President Donald Trump said he would “consider” a pardon for his former fixer turned foe, Michael Cohen.
Asked if he planned to pardon his former attorney, Trump told reporters Wednesday he had “never been asked that question” and reiterated that he believed Cohen had recanted his testimony in the New York fraud case against him.
“If everything is checking out, it’s something I would consider,” Trump said before departing for the GOP midterm convention in Dallas. “What they did to Michael Cohen was a disgrace. They forced him to say things that he didn’t want to say and that he didn’t believe.”
Trump added that he appreciated that “although late, he came out and rectified the situation.”
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The relationship between Trump and his former attorney soured after the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018. A judge sentenced Cohen to three years in federal prison in November of that year in connection with a hush money scheme, while Trump remained in the Oval Office.
Trump and Cohen seem to have reconciled of late; the president appeared on his former attorney’s radio show last month. On Sept. 4, Trump claimed Cohen “fully recanted his testimony” — though Cohen has not made any statements formally retracting specific claims he made in the legal or congressional record.
Cohen and Trump have two decades of history between them, and it now appears that the president’s former fixer is trying to get back in Trump’s good graces. Washington Sun reporters spotted Cohen on Wednesday at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
Trump has previously called Cohen a “convicted liar, felon and jailbird” after he turned against him during his congressional testimony and later in Trump’s criminal trial.
Cohen said he was “ashamed that [he] chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts” and called the president a “racist,” a “con man” and a “cheat,” during his testimony before Congress in 2019.
Cohen was also the star witness during Trump’s criminal trial in 2024 on hush money payments made to two women who claimed to have had sex with Trump. Cohen said that Trump directed him to “take care of it” and knew about the $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
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