WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from Michael Cohen, who wanted to hold his former boss ex-president Donald Trump liable for a jailing he said was retaliation for writing a tell-all memoir.
The justices did not detail their reasoning in the brief, routine order released just over two weeks before Election Day when Trump is running for another term.
Cohen had asked the high court to revive a lawsuit tossed out by lower courts. Those judges found the law doesn’t generally allow people to seek damages over claims they were jailed for criticizing a president, and that the situation had been dealt with when Cohen was released from custody.
Cohen’s attorney, Jon-Michael Dougherty, said the ruling “signals a dangerous moment in American democracy,” and raises questions about free-speech rights.
Trump attorney Alina Habba said the Supreme Court had correctly denied Cohen’s petition, and “he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”
Cohen filed the lawsuit after his early release from prison was quickly reversed.
Cohen was serving time after pleading guilty in 2018 to charges connected in part to the payment of hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels to avoid damage to Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
Cohen said Trump had directed the hush money payment, a contention that later became a key part of the New York trial where Trump was convicted this year.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
Cohen got a three-year sentence after pleading guilty, and had served more than a year when he was released in 2020 as authorities worked to contain the coronavirus outbreak in federal prisons.
But he was returned to prison weeks later after authorities claimed he failed to accept certain terms of his release. Cohen said he had asked if a condition forbidding him from speaking with the media and publishing his book could be removed.
He served 16 days in solitary confinement before he was again freed on the orders of a judge who said he’d been jailed in retaliation for his desire to publish a book critical of the president and to discuss it on social media.
Cohen sued Trump and then-Attorney General William Barr, along with various prison and probation officials.
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