President Donald Trump will consider pardoning Michael Cohen, he told reporters Wednesday, just weeks after appearing on his former fixer's radio show.
Before departing for the midterm Republican National Convention in Dallas, Trump said he would weigh a pardon “if everything is checked out” but did not elaborate. The two men had a very bitter and public fallout during the president’s first term.
In 2018, Cohen served a three-year sentence for falsifying business documents while working for Trump.
“It was very illegal, what they did,” Trump said of the prosecution of Cohen. “What they put him through was incredible.”
The pair started as friends when Cohen worked as Trump’s personal attorney and “fixer.” During the New York prosecutor’s 2024 hush money case against Trump, however, Cohen’s star witness testimony helped make then-candidate Trump the first ever former president to become a convicted felon.
The relationship continued to devolve in 2024 when Cohen told Congressthat he lied and bullied on behalf of Trump during his time working for the Trump Organization.
From there, Cohen became a fierce critic of Trump, calling him racist and a con man. In an April 2024 interview with POLITICO, he said the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was “grotesque” and that “there will never be another election again in America” if Trump was reelected.
However, the August interview on Cohen’s radio show, during which Cohen flattered the president as he touted grievances and unverified statistics, marked a shift in their friendship as Cohen appeared back in line with his former boss.
At the end of that interview, Cohen said, “Reunited and it feels so good.”
Cohen declined to comment on Trump’s latest comments, though he previously told POLITICO he was weighing whether to ask Trump for a pardon.
“We’ll see,” he said. “Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”
He said he previously sent pardon applications to former President Joe Biden and the Trump administration, but said he doesn’t consider clemency, which would allow him to regain his law license, critical at this point.
from White House https://ift.tt/zx85msN
https://ift.tt/UqXKWTJ
0 Comments