Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to Donald Trump, is seeking a pardon from President Joe Biden following his three-year prison sentence.
In a post made to X, formerly Twitter, Cohen stated on Friday his intention to seek a pardon from Biden after announcing the request to his Patreon page, Political Beatdown After Show. In addition to seeking a pardon, Cohen has stated he has obtained letters of support from members of Congress and constitutional scholars in order to help.
The request comes after Cohen completed his three-year prison sentence in 2021 for pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations, lying to Congress and other charges in connection to alleged hush money payments made by Trump's 2016 presidential campaign―all of which, he said, was done for the former president.
This is not the first time Cohen's case and a pardon has been discussed. Cohen was previously left out of a pardon as Trump's former campaign advisers Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law, all received ones in 2020.
Newsweek reached out to Cohen's representatives for comment via email.
Since announcing his request for a pardon, he garnered some support from X users.
"I hope you do get a pardon from President Biden! You definitely deserve it. Never saw anyone being so repentant and so willing to be honest and do the right thing. I think you have really proved yourself! Hope you will also be able to get your law license back," X user Nelly posted under Cohen's post.
While Cohen continues to advocate for himself to be pardoned, others are still apprehensive about his role in taking accountability.
"You provide valuable insight into understanding Donald Trump & his schemes. But you committed some big crimes, many times. You were an accomplice to much hurt. You don't deserve to be absolved of your sins. Focus on reform," another X user wrote.
When it comes to a pardon, Jamal Greene, the Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, whose research and writing focuses on the Supreme Court and constitutional law, wrote in a 2017 article on the school's website, "Use of the pardon to excuse violations of the constitutional rights of others is problematic, but I would hesitate to read that limitation into the pardon power itself. A pardon is, in its nature, in tension with the rule of law. I don't see a principled way to distinguish among various substantive underlying offenses."
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Natalie Venegas is a Weekend Reporter at Newsweek based in New York. Her focus is reporting on education, social justice ... Read more
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