Ex-President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney and self-described “fixer” has now filed a claim seeking a staggering $20 million in damages from the federal government, alleging that top officials within the Trump administration retaliated against him when they sent him back to prison after he had been furloughed, according to a new report from Yahoo! News.
According to the claim, government officials under the previous administration committed “false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, wrongful confinement, and retaliation” against the ex-president’s former personal attorney, due largely in part to Cohen’s decision to not only speak out against and be publicly critical of Donald Trump during his time in office but also writing a tell-all book about his time working for the now ex-president.
Cohen’s attorney Jeffrey Levine released a statement reading, “Mr. Cohen was the personal attorney to the President of the United States and if he could be thrown in jail for desiring to write a critical book of the President one’s imagination need not go far before realizing that such unacceptable and constitutionally violative conduct could be directed at any of us. That is not hyperbole and not acceptable.”
Levin went on to note that Cohen also intends to file a lawsuit in regard to a violation against his First Amendment rights, which will reportedly name former Trump-era Attorney General Bill Barr as well as the head of the Bureau of Prisons, Michael Carvajal.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Cohen’s book, Disloyal: A Memoir, was released back in September of last year and largely focused on Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s efforts to get close to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin — all of which the ex-president has, of course, repeatedly and without faltering denied.
Over the years, Cohen has emotionally described fearing for his life on the heels of his decision to testify against the now-former president and has publicly noted that he fully believes Donald Trump wants him dead. He’s gone so far as to admit that he even contemplated suicide as the death threats “had come by the hundreds.”
Cohen was close to Donald Trump in the past, serving as his personal attorney and describing himself as Donald’s “fixer,” but ultimately turned on the ex-president, calling him a “con man” and “a cheat” during his 2019 testimony before Congress.
The former attorney was officially released from prison in May of 2020 after serving part of a three-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to what a judge called a “veritable smorgasbord” of crimes, including the infamous hush-money payments.
Yahoo! reports:
Cohen was initially set to be released from federal lockup in Otisville, New York, in November 2021. He had served just over a year of his sentence when he was released early. But Cohen was sent back to prison in July 2020 after refusing to sign a home confinement agreement barring him from publishing a book or speaking to the media.”
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via screen capture
