President Donald Trump‘s imprisoned ex-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, lost a round in his longshot bid to get the Trump Organization to cover his legal fees.
Cohen facilitated nearly $300,000 in hush money payments to two women, fading porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claim to have had sexual affairs with Trump more than a decade ago.
Cohen sued over an alleged promise by the Trump Organization’s general counsel which he claimed means that the company owes more than $1 million in legal fees he incurred from legal proceedings and criminal investigations.
However, Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice Joel M. Cohen ruled Thursday that the purported agreement, if it existed, would only apply to any such probes “that were pending in July 2017, when the agreement allegedly was made.”
That’s when Cohen asserts he reached an oral agreement to have the costs covered. His costs then rose dramatically when he was criminally charged last year.
Cohen pleaded guilty to several charges, including that he broke campaign finance laws and lied to Congress. He is serving a three-year prison term.
The judge, though, said Cohen can collect additional evidence to support his bid for reimbursement from the company where he worked as executive vice president and special counsel and eventually Trump’s “fixer” from 2006 until January 2017.
The company stopped paying his legal bills after he split with the president two months after the FBI raided his residence and office in April 2018.
Although he once bragged he’d “take a bullet” for the president, Cohen met with federal prosecutors in New York and investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller, admitting he’d lied to Congress to protect Trump and paid off two women to keep them from speaking out about alleged affairs with Trump.
Cohen sued Trump Organization earlier this year, saying it owes him at least $1.9 million in legal fees to cover the cost of his defense, and another $1.9 million he’s been ordered to forfeit as part of his criminal case.
Cohen spokesman Lanny Davis, a former Clinton family advisor, said Friday that Cohen will try to force Trump and others to testify in the civil dispute.
Attorney Marc Mukasey, representing the Trump Organization, was dismissive of Davis’ statement.
“Read the judge’s opinion,” Mukasey said in an email. “The bulk of Michael Cohen’s claims were rejected. No DC spin doctor can change that. We won this round. They lost. Period.”
In other news, Michael Avenatti is still a jackass.
h/t CBS News / CNBC
