Michael Cohen burned the manuscript for his tell-all memoir in prison because he was afraid it would be discovered by pro-Trump guards, Vanity Fair reports.
Cohen, President Trump’s former attorney who was convicted of fraud and perjury in 2018, destroyed the manuscript in a fire that Orthodox Jewish inmates had started to burn chametz, food that Jewish people can’t eat during Passover. It wasn’t the only copy of the manuscript, though—his wife had a backup on a thumb drive.
Cohen’s book, Disloyal: The True Story of the Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, is scheduled to be published next month by Skyhorse. Earlier this month, Cohen posted the foreword on a website for the book; it included this passage that raised eyebrows on social media: “From golden showers in a sex club in Vegas, to tax fraud, to deals with corrupt officials from the former Soviet Union, to catch and kill conspiracies to silence Trump’s clandestine lovers, I wasn’t just a witness to the president’s rise—I was an active and eager participant.”
Skyhorse promises that the book contains several unflattering allegations against Trump, including “racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, Disloyal was the No. 2 bestselling book on Amazon, and No. 3 at Barnes and Noble. It’s slated for publication on Sept. 8.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
