Michael Cohen claims Tish James ‘forced’ him to turn against Trump

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, claimed he was “coerced and pushed” by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James to turn against Trump as they opened investigations into him.

In a Substack article, Cohen revealed that “a federal appeals court” had revived “Trump’s efforts to overturn” his conviction following his business records trial. In May 2024, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records relating to payments made through Cohen to adult actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.

In his Substack article, Cohen added that a lower court was ordered “to reconsider whether the case should be brought in state court or federal court.”

Breitbart News reported at the time Cohen “was expected to testify about his role”:

Cohen was Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who is expected to testify about his role in the alleged crime Trump is accused of — falsifying business records to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Specifically, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accuses Trump of classifying payments made to adult actress Stormy Daniels through Cohen as “legal” expenses, when he argues they should have been classified as “campaign” expenses and that the “crime” is that Trump knowingly did this to hide an illegal “plot” to win the election. (Legal scholar Jonathan Turley and others have argued that there is no crime in the case.) Trump has pleaded not guilty.

“From the moment I began meeting with attorneys from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office in connection with their investigations of President Trump, and throughout the trials themselves, I felt pressured and compelled to provide only information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build a case against President Trump and obtain a judgment and convictions against President Trump. »

Cohen continued to explain that his “perspective is not theoretical,” but rather “lived,” as he had “testified in two trials” against Trump.

“The first lawsuit was a civil action brought by the New York State Attorney General’s Office alleging that President Trump fraudulently inflated his assets to obtain favorable loan terms,” Cohen continued. “The court found President Trump liable and ordered that he and the other defendants pay a staggering $454 million fine, which was later overturned on appeal.”

Cohen went on to explain that the second lawsuit against Trump “was a criminal action brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office alleging that President Trump falsified business records in connection with secret payments made to Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 presidential election.”

Cohen’s article on Substack continues in part:

From the time I began meeting with attorneys from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office in connection with their investigations of President Trump, and throughout the trials themselves, I felt pressured and compelled to provide only information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build a case against President Trump and obtain a judgment and convictions against President Trump.

My first meeting with prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office took place in August 2019, when I was just over three months into serving a three-year prison sentence following my guilty plea to committing federal crimes. As later emerged during President Trump’s criminal trial, one of the very first questions I asked these prosecutors was what benefit I would get from cooperating. The reason was simple: I wanted to do everything I could to obtain my Rule 35(b) petition, return home to my family, and resume my fractured life.

Cohen went on to say that during his preparation and during the trials, “it was clear” that prosecutors were only interested in his testimony that “would allow them to convict President Trump.”

Breitbart News reported that in December 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for “making secret payments and lying to Congress about past business dealings in Russia.”

In July 2020, a federal judge ordered that Cohen be “released from prison and placed on house arrest.”