A former Trump insider whose shocking testimony helped secure the former president’s felony conviction made the chilling claim that his former boss would use the military to corral his political opponents.
Lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen turned on his former boss in spectacular fashion when the former president was accused of covering up money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Cohen, who was jailed in 2018 for his own role in the matter, claims Trump blocked his release from prison and urged people to take the former president’s repeated threats against his opponents seriously.
“The big warning I want people to understand is that when Donald Trump says something, stop the nonsense,” he told MSNBC. ‘Stop trying to turn it into something that has some normality.
“When you turn around and tell the head of this network or other critics that you intend to use SEAL Team Six or the military to arrest your critics or your opponents, you intend to do that.”
Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said his former boss will use the military leadership to silence his political opponents if he wins power again next month.
Cohen predicted that the former president would turn to the services of SEAL Team Six, best known for assassinating Osama bin Laden, to continue his vendettas.
Cohen was the star witness in Manhattan Central Court when Trump became the first former president to face a criminal trial in April.
The Republican Party leader is still awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a trial he called a “witch hunt.”
He will have the power to pardon himself if he is re-elected in November and has repeatedly called for the jailing of opponents, including President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Mike Pence.
And he extended his threats to poll workers last month in a bid to prevent a repeat of what he said was the “stolen” 2020 election.
“This legal exposure extends to lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and corrupt election officials,” he wrote on his Truth Social page.
“Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought, captured and prosecuted at levels that have, sadly, never been seen before in our country.”
The former president is not known to have threatened the use of Seal Team Six, best known for killing Osama bin Laden, against his opponents.
But he has reissued calls for his Republican critic Liz Cheney, currently campaigning for Kamala Harris, to face a military tribunal.
“Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is guilty of treason,” he replied last month. “Tell the truth again if you want televised military tribunals.”
The former president has a long history of calling for military action against political opponents, including former Wyoming Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney.
He extended his threats to rank-and-file poll workers in a post on Truth Social last month.
And his legal team has argued that he would be immune from prosecution if he ordered the elite naval unit to assassinate his political opponents.
The question aired in January at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals as it deliberated whether he had immunity from charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
His lawyer John Sauer was asked if that immunity would extend to the use of SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival.
Sauer said the answer was a “qualified yes” to the extent that it would be up to the Senate to impeach and convict him, but government lawyers said the president could resign to avoid a trial in the Senate or the courts.
‘What kind of world do we live in if a president orders his SEAL team to assassinate a political rival and then resigns or is not charged? Isn’t that a crime?’ asked James Pearce, an attorney for special prosecutor Jack Smith.
“I think it’s an extraordinarily scary future that should weigh heavily on the court’s decision.”
The case was taken up by the Supreme Court, where justices ruled in July that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for acts that they can demonstrate are part of their “official responsibilities.”
Cohen, who admitted lying several times to Congress during an investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, said his former boss’s control over the Republican Party is helping to mask a deep antipathy on the part of traditional Republicans.
Trump and Cohen in happier times, seen here together during a campaign stop in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in September 2016. Cohen worked for Trump for 10 years.
Both men were convicted in court over Trump’s $130,000 payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump appeared to have his eyes closed during much of Cohen’s testimony.
“Republicans who are demonstrating their loyalty to Donald have something they want as a result if, God forbid, Trump ends up winning the election,” he told MSNBC host Jen Psaki on Sunday.
“But there are also a lot of Republicans who don’t ask for the same thing, who don’t want to leave this in the past.”
‘They want to see unity in America and begin to get rid of the chaos and division so that we can all work together for mutual benefits.
‘This is very different from what Donald Trump says. Donald Trump continues this bombastic rhetoric of division and hate.
Cohen, who has said he is trying to get a foreign passport in case his former boss returns to the White House, last week asked the Supreme Court for permission to sue Trump for allegedly blocking his 2020 release from prison.
He was released to house arrest in May of that year, but claims he was recalled to prison after promising to help prosecutors build a case against Trump himself.
“That was a practice play,” he said Sunday.
“And now that he knows exactly how to get his way, I suspect there will be many more people who will be imprisoned simply at Donald’s whim and simply because he sees them as critical.”