Add poll rigging to the list of things Donald Trump is accused of trying to carry out. This allegation was made today in The Wall Street Journal. The headline reads “(Michael) Cohen Hired IT Firm to Rig Early CNBC, Drudge Polls to Favor Trump.” The paper writes Cohen was trying to swing the online CNBC and Drudge polls in of favor Trump. This happened before Trump officially declared his candidacy and apparently the goal was to show Trump could be a viable candidate:

“In early 2015, the owner of a small tech company showed up at Trump Tower to collect $50,000 for helping Michael Cohen try to rig online polls in Donald Trump’s favor before the presidential campaign. He says he never got what he was owed.” Instead paper writes “he was paid with $12,000-$13,000 in cash and a boxing glove.”

Shortly after the story was published Cohen himself confirmed the information and took the story one step further, confirming who directed him.

The Drudge poll didn’t work out in Trump’s favor either. The Daily Beast writes:

“Cohen asked for help in a Drudge Report poll of potential Republican candidates—he only managed fifth place, with about 24,000 votes.”

The Washington Post adds:

“For Trump — not unlike other politicians, certainly — it has always been important to seem popular and dominant. Had the Drudge poll shown him in the lead, there is little question that Trump would have tweeted about it; instead, he ignored it. This was about four months before Trump formally announced his campaign at an event in Trump Tower, where a consulting firm working for the campaign had paid people to attend in order to boost the crowd. As he approached the lectern for that announcement, he wasted no time in pointing out the robustness of the audience, some already in “Make America Great Again” T-shirts.”

Expect to hear more about this when Cohen testifies before the House Oversight Committee on February 7th.