Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, alleges New York prosecutors pressured and coerced him into providing testimony designed to help convict Trump rather than offer an impartial account.
In a Substack post, Cohen said his cooperation with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office was shaped by leverage applied while he was incarcerated and later under supervision. He testified as a key witness in both James’ civil fraud case and Bragg’s criminal hush money prosecution.
Cohen said his first meeting with Manhattan prosecutors in August 2019 occurred while he was seeking sentence relief, creating what he described as intense pressure to meet prosecutors’ expectations. He said prosecutors steered his testimony with leading questions and argued that both Bragg and James were politically driven, focused on “taking down Trump” instead of seeking an impartial outcome.
Cohen’s claims come as a federal appeals court ordered a lower court to reconsider whether Trump’s hush money case should have been handled in federal court, citing unresolved questions about whether prosecutors relied on evidence tied to Trump’s official acts as president.
“Justice must be more than effective; it must be credible. When politics and prosecution become indistinguishable, public trust erodes, not just in cases like mine and Trump’s, but in the system itself,” Cohen wrote.
