Michael Cohen is asking President Joe Biden for a pardon.
Cohen, the one-time lawyer of former President Donald Trump, said as much in a recent message that he posted on X.
Cohen, on Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, wrote:
I will be seeking a pardon from President Biden. I am grateful to have obtained letters of support from members of congress and constitutional scholars. I made the announcement on my new patreon page here: Join today The Political Beatdown After Show.
I will be seeking a pardon from President Biden. I am grateful to have obtained letters of support from members of congress and constitutional scholars. I made the announcement on my new patreon page here: Join today The Political Beatdown After Show. https://t.co/QRd4995MPR
— Michael Cohen (@MichaelCohen212) September 8, 2023
Cohen is seeking a pardon after having spent three years in federal prison, from 2018 to 2021.
The prison sentence came after Cohen pleaded guilty to a multitude of charges, including campaign finance violations, tax fraud, bank fraud, lying to Congress, and more.
Cohen claims that he did most of this on behalf of Trump. Cohen is the man who, on behalf of Trump, allegedly paid "hush money payments" to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. This is the same incident for which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicted Trump.
Besides being imprisoned, Cohen, following his guilty plea, was also fined $50,000 and disbarred from the practice of law.
Since then, he has joined the anti-Trump crowd. To this day, there is obvious bad blood between the two, as both have targeted each other with litigation.
The reader may remember that Trump, when he was still president, pardoned a number of his former campaign advisers, including Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Charles Kushner.
Trump, however, notably refused to pardon Cohen. Cohen, in fact - at the time - even claimed that he was not interested in a pardon from Trump.
Now, however, Cohen is turning to Biden.
The president, according to Cornell Law School's website, is said to have fairly broad pardon powers for federal crimes, so long as the individual to be pardoned has not been impeached. Accordingly, it would appear that Biden would have the power to pardon Cohen. Whether he will exercise this power, however, remains to be seen.
At the time of this writing, neither Biden nor the Biden administration has released a statement indicating whether or not Biden would consider a pardon of Cohen.
