Michael Cohen, the former lawyer of President Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Congress and also for various counts of tax fraud and campaign finance violations.
As CNN notes, Cohen previously pleaded guilty in August to charges stemming from his failure to disclose millions of dollars in income and then pleaded guilty against last month to lying to Congress about his involvement in (and how much he briefed Trump about) talks to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia.
At his sentencing hearing in Manhattan, Cohen once again reiterated that he took “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.”
“Recently the President tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds,” he added.
“This may seem hard to believe,” Cohen told the court, “but today is one of the most meaningful days of my life. I have been living in a personal and mental incarceration ever since the day that I accepted the offer to work for a real estate mogul whose business acumen that I deeply admired.”
Cohen will have to surrender to authorities on March 6 to begin his sentence. The judge agreed to recommend Otisville Federal Correctional Facility in upstate New York as the prison where Cohen will serve his time, CNN notes. In addition to his prison sentence, Cohen will have to pay more than $1 million in restitution.
Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen’s former attorney released a statement, noting that he will “look forward to assisting Michael to state publicly all he knows about Mr. Trump,” including “any appropriate Congressional committee interested in the search for truth and the difference between facts and lies. Mr. Trump’s repeated lies cannot contradict stubborn facts.”
Davis’ statement continued:
“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. While Mr. Mueller gave Michael significant credit for cooperation on the “core” issues, it is unfortunate that SDNY prosecutors did not do the same. To me, their judgment showed a lack of appropriate proportionality. Since the sentencing process has been completed, I no longer need to serve as an attorney for Michael, but will continue to serve as a communications advisor.”
