Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen responded on Thursday morning to a Wall Street Journal report that he hired an IT company to rig early online election polls in favor of Donald Trump in 2015, and then failed to pay up.
Cohen hired John Gauger, owner of IT firm RedFinch Solutions LLC, for a $50,000 fee which was labeled “tech services” in bookkeeping records, according to the report.
The WSJ added that Cohen failed to pay the full monies owed: ‘In his Trump Organization office, Mr. Cohen surprised the man, John Gauger, by giving him a blue Walmart bag containing between $12,000 and $13,000 in cash and, randomly, a boxing glove that Mr. Cohen said had been worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter, Mr. Gauger said. Mr. Cohen disputed that he handed over a bag of cash. “All monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check,” he said, offering no further comment on his ties to the consultant. Mr. Gauger owns RedFinch Solutions LLC and is chief information officer at Liberty University in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell Jr., an evangelical leader and fervent Trump supporter, is president.’
Cohen tweeted about the report on Thursday morning: ‘As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, 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.’
