Trump v: Cohen suit termination “without prejudice”
5 October, 2023
Trump aides and lawyers rebuffed questions about the conflicting demands over the past couple of days, but in a court filing around 8 p.m. on Thursday, a Florida-based attorney for Trump, Alejandro Brito, announced that his client was dropping the case.
The one-line filing offered no explanation for the rare courtroom retreat by Trump but said the termination of the suit was “without prejudice,” meaning he was reserving the right to re-file it.
Trump “decided to temporarily pause his meritorious claims against Michael Cohen,” a Trump spokesperson said in a statement.
[November 21 2023 Trump’s lawyer Cohen free
On Monday morning, November 22 2021, Michael D. Cohen, 55, plans to walk out of federal court in lower Manhattan a free, if disbarred, man, having completed his three-year prison sentence for tax fraud, bank fraud, violations of campaign finance laws and lying to Congress.
[.May 6 2021 Michael Cohen ‘has already been punished’, F.E.C. drops $130,000 Daniels payments ]
The Republican commissioners who voted not to proceed with an investigation, Trey Trainor and Sean Cooksey, said that pursuing the case was “not the best use of agency resources,” that “the public record is complete” already and that Mr. Cohen had already been punished.
Michael Cohen will be released early from prison on May 21 2020 and is expected to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home.
“We voted to dismiss these matters as an exercise of our prosecutorial discretion,” Mr. Cooksey and Mr. Trainor wrote.
[July 31 2020]
In a letter to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, prosecutors wrote that Cohen has agreed to the conditions contained in a re-entry form used by the Bureau of Prisons that will replace the previous agreement. During a phone hearing, the judge said there should be some limits. For example, he said, Cohen should be allowed to publish a book and tweet but he shouldn’t be allowed to hold a press conference from his apartment, just as he wouldn’t be able to hold one from a prison cell.
Under the new conditions, the government dropped any restrictions on Cohen’s communications with the media. He will be required to undergo monthly drug testing, abstain from consuming alcohol and remain at home, except if given permission or for employment. The agreement will require the Hellerstein’s approval. Prosecutors said they have no intention of appealing the judge’s previous ruling.
[July 23 2020]
“The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and it’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his first amendment rights to publish a book and discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and others,” “I’ve never seen such a clause, in 21 years of being a judge, sentencing people and looking at terms and conditions of supervised release, I’ve never seen such a clause,” Hellerstein said. “How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?”
Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled during a telephonic hearing.ruled during a telephonic hearing.
Cohen, who has been held in solitary confinement at federal prison in Otisville, New York, since he was remanded on July 9, will be released by 2 p.m. ET Friday after he takes a test for the coronavirus.
Cohen and prosecutors will have one week to negotiate the terms of his release as it relates to his involvement with the media.
“Petitioner was remanded to FCI Otisville because of his defiant behavior during his meeting at the Probation Office on July 9, 2020, which included objecting to nearly every term and condition of the FLM [Federal Location Monitoring] Agreement that the Probation Officers presented to him.”
Jon Gustin, a Federal Bureau of Prisons official, said in a court filing that he made the decision to send Cohen back to prison. said he was not aware of Cohen’s book.
Adam Pakula, the probation officer who drafted Cohen’s agreement, said he based it on terms for the supervision of high-profile inmates that he got from a fellow officer, including the provision on media contact.
Pakula also said he was not aware of Cohen’s book at the time.
Michael Cohen filed a complaint late July 20 2020 in Manhattan federal court, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was returned to the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, on July 9. He is being unjustly held behind bars to stop him from finishing a book that criticizes Trump. The lawsuit sought a court order to return him to home confinement.
[July 9 2020]
Jeffrey Levine, lawyer for Michael Cohen said he expected to be fitted with an ankle monitoring device as part of his home confinement.
While at the meeting, Levine said, they were presented with an agreement that would require Cohen to not speak with any reporters, refrain from cooperating with any film or book project, and avoid posting on social media while serving out the remainder of his three-year criminal sentence.
The agreement also would require Cohen to tell relatives and friends not to post on social media on his behalf.
“I’ve never seen any language like this in my life that would strip a person of their First Amendment rights to communicate with the media,” Levine told reporters waiting outside the courthouse.
[3 July 2020 to home confinement]
“I will not leave the area of my furlough without permission, with exception of traveling to the furlough destination, and returning to the institution,” the furlough form specifies. “I am authorized to be only in the area of the destination shown above and at ordinary stopovers or points on a direct route to or from that destination.”
