´You think I´m stupid? I wasn´t going to Vietnam,´ Trump allegedly told fixer

´You think I´m stupid? I wasn´t going to Vietnam,´ Trump allegedly told fixer https://ift.tt/2tquErD Donald Trump´s former personal attorney Michael Cohen said Wednesday the US president had no medical reason for his military deferment during the Vietnam War, telling the lawyer: "You think I´m stupid? I wasn´t going to Vietnam."Cohen made the claim in prepared remarks released before a public congressional hearing in which he is expected to accuse the president of being a liar and a racist. Trump, who is in Hanoi for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, received a medical deferment from serving in the Vietnam War in 1968 because of bone spurs in his heels.But Cohen is expected to say Mr Trump told his former attorney, and right hand man for more than a decade that there was no real medical excuse behind his deferral."Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft," Cohen said. "Mr Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery... He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment."The deferment was one of five Mr. Trump received during Vietnam. The others were for education.Cohen said Trump then added: "You think I´m stupid? I wasn´t going to Vietnam."The New York Times reported in December that the family of the podiatrist who wrote the letter attesting to Trump´s medical condition had done so as a favor to the future president´s father, a New York real estate developer who owned the building where the doctor practiced.Cohen, 52, worked closely with Trump for more than 12 years, rising to vice president of the Trump Organization, where he was the billionaire property magnate´s behind-the-scenes "fixer."Cohen has been sentenced to three years in jail for crimes related in part to his work for Trump. He testified to the Senate in a closed-doors session on Tuesday and was due to appear Wednesday in an open session before House of Representatives Oversight Committee.

February 27, 2019 at 07:41AM