Michael Cohen testified on Wednesday that he threatened President Trump’s college and the College Board with legal action to get them to not release the chief executive’s grades or SAT scores.
Trump’s former personal attorney provided the House Oversight Committee with a letter he sent to Fordham University on May 5, 2015, allegedly at the behest of the Republican then-candidate.
It warns that a release of school records would expose the school to “both criminal and civil liability and damages, including among other things, substantial fines, penalties and even the potential loss of government aid and other funding. The criminality will lead to jail time.”
Trump attended Fordham’s Rose Hill campus for two years before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1966.
“I thank you for your cooperation. Please guide yourself accordingly and contact me to inform me that the records have been permanently sealed,” Cohen wrote in the letter.
In his sworn testimony, Cohen — once the president’s “fixer” — referred to his ex-client as a “conman.”
“I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores,” he said.
Cohen pointed to the irony of Trump’s demands, given that in 2011, he accused President Barack Obama of being a “terrible student” as he challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate.
“How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said at the time. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”
The letter to the Bronx school, which was written on gold Trump Organization letterhead, concludes with, “P.S. Mr. Trump truly enjoyed his two years at Fordham and has great respect for the University.”
Fordham spokesman Bob Howe confirmed that the university did receive Cohen’s letter — after getting an ominous phone call from a Trump campaign staffer during the run-up to the election.
“We told the caller that Fordham is bound by federal law, and that we could not/would not reveal/share any records (as we would not reveal any student records) with anyone except Mr. Trump himself, or any recipient he designated, in writing,” Howe said in a statement. “Fordham received a follow-up letter from one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys summarizing the call and reminding us that they would take action against the University if we did, in fact, release Mr. Trump’s records.”
Howe added, “Our stance remains the same: we obey federal law and don’t release student records to anyone but the student/graduate or anyone that the student designates, in writing.”
