Michael Cohen served as President Donald Trump’s personal attorney for more than a decade from 2006 to 2018. He also served as VP of the Trump Organization and helped tie up loose ends for Trump when necessary.
Cohen was eventually disbarred and convicted and jailed for tax fraud and various campaign finance violations. Cohen blames Trump and his team for pressuring him to lie in front of Congress and has a book called Disloyal about his experiences working for Trump that came out in September.
Cohen, who has expressed no interest in the chance of a presidential pardon and has been clear that he now strongly opposes the President, is now saying that prosecutors have more than enough to convict Trump once he leaves office.
Pres. Trump’s former personal attorney @MichaelCohen212 tells CBS News prosecutors have “mounting” evidence for potential civil and criminal charges when he leaves office: “I know for a fact that they are well prepared…They will know relatively quickly” https://t.co/qWOqrfuHc5 pic.twitter.com/Be9hGrgH6c
— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 24, 2020
What are Cohen’s Claims?
Cohen has a number of claims about the kind of legal trouble Trump will face once he leaves office. According to Cohen prosecutors have prepared very well for these cases and are ready to hit Trump hard on multiple counts especially related to his business and financial dealings.
“It has to do with his finances, it has to do with his tax returns, it has to do with his properties,” Cohen said, adding that charges may also arise in connection to “the personal financial statements that he had made and provided in order to obtain loans.”
Congressional inquiries as well as trouble from the top in New York, DC and Manhattan’s district attorney could all cause big headaches for Trump, which has caused many to wonder the Constitutional rules on whether Trump can pardon himself or what other options he could look at to clear himself of any legal jeopardy.
Cohen: ‘They Will be Prosecuting Soon’
According to Cohen, New York’s attorney general is very focused on Trump and his team has already interviewed him in relation to probes they are doing into the President. Cohen notes that the charges and legal problems Trump is going to face will be a mixture of civil and criminal charges.
In terms of what we currently know, only one matter has the potentially to lead to criminal conviction for Trump, related to an ongoing investigation from Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. that is looking at potential tax evasion and fraud committed by Trump.
It’s not clear when Vance’s investigation will actually get to court, and he may lose his seat next year, however, so the case is far from a done deal. Nonetheless, Cohen says there is plenty of evidence and that charges are coming very soon.
Cohen says Trump “is very, very nervous and he is very scared because in 27 days he knows that Joe Biden is going to be sworn in, and that’s when there’s going to be a plethora of litigation and subpoenas that are going to be flying around that he cannot control anymore.”
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018 but was allowed to return home to serve out the rest of his sentence in 2020 due to the pandemic. Trump has said many times that Cohen is a “bad lawyer” and “fraudster,” with no proof that he’s done anything wrong, but Cohen says he has proof of his accusations and promises in his book that he’s telling the truth about Trump.
Cohen pleaded guilty violating campaign finance violations which he says Trump ordered him to do and he admitted that he lied to the Senate when he denied that Trump had been planning to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen was disbarred in 2019 and served in prison in Otisville, New York from May 2019 to May 2020 before being allowed to serve out what was rest of his sentence in home arrest.
