President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen isn’t seeking a pardon from Trump after he pleaded guilty to tax fraud and a campaign finance violation, and wouldn’t accept one if it were offered, according to his lawyer, Lanny Davis.
“Not only is he not hoping for it, he would not accept a pardon. He considers a pardon from somebody who has acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept,” Davis said on NBC.
“He’s turned his life from what he did for Donald Trump — much of which he now regrets and would love to do redos,” Davis added.
[Opinion: Cohen’s plea could land Trump in the witness chair]
“He’s [Cohen] turned his life from what he did for Donald Trump, much of which he now regrets…but he decided, fundamentally, that his family and his country were his priorities.”
Watch Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis’ full interview with @savannahguthrie pic.twitter.com/h4T4Zexc8v
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 22, 2018
Cohen pleaded guilty on Tuesday to five counts of tax evasion from 2012 to 2016, one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution.
[Also read: Paul Manafort found guilty on 8 counts, judge declares mistrial on 10 others]
Davis announced Wednesday he is raising money from the public so that Cohen can speak out against his former boss. As of Wednesday morning, the GoFundMe page for Cohen was seeking $500,000, and had raised about $13,000.
“Right now, Michael Cohen needs help from the American people to tell the truth and we’ve set up a website. MichaelCohenTruthFund.com,” Davis said about the Go Fund Me page.
Davis said that while Cohen once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, he decided to act against the president after Trump’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin this summer.
“He certainly found Donald Trump unsuitable to hold the office after Helsinki,” Davis said. “He worried about the future of our country with somebody who was aligning himself with Mr. Putin and denying what his entire intelligence community — his own appointees have said is an indisputable fact that Putin interfered with our presidential election on behalf of President Trump and he still denies that.”
“That’s the kind of thing that caused Michael Cohen to change his mind and to dedicate himself to telling the truth to the American people,” he added.
