Michael Cohen the disloyal servant of Donald Trump

Fortunately I know I'm not being libellous by calling Trump's former friend, lawyer and fixer "disloyal" because that is what he has called his memoir of his days working closely with the president. Entitled Disloyalty, the book by Trump's former confidante, perhaps most notorious for the keep-quiet payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels on behalf of the president, includes a plethora of name-calling. According to his memoir, this is what Cohen really feels about his former employer in the White House: he's "a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man." Wow, that's some list of insults. And I thought they got on so well! I've lost count of the number of memoirs that have emerged in Trump's three and half years but the only ones that I recall had anything nice to say about Trump were by Nikki Haley who served as US ambassador to the United Nations before she resigned, Sean Spicer, Trump's first and highly combative press secretary, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, another press secretary who survived longer than most. The rest have been merciless. Cohen has produced every abusive word he can think of to fill his memoir. And he claims Trump was involved in covert and overt attempts to get the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election. If all the other books attacking Trump are anything to go by, the president will just dismiss his former lawyer as a liar and accuse him of writing page after page of fake news. On the face of it Cohen's memoir is devastating but I suspect a lot of Americans are probably bored with all these books and won't read them anyway. But has any president in the past had to confront so many former aides and officials so determined to rubbish the man in the White House during his first three or so years in office?