Donald Trumpa's former attorney Michael Cohen has claimed that the president will do 'anything and everything' to win - even starting a war if necessary to keep him in the White House.
Cohen, who is promoting his forthcoming book, spoke to NBC's Lester Holt for an interview due to air on Tuesday.
He echoed mounting concern about the tactics the president could use to contest the November result.
'Donald Trump will do anything and everything within which to win,' said Cohen, who remains under house arrest in New York.
Michael Cohen spoke to NBC's Lester Holt for an interview to be aired on Tuesday
Cohen said that he is deeply troubled about what could possibly happen in November
'I believe that includes manipulating the ballots, I believe that he would even go so far as to start a war in order to prevent himself from being removed from office.
'My biggest fear is that there will not be a peaceful transition of power in 2020.'
Trump himself has stated several times that he might not accept the result.
'I have to see,' he told Fox News on July 19.
'No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no, and I didn't last time either.'
Hillary Clinton has urged Trump's rival, Joe Biden, not to concede on election night if the vote is close.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for campaign-finance crimes tied to his work for Trump and will serve the rest of his term confined to his home. He’s due to be released in November 2021.
His new book, Disloyal, is out on September 8.
Cohen, who worked for Trump from 2006-18, was once one of Trump's most ardent supporters, even vowing he would 'take a bullet' for his boss.
He has since turned against him, and become one of his most vehement critics.
Michael Cohen worked for Donald Trump from 2006 until 2018 and was deeply loyal
Cohen, second left, is pictured with Trump in 2011 - he was frequently by his boss's side
In the peek at his memoir, Cohen revealed the 'mob boss' mentality of the president in his foreword, which he titled 'THE REAL REAL DONALD TRUMP.'
'Apart from his wife and children, I knew Trump better than anyone else did,' Cohen wrote, claiming he was the one who pushed him to run for president in 2011 and 2015.
Cohen previewed the cover of his upcoming book 'Disloyal' on Twitter Thursday morning
'In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,' he revealed.
But he also refers to Trump as someone he knew intimately well.
He recalls driving south from New York to testify against the 'real real Donald Trump' in 2019.
'Not the billionaire celebrity savior of the country or lying lunatic, not the tabloid tycoon or self-anointed Chosen One, not the avatar @realdonaldtrump of Twitter fame, but the real real Donald Trump—the man very, very, very few people know,' the book reads.
In the first part of his book, which was published to DisloyalTheBook.com on Thursday afternoon, Cohen claimed that Trump has 'no real friends.'
'He has no one he trusts to keep his secrets,' he continued. 'For ten years, he certainly had me, and I was always there for him, and look what happened to me.'
The book also includes a flurry of admissions from Cohen, some of which he already pleaded guilty to and was given a three-year prison sentence for.
'I stiffed contractors on his behalf, ripped off his business partners, lied to his wife Melania to hide his sexual infidelities, and bullied and screamed at anyone who threatened Trump's path to power,' Cohen admitted.
'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,' he wrote.
Cohen released the forward of his upcoming book 'Disloyal,' about his longtime friendship with Donald Trump where he claimed he witnessed the 'golden showers' incident and helped Trump commit tax fraud, create a secret back channel to Vladimir Putin and lie to Melania
'Coming Soon,' the president's former fixer and personal attorney wrote in a tweet along with an image of the cover
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