“Michael Cohen has exhausted every avenue of his pathetic attempt to drag my client into court time and time again,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said. “As expected, the Supreme Court has correctly denied Michael Cohen’s petition and he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Donald Trump’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, who had sought to hold the former president liable for retaliatory imprisonment.
According to The Associated Press, the justices did not provide an explanation for their decision.
In his initial pleadings, Cohen had asked the panel to revive a series of claims that had already been dismissed by a lower court. In that ruling, the lower court said that the law does not typically allow people to seek damages for claims they were jailed for criticizing a president.
The court also noted that Cohen had long since been ordered released from custody.
Nevertheless, an attorney for Cohen said that the Supreme Court’s ruling “signals a dangerous moment in American democracy.” Meanwhile, Trump lawyer Alina Habba said that the Supreme Court had correctly rejected Cohen’s pleading, saying that it may now be time for Cohen to “finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”
“Michael Cohen has exhausted every avenue of his pathetic attempt to drag my client into court time and time again,” Habba said. “As expected, the Supreme Court has correctly denied Michael Cohen’s petition and he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”
The Associated Press writes that Cohen pleaded guilty to charges related to the payment of “hush money” to pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. Cohen said that Trump himself had ordered the transaction—an allegation that the former president has repeatedly denied.
Cohen was given a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty, serving more than a year behind bars before being released during the coronavirus pandemic. But he was returned to prison mere weeks later, with corrections officials claiming that Cohen had failed to accept and abide by the conditions of his release.
After being returned to prison and spending more than two weeks in solitary confinement, Cohen was again released, with a judge determining that Cohen had most likely been imprisoned for suggesting that he would publish a book critical of Trump.
“The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory,” the judge wrote. “It’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and with others.”
Cohen, then and now, has stressed the First Amendment implications of his lawsuit.
“The Constitution is the bedrock of our democratic republic and [it] is what makes America the beacon of the world,” Cohen said of his lawsuit last July. “To have a President weaponize the [Department of Justice] … is how autocracies are created.”
“Presidents are not kings,” Cohen and his attorneys wrote in their initial petition to the Supreme Court. “This case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence. That cannot be the law in the country the Founders thought they created when they threw off the yoke of the monarch.”
Sources
Michael Cohen can’t hold Donald Trump liable for retaliatory imprisonment, appeals court says
Supreme Court rejects lawyer Michael Cohen lawsuit against Trump over alleged retaliationv
Supreme Court won’t revive Michael Cohen’s lawsuit against Trump claiming retaliatory imprisonment
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