United States President, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison by a federal court in Manhattan, on Wednesday. Cohen had pleaded guilty to several other unlawful activities earlier this year
The former lawyer for United States President Donald Trump, Michael Cohen was found guilty of lying to Congress, campaign finance violations, and tax evasion for which he was sentenced to three years in federal prison by a New York Court.
Cohen faced two cases on Wednesday, one from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and another from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Office. Prior to this, in April, the FBI raided Cohen’s hotel room making him a key target of the Mueller investigation. Reportedly, the attorney has been quite cooperative and did admit to several criminal charges against him.
Cohen has previously pleaded guilty of paying off porn star Stormy Daniels and McDougal and lying about The Trump Organization’s proposed projects in Russia to the congressional committees.
During the hearing, he told federal judge, William Pauley, “I take full responsibility for each act that I pled guilty to: the personal ones to me and those involving the president of the United States of America,” referring to the US President, he added he had been “in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul.”
In an earlier tweet, the US President had referred to the lawyer as “a weak person”, Cohen told the court on Wednesday, his only “weakness was a blind loyalty to Donald Trump” and that he felt it was his duty to “cover up his dirty deeds.”
Before the sentencing, Cohen’s lawyers had requested for no prison time, given the attorney’s cooperation with the prosecutors and the Mueller investigation, pointing out that Cohen had given seven interviews to the investigative team.
Cohen’s advisor, Lanny Davis said the attorney was ready to divulge all the information he had about the US President. He further added, “Michael has owned up to his mistakes and fully cooperated with special counsel Mueller in his investigation over possible Trump campaign collusion with Russian meddling in the 2016 election.” He said while Robert Mueller appreciated Cohen’s cooperation, it was unfortunate that the Southern District of New York prosecutors did not see it that way, stating “To me, their judgment showed a lack of appropriate proportionality.”
Wednesday’s sentencing marked the first of three high-profile sentencing of former Trump officials. While former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn sentencing will take place later in December, Trump’s former Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort will face his sentencing hearing next year.
The US President, previously, asserted that Michael Cohen should “serve a full and complete sentence.”
