The Supreme Court dismissed ex-lawyer Michael Cohen’s appeal to revive a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Monday, shutting down Cohen’s accusations for the last time.
Cohen had claimed his 2020 imprisonment was retaliation by Trump’s administration for publishing a book critical of the former president. The lawsuit had sought monetary damages from Trump, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, federal prison officials and the federal government.
“Michael Cohen has exhausted every avenue of his pathetic attempt to drag my client into court time and time again. As expected, the Supreme Court has correctly denied Michael Cohen’s petition and he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims,” Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Cohen had served three years behind bars for several federal crimes relating to his work for Trump, including lying to Congress. He was released on home confinement during the pandemic, but was sent back to prison after refusing to sign an agreement limiting his postings on social media and contacts with the press.
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Former President Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen departs from his home to attend his second day of testimony at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 14, 2024, in New York City.
“The Constitution is the bedrock of our democratic republic and is what makes America the beacon of the world,” Cohen said of his lawsuit in July. “To have a President weaponize the DOJ… is how autocracies are created.”
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Cohen argued that he was sent back behind bars, shackled and placed in solitary confinement on the alleged orders of Trump and Justice Department officials in July 2020 in retaliation for his writing his first tell-all book, “Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.”
Trump was accused of retaliating against Michael Cohen for publishing a book critical of the former president. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
“Presidents are not kings,” Cohen’s wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court. “This case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence. That cannot be the law in the country the Founders thought they created when they threw off the yoke of the monarch.”
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In 2020, U.S. Federal Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein found that the Trump administration violated Cohen’s First Amendment rights when it sent him back behind bars after he was released to home confinement.
“The purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory,” the judge said during a hearing on Cohen’s reimprisonment.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Cohen’s petition without comment. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“It’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book and to discuss anything about the book or anything else he wants on social media and with others.”
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Two courts ruled against Cohen’s initial claim, based on a narrow reading of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the 1971 case Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, which provides citizens the limited legal right to sue federal officials who violate their constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court did not elaborate on its decision to reject Cohen’s appeal.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Eric Shawn contributed to this report.
