With Trump stoking new speculation about his political ambitions every day, Cohen said “the phones have not stopped ringing, the fax machine is off the hook” and his email inbox is clogged. More than a few of those messages have to do with the issue that has catapulted Trump into the headlines recently — birtherism.

“I am certain that the president was born in Hawaii — I really am,” Cohen said. “I am most irritated with the fact that this president has been exceptionally secretive when it relates to any personal documentation about his past. If you run on a platform of transparency, you should be transparent.”

Cohen was the aide who flew to Iowa in a private plane bearing Trump’s logo to meet with Republican operatives there in March. He said he may make a similar trip to another crucial early nominating state — New Hampshire — in the weeks to come.

Roger Stone, a Republican consultant known for his controversial brand of politics, is long-time Trump associate and a cheerleader for his presidential run (albeit without Trump’s blessing). In an interview with ABC News, Stone described Cohen as a “nice guy” and an “enthusiast” but lacking the political expertise to manage the growing interest in Trump candidacy.

“If you need brain surgery, you go to a brain surgeon,” Stone said. “You don’t go to a dentist.”

A case in point, Stone said, was Cohen’s one-day Iowa trip that led to questions about his role as both a Trump Organization employee and a promoter of his boss’s potential presidential campaign — questions that he sought to answer by stating unequivocally that the trip and the website were paid for, not with any of Trump’s money, but out of pockets of Cohen and Rahr, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.

Still, the trip triggered a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by a supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who alleged that the trip violated election law.

Cohen may be new to presidential politics, but he’s not a total novice. In 2003 he briefly became a Republican to run for a New York City Council seat at the request of then-Gov. George Pataki. He lost that race to Democrat Eva Moskovitz by a wide margin. In 2009, he started a short-lived campaign for a New York State Senate seat, but dropped out of the race after a just a few weeks.

By all indications, he and Rahr have more than enough personal wealth to finance the independent effort urging Trump to run. Cohen owns several residences in Trump buildings, including a home at Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza, and Trump Park Avenue, just blocks from Central Park. His parents and in-laws have also invested in Trump properties in New York and Florida.

“Michael Cohen has great insight into the real estate market,” Trump said of Cohen in a 2007 New York Post interview. “He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money — and he does.”

The feeling is mutual.

“I think the world of him,” Cohen said of the billionaire real estate and reality television mogul who has said he will decide sometime before June whether to run for president. “I respect him as a businessman, and I respect him as a boss.”

The two talk regularly — “I speak to him even more than I did before,” Cohen said — and he has spearheaded a variety of projects for Trump, including sealing a business partnership in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, running a mixed martial arts promotion company called Affliction Entertainment and a firm that turns landfills into golf courses.

Cohen, whose position allows him to play at any of Trump’s courses around the world, describes himself as a “decent” golfer and an avid tennis player. Much like Trump’s, his circle of acquaintances include political leaders, actors and “super high net worth people,” as Cohen calls them.

He only wears Dolce & Gabbana suits and Hermes ties. Even when he was a legislative intern for former Congressman Joe Moakley, a Massachusetts Democrat, Cohen says he was “always dressed to the hilt.”

“It’s very, very surreal,” Cohen told ABC News. “I’ve been admiring Donald trump since I was in high school.” (He said that when he was a young man he read Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of The Deal” cover to cover — twice.)

Cohen grew up on Long Island. His mother was a nurse and his father was a surgeon who escaped a Nazi concentration camp with his family during World War II. He attended American University followed by law school and said he got his first taste of politics when he was a boy. A neighbor of his parents’ invited him to walk precincts with New York Mayor John Lindsay in Atlantic Beach, Queens and Brooklyn.

Like Trump, Cohen has donated money to both Democratic and Republican candidates over the years, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He’s hobnobbed with Hillary Clinton and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Cohen said he and Kennedy even once went sailing near the Kennedy Compound in Cape Cod and later shared a lobster and clambake.

After law school, Cohen went on to work at a personal-injury malpractice law firm in New York and later became a partner at the firm Phillips Nizer. He joined the Trump Organization in 2006 at Trump’s invitation. He’s married and has two children.

Cohen said he sees no conflict in his advocacy for Trump now and his past support for Obama. He said his concerns are three-fold: the “unsustainable” debt, the country’s “ongoing and continuous” loss of jobs and the “basic overall lack of respect” that the rest of the world has for the U.S.

“I’m prepared to put the fact that I voted for Obama to the side,” he said. I’m more concerned now about my children, future grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and everybody’s children and families. I’m more concerned about them than I am about party affiliation.”