Former US president’s longtime personal lawyer was sentenced in 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Cohen, who was former president Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer until his 2018 arrest, said Monday that his three-year prison sentence — mostly spent in home confinement — was over, as he took another swipe at his former boss and vowed to continue cooperating with law enforcement probes.
A smiling Cohen emerged from Manhattan federal court after signing documents and speaking with authorities about his upcoming three-year term of supervised release.
“I feel great today. It’s been long overdue,” Cohen said to a collection of camera crews alerted to his presence by a tweet he had sent Sunday.
Cohen was sentenced to prison in December 2018, after pleading guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress, among other crimes. In all, he spent about 13 and a half months behind prison walls and a year and a half in home confinement. His time was further reduced through good behavior.
The campaign finance charges came after he helped arrange payouts during the 2016 presidential race to keep the porn actor Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal from making public claims of extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
Cohen implicated Trump at the time in the campaign finance charges, as he did again on Monday, when he said that his release from home confinement “in no way negates the actions I took at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump.”
He said he was “cognizant of my responsibilities” and “will not cease my commitment to law enforcement.”
Canada currently operates a training mission in Ukraine that is set to run until the end of March 2022.
Danilov said he’s confident Canada will renew its mission and is hopeful co-operation between the countries will be enhanced.