US President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen was handed a three-year prison sentence on Wednesday after Cohen admitted lying to the Congress, campaign finance violations and tax evasion.
Donald Trump privately admitted to his aides that Michael Cohen was a ‘liar’, hours after his former lawyer was sentenced.
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While Trump did not respond to a barrage of questions asked by reporters over the sentencing at a public event, he privately told his administration officials that Cohen was a ‘liar’, CNN reported.
During the hearing at a New York court, Cohen, although, admitted to the crimes he committed, he continued his tirade against Trump, saying he was living in a ‘personal and mental’ prison since he started working for him and acknowledged that he was doing his duty to cover up the ‘dirty deeds’ of the US President.
“Recently the President tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds,” Cohen said.
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“This may seem hard to believe, but today is one of the most meaningful days of my life. I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen I deeply admired,” Cohen added.
Former Attorney admitted to lying to Congress, violating campaign finance laws and tax evasion. He was ordered to pay $1.39 million in restitution, forfeit $ 500,000 and cough up an additional $50,000 fine by the US District Judge William Pauley.
The judge also ordered Cohen to surrender himself to the authorities by March 6 next year.
Who is Michel Cohen?
- Cohen, 52, worked for Trump for nearly a decade as legal counsel and an executive vice president at the Trump Organization
- He joined Trump Organization in 2007
- Cohen’s tasks ranged from running a Trump-backed mixed martial arts company to real estate branding deals. At one point, he even arranged an engine repair for Trump’s plane.
- Before meeting Trump, Cohen had been a New York attorney.
- He caught Trump’s attention when he lobbied for Trump in a dispute with other residents (in Trump’s real estate project)
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- Over the year’s Cohen claimed to be a loyalist saying that he admired Trump.
- In 2018, Cohen ran into legal troubles stemming from his past dealings for Trump. FBI raided Cohen’s New York office, hotel room, and residence and seized information including documents related to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
- In February Cohen admitted to opening a limited liability company in 2016 to pay Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about the alleged affair, confirming a Wall Street Journal report in January that said as much.
- Trump and the White House have denied Daniels’ allegations of an affair with Trump.
- In the following months, Cohen’s allegiance to Trump began to falter amid the investigation and subsequent isolation from the President’s inner circle.
- In August he pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to eight criminal counts in including tax evasion, making false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations.
- He implicated the President Trump when he admitted that ‘in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office’ he kept information that could have harmed Trump from becoming public during the 2016 election.