Exclusive: Trump Fixer Cohen Says He Helped Falwell Handle Racy Photos

(Reuters) Aram Roston May 7 2019 5:11 PM WASHINGTON - Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016 Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters. Falwell president of Liberty University one of the worlds largest Christian universities said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy personal" photographs the sort that would typically be kept between husband and wife" Cohen said in the taped conversation. According to a source familiar with Cohens thinking the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells behalf. The Falwells through a lawyer declined to comment for this article. Cohen who began a three-year prison sentence this week for federal campaign violations and lying to Congress recounted his involvement in the matter in a recording made surreptitiously by comedian Tom Arnold on March 25. Portions of the recording in which Cohen appeared to disavow parts of his guilty plea were first reported April 24 by The Wall Street Journal. The Falwells enlisted Cohens help in 2015 according to the source familiar with Cohens thinking the year Trump announced his presidential candidacy. At the time Cohen was Trumps confidant and personal lawyer and he worked for the Trump Organization. The Falwells wanted to keep a bunch of photographs personal photographs" from becoming public Cohen told Arnold. I actually have one of the photos" he said without going into specifics. Its terrible."