Michael Cohen: Trump should look no further than how he treated me to find 'lawfare'
President-elect Donald Trump's former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen laid into his former boss on MSNBC's "All In" Friday for his ongoing complaints about being held accountable in the Manhattan hush payment trial, where this week he was formally sentenced to unconditional discharge.
Cohen, who now routinely speaks out against Trump's conduct and fitness for office, had a direct role in facilitating the payments at issue in the case, and served time in prison after pleading guilty to his involvement.
"I mean, I know people that are convicted felons who are amazing people who've rebuilt their lives," said anchor Chris Hayes. "And part of what's so crazy about watching all this is like, we're in a country that puts so many people in prison, so many people end up doing bids, young, with real trauma and substance use disorder, and not a lot of like mercy and forgiveness from the court. Not a lot of, like, well, there are special circumstances. So it's a little tough to swallow in the context of one of the most incarcerated countries on the planet."
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"Yeah," agreed Cohen. "I mean, we are known for human warehousing, which I like to call it."
"You know, the thing I take somewhat offense to was really Trump's allocution, to some respect, where he's saying that I was allowed to speak like George Washington, but I am not George Washington," said Cohen. "Truthfully, I don't understand what he meant by it. It doesn't make any sense at all. But when he also turns around and starts talking about how he's unfairly treated and this is lawfare, the weaponization of the Department of Justice, it was actually his attorney general who was probably the most guilty of weaponization of the Justice Department. I was unconstitutionally remanded back to Otisville thanks to Alvin Hellerstein, removed from it because I refused to waive my First Amendment constitutional right."
"And I would love to know," he added. "I still, after four-plus years, have not been successful in getting any of my documents, of the 486,000 documents that exist, in order to turn around and to demonstrate how Bill Barr was involved and created this whole concept, as far as I'm concerned, of lawfare. So Donald is wrong when he says that this is the first time ever that this is happening. And of course, he's the martyr for the entire issue. He is not. I'm first."
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