Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen paid IT firm to set up Twitter account calling him 'sex symbol'

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen says he paid to sway polls in the President’s favour and allegedly financed an IT firm to make him a "sex symbol".

Cohen, who is embroiled in controversy linked to the President’s election campaign, allegedly paid around $13,000 in cash to make it happen.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he handed the money to John Gauger, the owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC.

This was used in “trying unsuccessfully to manipulate two online polls in Mr Trump's favour" and also creating a Twitter account called "@WomenForCohen".

This "praised (Cohen's) looks and character, and promoted his appearances and statements boosting" President Trump's candidacy.

Responding to the reports, Cohen wrote on Twitter: “As for the @WSJ article on poll rigging, what I did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. I truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it.”

The work conducted by the company involved using a computer script to enter fake votes for Trump in a 2014 CNBC poll asking people to identify top business leaders and a 2015 poll of potential presidential candidates.

As well as the payments ,Mr Gauger also claimed to have been given a boxing glove “worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter”.

He also stated he had been handed the money in cash in a Walmart bag, which was also less than the $50,000 originally agreed, though Cohen reportedly told the Journal that he paid him by cheque.

The Trump Organisation reportedly reimbursed Cohen following him securing the services.

Mr Trump's current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said the President "had no knowledge" of any effort to manipulate polling data on his behalf.

He also called Cohen a "liar" and a "thief" for seeking reimbursement for more money than he had paid Mr Gauger's company, RedFinch Solutions LLC.

The Trump Organisation has not commented on the situation.

Cohen is said to be reconsidering his plan to testify publicly to the US Congress, in regards to investigations into President Trump’s election campaign, next month because of alleged intimidation by the President.

Lanny Davis, an attorney who has been advising Cohen on his media strategy, said in an interview with MSNBC some remarks made by the President Trump about Cohen amounted to witness tampering and deserved to be criminally investigated.

"There is genuine fear and it has caused Michael Cohen to consider whether he should go forward or not, and he has not made a final decision," Mr Davis said.

Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to two women to help Trump in 2016 in violation of campaign laws as well as lying to Congress about a proposed Trump Tower project in Russia.

At a hearing in federal court in New York in August, Cohen testified that President Trump had directed him to commit a crime by arranging payments before the 2016 election to the two women.

President Trump called Cohen a "rat" in a tweet last month for cooperating with prosecutors.

Cohen once said he would take a bullet for the New York real estate developer.