MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “President Donald Trump’s former fixer and personal attorney Michael Cohen paid a technology expert to rig online polls in Trump’s favor, according to The Wall Street Journal. John Gauger, the owner of Red Finch Solutions and chief information officer at Liberty University, said Cohen offered him $50,000 to manipulate two news sites’ polls, the Journal reported Thursday, citing a government document and a person familiar with the matter. Gauger said Cohen handed him a Walmart bag loaded with about $12,000 in cash during a 2015 meeting at Cohen’s Trump Organization office. Cohen also threw in a boxing glove he said was once worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter.But he never paid Gauger the remainder of the promised $50,000, the Journal said. Cohen did not deny the report in a tweet Thursday morning, saying, ‘What I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of’ Trump. ‘I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it,’ wrote the man who once said he would ‘take a bullet’ for the president.”
-William Cummings, “Michael Cohen offered Liberty University CIO $50,000 to rig two online polls for Trump, report says,” USA Today, January 17, 2019 11:24 am