The Supreme Court rejects Michael Cohen’s bid to revive the lawsuit against Trump

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Michael Cohen, who wanted to revive a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.

Cohen was known as Trump’s fixer and has accused his former boss of retaliating against him for promoting his revealing book. Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of President Donald J. Trump’s Former Personal Attorney.

In 2020, Cohen was serving a three-year sentence on charges related to work he had done for Trump. While on release from home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said parole officials wanted him to sign an agreement requiring him to avoid speaking to the media or posting on social media. According to court records, he was ordered back to prison and placed in solitary confinement for 16 days after he wanted to change the deal.

A federal judge released Cohen from solitary confinement, saying he had been imprisoned in retaliation for the revealing book. Cohen later sued Trump, former Attorney General William Barr and other officials.

A New York judge dismissed the suit, saying the law does not provide a remedy for damages under these circumstances. Cohen then asked the Supreme Court to review the lawsuit against Trump, but the high court rejected the appeal on Monday and did not detail its reasoning in a brief order.

In July, Cohen said Newsweek while he was in the process of filing his petition to the Supreme Court that “no president should ever be authorized to arm the Department of Justice through an attorney general willing and able to unconstitutionally detain a citizen in prison — solitary confinement—because they refused to waive their First Amendment right.”

He reiterated this position in the demand he presented to the Supreme Court.

“The possibility that the federal government would have the power to retaliate against critics with imprisonment, without any consequences or checks against officials who engage in such retaliation, is a chilling prospect,” Cohen’s petition to the high court said. . “This Court should not turn a blind eye to this profound breach of the contract between a government of limited powers and a free citizenry.”

On Monday, Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, reacted to the news that the Supreme Court rejected the appeal. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Habba said, “Michael Cohen has exhausted every avenue in his pathetic attempt to drag my client into court over and over again.”

He added: “As expected, the Supreme Court has rightly denied Michael Cohen’s petition, and he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.