During an interview broadcast on Thursday’s edition of the Fox News Channel’s “Outnumbered Overtime,” President Trump stated that he never directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to do anything inappropriate, and that the two campaign finance charges against Cohen aren’t criminal offenses and were put on “to embarrass me.”

Trump said he “made a mistake” by hiring Cohen “Because what he did was all unrelated to me, except for the two campaign finance charges, that are not criminal and shouldn’t have been on there. They put that on to embarrass me. They put those two charges on to embarrass me. They’re not criminal charges.”

He added, “I never directed him to do anything wrong. Whatever he did, he did on his own. … I never directed him to do anything incorrect or wrong.”

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