Michael Cohen has arrived at a US prison to serve a three-year sentence over tax crimes, as well as lies and payoffs he made throughout the 2016 election to protect Donald Trump.

The president’s former personal attorney delivered a statement to press Monday morning before making his way to prison, telling reporters, “There still remains much to be told and I look forward to the day that I can share the truth.”

“I hope that when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice and lies at the helm of our country,” he said, reading from prepared remarks.

The prepared statement was similar to remarks he gave during his sentencing for violating campaign finance laws and lying to Congress over the status of a Trump construction project in Moscow. Cohen said at the hearing late last year that he would provide as much information as possible to prosecutors about his dealings with the president.

"My weakness can be characterised as a blind loyalty to Donald Trump," Mr Cohen said at the time. "I was weak for not having the strength to question and to refuse his demands. I have already spent years living a personal and mental incarceration."

Criminals who worked for Trump Show all 5 1 /5 Criminals who worked for Trump Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Cohen Former lawyer for Donald Trump was sentenced to three years in prison on counts involving evading income tax, false disclosure of the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels and another hush money charge Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Paul Manafort Former campaign manager for Trump Manafort was found guilty in February 2018 of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. The crimes occurred prior to his appointment in Trump's campaign Getty Criminals who worked for Trump George Papadopoulos Former Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in October 2017. He had lied about making contact with a professor who claimed that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. He was sentenced to 14 days in jail Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Michael Flynn Former White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in December 2017. He had lied about conversations that he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during Trump's Presidential campaign. He was not given prison time due to his "significant assistance" to the Mueller investigation Getty Criminals who worked for Trump Rick Gates Deputy chairman of Trump's presidential campaign Gates pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in February 2018 AFP/Getty

Meanwhile, a member of the Trump Organisation’s executive team has issued a rare public rebuke of Cohen, describing the president’s former attorney as “a bluffer, not a fixer.”

“Michael Cohen was my friend,” George Sorial, an executive vice president and counsel at the president’s private business, wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed published Monday. “I knew his family and he knew mine. But for him to suggest before Congress in February that he was the Trump Organisation’s top lawyer and deal maker is surreal. He was neither.”

Cohen had previously claimed he would "take a bullet" for the president before turning on him and pleading guilty in a bank fraud and tax evasion case that grew out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and that was handled by federal prosecutors in New York.

The attorney orchestrated payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to avert a scandal shortly before the 2016 election. Both women had alleged affairs with the president.

Cohen also told the court that Mr Trump - who has denied sexual relationships with the two women - ordered a $130,000 (£99,284) payment to Ms Daniels and a $150,000 (£114,559) payment to Ms McDougal to keep them quiet.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Mr Trump has denied directing Cohen to do anything illegal and Cohen is the only person charged and convicted so far in relation to the payments.