President Trump’s longtime personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen has not yet been disbarred in New York, a government office said Tuesday, though the outcome appears inevitable after his multiple felony convictions.
A staff member at the office that handles attorney discipline complaints in Manhattan told the Washington Examiner, “the appellate division informs us he has not yet been disbarred.”
Earlier in the afternoon, the New York Post reported that Cohen had been disbarred and said the news was “announced in documents released Tuesday.”
The initial confusion over Cohen’s disbarment may be explained by the fact that it’s about to happen.
A legal document published by Courthouse News later on Tuesday declares Cohen disbarred, but bears a date of Feb. 28, 2019 — two days in the future. The document indicated a five-attorney panel found Cohen cannot practice law after his guilty plea.
The Post said the documents were released by “Manhattan’s Appellate Division, First Department” and by the local Attorney Grievance Committee, which accepts misconduct complaints.
Grievance Committee staffers were at first puzzled by the report, and at first redirected inquires to the local attorney Committee on Character and Fitness, which discloses disbarment paperwork.
A staff member of the Committee on Character and Fitness said they had no documents to share and could not comment on the report that Cohen had been disbarred. Later, the Grievance Committee staff learned Cohen had not actually been disbarred.
Details about attorney discipline aren’t made public unless an attorney is censured, suspended, or disbarred. But anyone can make a complaint, and felony convictions result in near-automatic disbarment.
Cohen pleaded guilty in August to tax and bank fraud, and to violating campaign finance law by arranging payments to silence women alleging affairs with Trump. In November, he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about efforts to open a Trump Tower in Moscow. For his crimes, he was sentenced to three years in prison, and he’s due to start that sentence in May.
Cohen, visiting Washington for three days of congressional testimony, did not respond to a request for comment, nor did his attorney Lanny Davis.
