It has been reported that Donald Trump‘s former lawyer Michael Cohen is set to be released early from prison. The early release is due to the current coronavirus pandemic, and how easily it has spread in prisons, according to NPR. In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to a number of financial crimes, including campaign finance-related infractions.
Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. All of the charges against the former lawyer landed him a three-year sentence at the federal correctional institution in Otisville, New York. Per an unidentified source who spoke with NPR, Cohen is set to be released to house arrest. The outlet noted that A Justice Department official confirmed Cohen’s planned release, and stated that is to be home confinement. The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the status of Cohen’s release.
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President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, will be moved from federal prison and will serve the rest of his three-year sentence on home confinement. It’s part of an effort to to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in the facilities. https://t.co/jFPV6dOJUV
— NPR (@NPR) April 17, 2020
Back in 2018, shortly after his prison sentence was handed down, ABC News aired an interview that Cohen did with correspondent George Stephanopoulos. ” knew what I was doing was wrong,” Cohen said, adding how he “stood up before the world” and “accepted the responsibility for my actions.” Referring to working for Trump, Cohen admitted he “gave loyalty to someone who, truthfully, does not deserve loyalty.”
Follow Cohen’s sentencing, Trump took to Twitter to claim that he was never involved with Cohen’s dealings in the ways that the ex-attorney alleged. “I never directed Michael Cohen to break the law. He was a lawyer and he is supposed to know the law. It is called ‘advice of counsel,’ and a lawyer has great liability if a mistake is made. That is why they get paid. Despite that many campaign finance lawyers have strongly stated that I did nothing wrong with respect to campaign finance laws, if they even apply, because this was not campaign finance,” Trump tweeted.
Trump slammed Cohen, saying that he was merely attempting to “embarrass the president and get a much reduced prison sentence.” Cohen strongly disputed this allegation. “It is absolutely not true. Under no circumstances do I want to embarrass the president,” he said. “He knows the truth. I know the truth.” NPR reports that as of Friday morning, Cohen was still being held at Otisville.
