Trump’s Former Personal Attorney Michael Cohen Sues Ex-President For Retaliation To Book

Donald Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has taken legal against the former President and other members of his administration, over alleged book retaliation.

Cohen has alleged that the ones who have been sued violated his right to free speech after he threatened to publish details about Trump, reported Business Insider.

Former Attorney General William Barr is also among those who are named as defendants in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages. Cohen said that the efforts to quash the tell-all book about his former boss was one instance of "retaliatory measures” taken by Trump and his aides "in the weaponization of his administration against his enemies.”

It was just last month that he finished his three-year jail sentence for crimes including lying to Congress and tax evasion. Cohen reported to jail in May two years ago, but was released to home confinement months later as authorities tried to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in federal prisons, according to Associated Press. Weeks later, he was abruptly ordered back to jail by authorities who claimed that he failed to accept some of the terms of his release. But he said that he had just asked for clarification on a condition preventing him from interacting with the media and publishing his book.

Cohen said that his second stint in jail began with harrowing days in solitary confinement that lasted for 16 days. He faced lots of problems like anxiety and shortness of breath while he was kept inside a small cell that he got to leave just 30 minutes a day at the federal jail in Otisville, New York.

Probation officers were not aware of the book when they wrote a provision restricting his public communications, said prosecutors. But a federal judge ordered him to return to home confinement, saying that his return to the federal jail in New York had been “retaliatory.”

The new lawsuit that was filed in Manhattan federal court, seeks damages for violations of Cohen’s First Amendment rights and “extreme physical and emotional harm." Jeffrey K. Levine, one of Cohen's lawyers said that unless the US government and others are held accountable for their "retaliation and unconstitutional remand back to prison" of his client, "illegal actions akin to what happened here can continue to persist as a weapon." Cohen has called for Trump to be prosecuted and has given details several times to New York prosecutors who are checking whether the former President misled tax authorities or banks about the value of his assets in order to get tax breaks or loans.

Earlier this year, Cohen had filed a federal tort claim against the American government seeking $20 million in damages, and Levine said that the government didn't respond to that claim, prompting the new lawsuit.