After Michael Cohen left isolation in New York on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the Trump administration “would do well to remember that you cannot jail someone for writing a critical book with the president.”
Donald Trump’s former attorney and repairman, 53, went to prison in May 2019, convicted of crimes such as tax evasion, lying to Congress, and facilitating illegal payments to silence adult film actor Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, both of whom asserted affairs with Trump.
The President denies the issues and orders the payments.
Cohen was released after a year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and hoped to complete his three-year sentence at his home in New York City. But earlier this month, after Cohen let him know he was close to completing his book, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) said he had “rejected the conditions of his home confinement and, as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility. “
Cohen was returned to federal prison in Otisville, New York. The ACLU and the law firm Perry Guha LLP filed a lawsuit on his behalf.
The BOP said the claim it was retaliating was “patently false,” but on Thursday a New York judge found that the federal government had acted unconstitutionally by requiring Cohen not to publish if he wanted to stay out of prison, and also You should refrain from talking to the press or use social media.
“I have never seen such a clause, in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people,” said Judge Alvin Hellerstein. “How can I take any other inference that is not retaliation?”
The Trump administration recently sued to prevent former national security adviser John Bolton from publishing his own book. The effort failed, and The Room Where It Happened became an instant bestseller.
The same thing did too much and never enough: how my family created the most dangerous man in the world by Mary L Trump, the President’s niece. Robert Trump, the President’s brother, mounted an unsuccessful attempt to stop that book, based on a confidentiality agreement signed 20 years ago.
Cohen’s lawyer Danya Perry said her client was “extremely pleased that the court upheld his fundamental constitutional right to speak freely and publicly.” According to the ACLU, Cohen and the administration have a week to agree on Cohen’s speech as he remains confined to his home in Manhattan.
Cohen once flourished as Trump’s pit bull, acting aggressively toward journalists and wiping out scandals. But his decision to turn against the president during the Russia investigation ruled out any act of leniency such as that shown to Trump’s ally Roger Stone.
Cohen has said he expects his book to be released in late September, just over a month before Trump faces Joe Biden for reelection.
Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, said the book contains “daily, hourly, minute-by-minute evidence of Donald Trump’s lies and crimes under New York state law.”
