Supreme Court Refuses to Take Michael Cohen’s Trump Retaliation Appeal

The Supreme Court has refused to accept Michael Cohen’s appeal seeking civil damages for alleged government retaliation during the Donald Trump plenary. administration

The high court’s denial, which comes as Trump has promised a vengeful second term, is not surprising for reasons that have nothing to do with Cohen and the former president. That’s because the court has long narrowed down the type of claim Cohen intended to bring.

In a 1971 case called Bivens, the high court allowed a claim for damages against federal officials for alleged Fourth Amendment violations. But the court has taken a dim view ever since, routinely rejecting so-called Bivens claims. In a 2022 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion cited Bivens as it noted, “Over the past 42 years, however, we have declined 11 times to bring a similar cause of action for other alleged constitutional violations.” Thomas wrote that the court will deny the claims “in all but the most unusual circumstances.”

Cohen argued that his case met those circumstances, but not enough judges agreed. It takes four judges to grant review. The court denied the request without comment from either judge.

The high court was unmoved, despite Cohen’s claim stemming from what a federal judge found to be clear government retaliation. The dispute is related to when Cohen served time for crimes related to Trump and began writing a book that would be unfavorable to the then-president. He was released during the Covid pandemic, but when he did not immediately agree to waive his free speech rights, he was sent back to prison. He was freed after a federal judge said the government’s action was “retaliatory in response to Cohen seeking to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the president and discuss the book on social media “.

In separate opposition motions, both Trump and the federal government (represented by former Attorney General Bill Barr and others) urged the justices to deny review. Cohen was supported by constitutional scholars and former federal officials, who wrote to the justices that:

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