President Trump’s former longtime fixer Michael Cohen has asked a federal judge to shorten his prison sentence, arguing that Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department are biased against him.
Roger Adler, an attorney for Cohen, alleged the Justice Department has not treated Trump’s former lawyer in good faith, despite his cooperation with federal, state, and local prosecutors in New York.
“This lack of good faith, and disabling conflict of interest, should not be a barrier to recognizing defendant’s substantial assistance to, and cooperation with, the government,” Adler wrote in a court filing. “Attorney General William Barr has moved both publicly, and vigorously, to insure he is aligned with President Trump.”
Cohen’s lawyers argued he is the only one in the president’s orbit serving time in prison for hush money payments to women alleging they had affairs with Trump because of a Justice Department bias meant to “protect” the president. They asked the court to reduce his sentence to one year and one day or home confinement and community service.
Cohen, 53, was sentenced to three years in prison and has been serving out the sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville since May. He pleaded guilty last December to a handful of crimes, including bank fraud, lying to Congress, and illegal campaign contributions.
Barr became attorney general in February after Cohen pleaded guilty.
