Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, defended his boss, saying, “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. GOP NOT WORRIED ABOUT A TRUMP INDEPENDENT RUN AT PRESIDENT 
 
 Michael Cohen (far r.) said in an interview with the Daily Beast that 'by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.' The Daily Beast’s initial story on the “rape” allegation included Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, claiming that legally “you cannot rape your spouse.” This is incorrect. A spokesperson for Trump, who is currently a frontrunner in many polls of the Republican primary, provided a statement to Business Insider claiming the incident was “old news and it never happened.” They also claimed Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana Trump, made up the “rape” allegation as part of an effort to “exploit” him during their early 90’s divorce proceedings. The “rape” story first surfaced in the 1993 book “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” which was written by former Newsweek and Texas Monthly Reporter Harry Hurt III. Trump began to tear out clumps of his wife’s hair, according to “Last Tycoon,” then ripped off her clothes and assaulted her. In that book, Hurt wrote Ivana described a “violent assault” in a deposition that was part of the divorce proceedings and further added that she told “some of her closest confidantes” she was “raped” by Trump. “According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’” 
 
 Following the incident, Ivana ran upstairs, hid behind a locked door, and remained there “crying for the rest of night.” When she returned to the master bedroom in the morning, he was there. Trump had denied both the scalp surgery and the allegations of rape when the book came out. According to Hurt’s book, Trump was angry about a scalp reduction surgery gone bad and blamed his blonde bombshell wife. According to the Daily Beast, Cohen also threatened the site’s reporters with legal action if they published a story on the accusations. “It’s incorrect and done by a guy without much talent… He is a guy that is an unattractive guy who is a vindictive and jealous person.” 
 
 Cohen acknowledged Monday that he has not read the entire deposition but said he had read the two relevant pages of it, including the rape accusation. “It’s not the word that you’re trying to make it into,” Cohen told The Daily Beast, saying Ivana Trump was talking about how “she felt raped emotionally… She was not referring to it [as] a criminal matter, and not in its literal sense, though there’s many literal senses to the word.” 
 
 Cohen added that there is no such thing, legally, as a man raping his wife. One of Donald Trump’s lawyers shockingly said Monday that it’s legal to rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.” 
 
 Told that New York in 1984 struck down the marital rape exemption, Cohen demonstrated why he’s known as “Trump’s pitbull.” 
 
 “I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen ranted, according to the news website. (Jim Cole/ASSOCIATED PRESS) 
 
 “So I’m warning you, tread very f---ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f---ing disgusting. You understand me?” 
 
 “You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added. A statement from Ivana, who divorced her husband in 1992, was provided to Hurt by Trump and his lawyers and wound up on the first page of “The Last Tycoon.” 
 
 In it Ivana admitted there had been an ugly night between her and her husband in 1989. “During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” the Ivana Trump statement said. “[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.” 
 
 The statement, according to a “Notice to the Reader” in the book, “does not contradict or invalidate any information contained in this book.” 
 
 Nevertheless, Cohen, Trump’s attorney, said that “there is nothing reasonable about you wanting to write a story about somebody’s usage of the word ‘rape,’ when she’s talking [about how] she didn’t feel emotionally satisfied.” 
 
 “Though there’s many literal senses to the word, if you distort it, and you put Mr. Trump’s name there onto it, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. Ivana admitted there had been an ugly night between her and her husband in 1989, but said she did not want her words 'to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.' The settlement, under which the Trumps agreed on the division of assets, was finalized in 1991. “It is a standard lawyer technique, which was used to exploit more money from Mr. Trump especially since he had an ironclad prenuptial agreement.” 
 
 Ivana Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider on Monday evening. Trump’s modest proposal did not go over well. “It is just a way for the badly failing and money-losing Daily Beast, which has been reporting inaccurately on Mr. Trump for years, to get some publicity for itself,” the Trump spokesperson said. Trump speaks for Mr. Trump and nobody but Mr. Trump speaks for him,” a campaign source told CNN.
– Donald Trump's lawyer seems pretty ignorant of the law—at least as it pertains to marital rape. The Daily Beast reports that when Michael Cohen, special counsel for the Trump Organization, was asked about an alleged incident from 1989 involving Trump's ex-wife Ivana, he claimed "that by the very definition, you can't rape your spouse"—and then threatened reporter Tim Mak, allegedly telling him to "tread very f---ing lightly, because what I'm going to do to you is going to be f---ing disgusting." "You write a story that has Mr. Trump's name in it, with the word 'rape,' and I'm going to mess your life up ... for as long as you're on this frickin' planet," Cohen warned, per the Beast, which notes that New York outlawed marital rape in 1984. The alleged incident Cohen was asked about was described in the 1993 Trump biography Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, reports the New York Daily News. The book, citing a divorce deposition, describes an incident in which Trump allegedly forced himself on Ivana as revenge for her having talked him into failed scalp-reduction surgery, though the book contains a statement from her saying that while she referred to the incident as "rape," she doesn't want her words "to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense." A Trump spokesperson tells Business Insider that the incident is "old news and it never happened" and that Ivana made it up to "exploit" Trump during divorce proceedings.