President Donald Trump’s former lawyer launched a phone attack on a Bermudian-born journalist, it has been revealed.

News of the verbal outburst against Clare O’Connor came on the same day that Michael Cohen made a plea bargain in the United States District Court in Manhattan, and pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations.

The eight counts included tax evasion and making a false statement to a financial institution.

Mr Cohen, who was Mr Trump’s lawyer from 2006 until May of this year, admitted he had arranged payments to two women to keep quiet during Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign, over alleged affairs with Donald Trump.

Ms O’Connor, a journalist based in New York, said online that Mr Cohen had threatened her in a phone call outburst three years ago.

In a Twitter post, Ms O’Connor revealed that Mr Cohen said that he would “ruin” her.

Mr Cohen was said to have phoned Ms O’Connor after an article she wrote for Forbes magazine that was unfavourable to Mr Trump.

The attorney had a reputation for verbal attacks against reporters over unfavourable stories. Ms O’Connor’s article, which ran in July 2015, reported that Mr Trump’s menswear brand had been dropped by retailers in the wake of offensive remarks against Mexicans during his presidential campaign.

The Cohen case is part of a wider investigation of Mr Trump’s campaign, led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller, over charges of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The inquiry has riveted American audiences and featured in international news.

Mr Cohen’s plea bargain also came on the same day that Paul Manafort, a former campaign chairman for Mr Trump, was found guilty of financial crimes.

Ms O’Connor, a former reporter at The Royal Gazette, posted on Twitter that the lawyer told her he would “ruin my life and take everything I have” in retaliation for her article on “Macy’s dumping his then employer’s sweatshop suit brand”.

She added: “You reap what you sow, you absolute monster.”

Ms O’Connor said the Forbes article sparked “multiple” attacks on Twitter from Mr Trump.

Her post on Cohen had been retweeted almost 9,000 times by yesterday afternoon.

Ms O’Connor now works for a high-growth tech start-up.