agenda and meet his personal and financial goals, while putting his family, staff, and the country second to his own agenda.