Trump’s warning to Michael Cohen as he launched 2016 campaign: ‘There’s gonna be a lot of women coming forward’

Before he launched his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump braced Michael Cohen for the likelihood of damaging stories about his relationships with women that could derail his bid for the White House, according to testimony from the former attorney.

“You know, that when this comes out – meaning, the announcement – just be prepared there’s gonna be a lot of women coming forward,” Cohen said from the witness stand in the former president’s hush money trial on Monday, remembering what his former boss told him in 2015.

Mr Trump wanted to rely on the “power” of tabloid giant National Enquirer and its placement in “supermarkets and bodegas” to place “positive stories” about him and “negative” ones about his rivals, according to Cohen.

During a meeting at Trump Tower in August 2015, two months after the launch of his campaign. Mr Trump met with Cohen and tabloid publisher David Pecker, who previously testified that he vowed to be the “eyes and ears” of the campaign.

“What he said was that he could keep an eye out for anything negative about Mr Trump and that he would be able to help us know in advance about what was coming out for us to stop it from coming out,” according to Cohen.

The resulting “catch and kill” scheme helped bury a bogus story about an alleged love child with a Trump Tower maid as wella story from a former Playboy model who alleged a months-long affair with Mr Trump years earlier.

Cohen is among the final witnesses in the former president’s historic criminal trial, where is accused of covering up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels as legal expenses.

According to prosecutors, those checks to Cohen – who bought the rights to Ms Daniels’s story about having sex with Mr Trump for $130,000 –