Cohen: Weakness, blind loyalty, led me to ‘path of darkness’

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday for crimes including aiding Trump’s election campaign by orchestrating secret payments to women who say they had affairs with the president.

Excerpts from his statement to the judge:

“I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to, the personal ones to me and those involving the President of the United States of America.”

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“I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the fateful day that I accepted the offer to work for a famous real estate mogul whose business acumen I truly admired. In fact, I now know that there is little to be admired.

“I want to be clear. I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today, and it was my own weakness, and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. It is for these reasons I chose to participate in the illicit act of the president rather than to listen to my own inner voice which should have warned me that the campaign finance violations that I later pled guilty to were insidious.

“Recently, the president tweeted a statement calling me weak, and he was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.

“My weakness can be characterized as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump, and I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands.”

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“I have given information during countless hours of meetings with prosecutors that have been cited as substantial, meaningful and credible. I have chosen this unorthodox path because the faster I am sentenced, the sooner I can return to my family, be the father I want to be, the husband I want to be, and a productive member of society again. I do not need a co-operation agreement to be in place to do the right thing. And I will continue to co-operate with the government, offering as much information as I truthfully possess.”

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“For months now, the president of the United States, one of the most powerful men in the world, publicly mocks me, calling me a rat and a liar, and insists that the court sentence me to the absolute maximum time in prison. Not only is this improper, it creates a false sense that the president can weigh in on the outcome of judicial proceedings that implicate him.

“Despite being vilified by the press and inundated with character assassinations over the past almost two years, I still stand today, and I am committed to proving my integrity and ensuring that history will not remember me as the villain of his story.”

The Associated Press