Saturday, 13 November 2021 (YJC)_ A New York judge said that the Trump Organization does not need to pay millions of dollars in legal bills to Trump’s former fixer.
The Trump Organization does not need to pay millions of dollars in legal bills to Trump’s former fixer and attorney Michael Cohen, a New York judge said on Friday.
Cohen sued the Trump Organization for failing to make good on a promise to pay legal costs resulting from his work.
But the judge said Cohen had failed to prove the bills he incurred amid a criminal investigation and other lawsuits related to conduct in his capacity as an employee of the Trump Organization.
The alleged missed reimbursements included $1.9m for legal fees and costs, plus another $1.9m related to Cohen’s criminal case, according to Cohen’s 2019 complaint.
“In a nutshell, Mr Cohen’s legal fees arise out of his (sometimes unlawful) service to Mr Trump personally, to Mr Trump’s campaign, and to the Trump Foundation, but not out of his service to the business of the Trump Organization,” the judge said in the filing.
The Trump Organization was the only defendant.
On Twitter, Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, said the decision was “unfair”. He also linked to a crowdfunding account in support of Cohen.
A longtime employee of the company and Trump, Cohen became a critic of the former president and testified that Trump had directed him to break the law.
In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison for his role in making illegal hush-money payments to women to help Trump’s 2016 election campaign and lying to Congress about a Trump project in Russia.
Cohen has written a memoir and hosts a politics podcast and is close to completing his sentence under home confinement.
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