Ex-Trump lawyer left out of pardons despite cooperating with authorities says ‘system is broken’

Michael Cohen’s three-year sentence is scheduled to end in November 2021

Michael Cohen had predicted in 2019 that Trump will not leave the White House peacefully if voted out in the elections    (Reuters)

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s  former lawyer and “fixer” on Wednesday said the criminal justice system is broken as pardons were announced for the outgoing president’s allies and friends who never cooperated with authorities unlike him.

“What happened tonight shows how broken the whole criminal justice system is. Despite me and family being threatened by [POTUS] [Donald Trump], I still cooperated with a dozen federal/state agencies, Mueller, Congress... and all these criminals receive #pardons. This is wrong!” tweeted Mr Cohen.

His outburst comes shortly after Mr Trump’s former campaign advisers Roger Stone and Paul Manafort along with Charles Kushner, who is the father of the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, were pardoned. Last month, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was pardoned for lying to the FBI. 

Among them, Mr Stone and Mr Manafort faced charges from the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in US politics. During the investigation, they did not cooperate with the special counsel.

In 2018, Mr Cohen was charged by Mr Mueller’s team for lying about a real estate project in Russia and he reportedly cooperated with various authorities during the investigation. 

Mr Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and campaign finance violations following which he was sentenced to three years in federal prison until November 2021. But earlier this year in May, he was put under home confinement for the remaining of the sentence due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year, Mr Cohen had predicted that if voted out of the office, Mr Trump won’t go out peacefully – a scenario that is playing out right now as the president is yet to concede the race despite the electoral college confirming Joe Biden as winner.

The former Trump lawyer had also told a congressional committee that Mr Trump had inflated his total assets when it served his purposes and deflated them to reduce his real estate taxes.

In an interview published on Monday, Mr Cohen said that Mr Trump’s motives for continuing to deny election results come down to two reasons - his ego and money.