[June 20 2020]
Michael Cohen will be released early from prison on May 21 2020 and is expected to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home. Trump had been irked by reports that Cohen was going to be released early. Cohen iworking on a tell-all book about his time working with Trump,
[May 2 2020 NOT ]
“Following promises and published expectations, Michael Cohen remains in effect in solitary confinement, under quarantine, rather than under home confinement as he was led to believe would occur yesterday, May 1,” Cohen’s legal advisor Lanny Davis said in a statement.
Michael Cohen will not be leaving prison to serve out the rest of his term in home confinement. Other prisoners at Otisville who were granted home confinement have also lost those privileges.
Two weeks ago, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had notified Cohen that he would be released early from prison due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Cohen would have been allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence from home confinement.
[April 1 2020]
Michael Cohen will be released from federal prison to serve the remainder of his sentence in home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic. He will remain under quarantine for 14 days before he is released. Federal statistics show 14 inmates and seven staff members at the prison have tested positive for the coronavirus. Cohen began serving his sentence last May and was scheduled to be released from prison in November 2021.
[December 8 2018 Cohen-Trump tape “sounds like a John Edwards case.” ]
In a court filing, prosecutors said former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen arranged the secret payments at the height of the 2016 campaign “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump, a remarkable disclosure with potential political and legal ramifications for a president dogged by investigations. The payments are likely to become a target for House Democrats gearing up to investigate the president next year. It’s unclear whether Trump faces legal jeopardy over his role. At trial, John Edwards’s lawyers argued that the payments were aimed at hiding his affair with Rielle Hunter from Edwards’s wife, and were not an election related cover up. Jurors acquitted Edwards on one count related to a payment made after he had already suspended his campaign and deadlocked on five other counts. The judge declared a mistrial, and the Justice Department opted not to retry the case.
[July 25 2018]
Lanny Davis said to NBC News that the content of the Cohen-Trump tape “sounds like a John Edwards case.”
From a legal perspective, the more pressing question is whether the proposed payment to McDougal—whether in the form of cash or a check—would have represented a campaign expenditure, and whether the Trump campaign was planning to disclose it. Since the deal with American Media, Inc., the Enquirer’s parent company, appears not to have gone through, this issue may seem to be moot—but it might not be. Cohen’s payment of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who also claims to have had an affair with Trump, did go through.
[ April 24 2012 Next Witness: Andrew Young, former aide to former U.S. Sen. and presidential candidate John Edwards ]
The 28,200-square-foot Edwards home in Orange County, main house is 10,400 square feet and has two garages. The recreation building, a red, barn-like building containing 15,600 square feet, is connected to the house by a closed-in and roofed structure of varying widths and elevations that totals 2,200 square feet. The main house is all on one level except for a 600-square-foot bedroom and bath area above the guest garage. The recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.”
Oct. 10, 2007: The National Enquirer publishes its first report on Edwards’ affair, but doesn’t release the name of the woman. Edwards’ spokesperson says the allegations are “false, absolute nonsense.”
Oct. 11, 2007: “The story is false. It’s completely untrue, ridiculous,” Edwards tells reporter.
Oct. 22, 2007: Edwards has been having an affair with his campaign staff videographer, Rielle Hunter, the Enquirer reports.
Dec. 12, 2007: A pregnant Hunter tells the Enquirer that Andrew Young, a longtime Edwards aide, is the father of the baby. “This has no relationship to nor does it involve John Edwards in any way,” Rielle says.
Dec. 31, 2007: The Enquirer reports that there is a massive cover-up taking place to protect the former senator.
Jan. 30, 2008: Edwards drops out of the race.
July 22, 2008: The Enquirer catches Edwards trying to leave the Beverly Hilton at 2:40 a.m. after visiting Hunter and their daughter.
July 23, 2008: “I don’t talk about these tabloids. They’re tabloid trash and just full of lies,” Edwards tells reporters in Houston.
August 8, 2008: Edwards admits to the affair, telling ABC News’ Bob Woodruff that his political success “fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want.” But he denies again that the baby is his.
August 6, 2009: Hunter testifies before a grand jury about her relationship with Edwards.
Jan. 21, 2010: Edwards owns up to being the father of Hunter’s daughter. “It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter, and, hopefully, one day, when she understands, she will forgive me,” he said in a statement.
Jan. 27, 2010: Reports emerge that Edwards and his wife Elizabeth have separated.
Jan. 28, 2010: Young tells ABC’s Bob Woodruff that he has a sex tape Edwards and Hunter made a few months before the Iowa caucuses.
Dec. 7, 2010: Elizabeth Edwards dies after battling cancer.
June 3, 2011: Edwards is indicted on six federal felony charges, including conspiring to violate campaign finance laws. more
Hue and Cri 