INFAMOUS: Michael Cohen
- Yasmin Sudarsanam
- May 30, 2024
- 3 min read
Currently, a publicized trial is taking place involving a presidential candidate for the 2024 election, Donald Trump. One of the key witnesses in this trial is his former personal lawyer and close confidante who turned on him following his own legal struggles. This is the story of Michael Cohen.
Michael Cohen, the son of a holocaust survivor from Long Island, attended Woodmere Academy and American University. Although he did not desire to pursue a career in the legal field, his grandmother pressured him into becoming a lawyer, upon which he attended Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Cohen began working at a personal injury firm in New York after graduating from law school.
Cohen and Trump met while Cohen was a condominium board member in a Trump building. Upon siding with Trump during a dispute between residents and management, Cohen became a trusted member of Trump’s legal team. He accepted a job as his personal counsel in 2007 and would retain the role for ten years. During this time, Cohen served as a personal attorney and close assistant to Trump, often called his “fixer,” as well as the vice president for the Trump Organization. His role primarily consisted of threatening lawsuits and neutralizing potential threats to Trump’s reputation and candidacy for presidency.
However, Cohen’s practices came under federal investigation when the FBI raided his home and office, upon which Trump began to distance himself and the pair’s relationship wilted. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including tax evasion, managing illegal campaign contributions through hush money payments, and lying to Congress about his work on a Trump real estate project in Moscow. He was also convicted on charges of making false statements to a bank and violating campaign finance regulations. Ultimately, Cohen served three years in prison and house arrest as well as paid a $50,000 fine, and he was disbarred in the state of New York. Upon his conviction and subsequent release, Cohen began to give testimony at federal inquiries and admitted to helping Trump utilize the National Enquirer tabloid as a method through which to boost his own candidacy and discredit the words of his opponents. He also stated that this tabloid would purchase or flag stories for Trump’s team to avoid damaging news from coming out about Trump.
In Donald Trump’s current hush money trial, Cohen has been a crucial witness to the prosecution’s case. Trump pleaded not guilty to thirty-four counts of falsifying business records to pay off an adult-film actress named Stormy Daniels to prevent the revealing of Trump’s 2006 encounter with her. Cohen’s legal and business history has been put under a fine microscope in the lead up to and during the trial. While the prosecution attempts to paint Cohen as just another part of the big picture which makes up Trump’s history of lies and secrecy, the defense aims to reduce his credibility by portraying Cohen as a pathological liar who not only lied to the bank and federal government but also then lied in his admission of his crimes.
During the trial, Cohen testified for more than five hours over the course of four days concerning his history of tasks with Trump and the prior president’s former requests for him to orchestrate similar coverups. During cross examination, Trump’s lawyers aimed to portray Cohen as a liar and an individual bent on reaping monetary benefits from his previous boss. They made some gains during cross examination as Cohen admitted he desired revenge against his former employer and also admitted to stealing $30,000 which had been meant for the company from the Trump Organization.
Since his release from present, Cohen has confronted his history of lies through his podcast, titled “Mea Culpa.” He has also spoken to the fact that his “blind loyalty” to Donald Trump led him to “cover up his dirty deeds, rather than listen to [his] own inner voice and [his] moral compass.” Cohen is now an avid critic of Trump’s presidency, mocking his words and decisions through social media. He sued the Trump Organization for failing to reimburse his legal fees in 2019, although the two parties reached a settlement in July of 2023. Then, also in 2023, Trump attempted to sue Cohen for breaching his legal trust but later dropped the suit in October of that year. Closing arguments in the hush money trial are to take place on May 28th, so only time will tell where Cohen’s testimony directs the verdict.
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