Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen eyes run for US Congress as Democrat
Ex-lawyer, who recently settled lawsuit with his old boss, could challenge incumbent Jerry Nadler for seat covering part of Manhattan
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, said Friday he is considering running for a seat in US Congress as a Democrat.
“I am interested and there’s a multitude of folks encouraging me to run,” Cohen told the Semafor news outlet.
Cohen, who said he lives on Manhattan’s East Side, could potentially launch a primary challenge against the incumbent of New York’s 12th congressional district, Representative Jerry Nadler. The veteran Democrat has served in the House of Representatives since 1992 and as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee since 2019.
Nadler faced a challenge for his seat ahead of the 2022 midterm election after redistricting pitted him against long-time colleague Carolyn Maloney.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to multiple charges, admitting that he lied to Congress, violated campaign finance laws through excessive political contributions, lied to multiple banks to obtain financing and evaded income taxes by failing to report more than $4 million in income. He was sentenced to three years in prison, although he served nearly two-thirds of it at home, released after the COVID-19 outbreak overwhelmed the nation’s prisons.
The campaign finance charges came after he helped arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from publicly claiming extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
He then became a key witness in the New York grand jury proceeding that led to Trump’s April indictment on charges of falsifying Trump Organization records to protect his 2016 candidacy by suppressing claims that he had had extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump has denied those encounters and pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. He cast the case as a Democratic district attorney’s attempt to blunt his ongoing campaign to return to the White House.
In total, Trump has been indicted three times since he lost the presidency in 2020.
Cohen and Trump came to a settlement in July after the latter sued his former lawyer, accusing him of violating a company confidentiality agreement and maliciously “spreading falsehoods.” A Cohen spokesman, attorney Lanny Davis, has argued Trump was abusing the legal system to harass Cohen.
The Times of Israel Community.