by Michael Cohen is asking the Supreme Court to revive his case against Donald Trump, who is accused of violating his former attorney’s constitutional rights by keeping him in solitary confinement after he revealed plans for a memoir.
A challenge stemming from a lawsuit from the one-time “fixer” — who recently testified against Trump during his hush money trial in New York — asks whether the president and federal officials can be held accountable for retaliating against their critics.
“No president should ever be allowed to arm the Department of Justice through a willing and close attorney general, to unconstitutionally return a citizen to prison, in my case, solitary confinement, because the person refuses that’s a waiver of that First Amendment constitutional right,” Cohen said The Independent on Wednesday.
“The actions of Donald J Trump and his administration are un-American, and I believe this case is ripe for hearing by the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said.
The case comes on the heels of an earthquake Supreme Court decision that declared a president “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” acts in office, greatly expanding the scope of executive power.
A decision that could include Trump in a possible second term “crosses my mind,” Cohen said, “although I don’t believe that anyone could justify this clearly, unconstitutional act as an act … that could be exempted to give him under this presidential immunity. control.”
A case questioning government retaliation gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to decide whether a “monarch, dictator, ruler, supreme leader or fuhrer is in charge of a democratic republic and not an autocracy,” Cohen said.
In January, a panel of federal appeals court judges said they would not revive Cohen’s lawsuit after it was thrown out by a lower court.
On Wednesday, Cohen filed his appeal to the nation’s highest court, arguing that the case raises serious questions about constitutional abuses by the federal government against its most vocal critics.
“The issues presented in this petition are extremely important,” Cohen’s attorney, Jon-Michael Dougherty, wrote to the court in a brief.
“The possibility that the federal government has the power to punish critics with imprisonment, without any consequence or check against the officials who engage in such retaliation, is a chilling prospect,” Dougherty added. “This Court should not turn its eyes from this gross breach of the contract between a government with limited powers and the citizenry.”
The filing points to Supreme Court precedent that allows defendants to sue for damages against federal officials for constitutional violations, and that such cases should deter officials from retaliating against citizens.
Cohen was sentenced to prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, allegedly at the direction of his former boss.
After being released for home confinement in 2020 to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Cohen revealed his plans for a book about Trump.
A week later, and almost four years to the date of his Supreme Court appeal, Cohen was returned to prison and placed in solitary confinement. Prison officials accused him of violating restrictions on his public communications.
He was allegedly ordered to sign an agreement barring him from any contact with the media, including in print.
Cohen and his lawyers asked if the “custom” conditions of his release could be removed.
Instead, he was “shackled and transported” back to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, and held in solitary confinement for nearly 24 hours a day – “alone in a poorly ventilated cell, without no air conditioning, and a broken window,” according to his complaint.
In July 2020, after 16 days in solitary, and after a judge intervened, Cohen was released to home confinement.
The federal judge who ordered his release said it was clear that his return to prison was “zealous” in response to Cohen’s plans “to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the President and to discuss the book on social media.”
Cohen sued Trump, his attorney general Bill Barr and prison officials, arguing that his imprisonment violated his Fourth and Eighth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizure and cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2022, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman granted the government’s motion to dismiss, but noted that he was disturbed by the “profound violence” his order would have on Cohen’s constitutional rights, leading to know that the higher court should resolve the issue.
“Supreme Court precedents ensure that there is at best a partial remedy for abuse of power and violation of rights against the perpetrators of such wrongs,” Justice Liman wrote.
He suggested that a proper inquiry should be whether the authors of the Constitution “intended that there should be such a remedy.”
“There are powerful reasons to believe that, in many circumstances, the answer to that question is yes,” he said. “If executive officials violate a person’s rights, the courts provide a legal remedy for that violation.”
Trump’s 2024 campaign is fueled by the idea of ”reparations” for “those who have been wronged and betrayed,” and his allies and architects of the second Trump administration have vowed to prosecute his rivals.
The former president continued to attack Cohen as a “liar” during his criminal trial in Manhattan, where Cohen’s damning four-day testimony walked jurors through dozens of pages of evidence, including all of the falsified business records. in the middle of the case.
Trump’s trial also revealed a “pressure campaign” against Cohen’s ally from then-President Trump to pledge his loyalty while under federal investigation.
