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Agreement disclosed 3 days before lawsuit by former president's ex-lawyer was to go to trial in NYC
Donald Trump's company and his former longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, have settled a lawsuit over Cohen's claims that he was unfairly stuck with big legal bills after getting entangled in investigations into the former president.
Lawyers for the two sides disclosed the settlement during a video conference with the judge on Friday, three days before Cohen's 2019 lawsuit was slated to go to trial in a state court in New York City. Details of the agreement were not made public.
Cohen said on Friday that the matter "has been resolved in a manner satisfactory to all parties." His lawyer, Lauren Handelsman, said the terms were confidential. Messages seeking comment were left with lawyers for the Trump Organization.
The legal fees lawsuit was one of the more obscure branches of the thicket of legal troubles surrounding Trump and his company. Still, the trial stood to give a platform to Cohen — an ardent Trump loyalist who became an outspoken antagonist — and to put the ex-president's son, Donald Trump Jr., on the witness stand.
Cohen claimed in his lawsuit that the Trump Organization had promised to pay his legal expenses and did so for a time, footing more than $1.7 million US in legal fees.
But, Cohen said, the company reneged after he began co-operating with federal prosecutors in their investigations related to Trump's business dealings in Russia and attempts to silence women with embarrassing stories about his personal life.
Cohen's lawyers at the time stopped representing him after the company stopped paying. His lawsuit said that harmed his ability to respond to the federal investigations.
Donald Trump Jr. was expected to testify
In court papers, the Trump Organization has disputed that it made certain promises and has said it satisfied any obligations it did have. The company has also argued that Cohen's involvement in the federal investigations wasn't an outgrowth of his former job but rather a personal decision to try to reduce his own criminal legal exposure as an indictment loomed.
Jury selection in the case had begun on Monday. Among the prospective jurors, more than half said they had strong opinions about Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Several said their feelings toward him were intense enough that they would not be able to fairly evaluate evidence.
While the former president would not have been a witness in the trial, Donald Trump Jr., who is a leader in the family business, was expected to testify.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to multiple charges, admitting that he lied to Congress, violated campaign finance laws through excessive political contributions, lied to multiple banks to obtain financing and evaded income taxes by failing to report more than $4 million in income.
He was sentenced to three years in prison, although he served nearly two-thirds of it at home, released after the COVID-19 outbreak overwhelmed prisons. He then became a key witness in the New York grand jury proceeding that led to Trump's indictment this spring on charges of falsifying Trump Organization records to protect his 2016 candidacy by suppressing claims he had had extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump denied those encounters and pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. He cast the case as a Democratic district attorney's attempt to blunt his ongoing campaign to return to the White House.
Trump faces other trials
Trump has now sued Cohen, accusing him of violating a company confidentiality agreement, breaching ethical standards for lawyers and maliciously "spreading falsehoods" about Trump.
A Cohen spokesperson, lawyer Lanny Davis, has responded that Trump was abusing the legal system to harass Cohen.
While Friday's settlement resolves the suit over Cohen's legal expenses, a trial is set for October in a business fraud lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James against Trump's company and the businessman-turned-president himself.
Trump heard on recording discussing ‘highly confidential, secret’ documents
A newly released 2021 audio recording appears to capture former U.S. president Donald Trump reading from classified secret documents, which could undercut his recent claims that he had no such documents with him.
Trump also faces:
- A March trial date in the New York hush-money indictment.
- A trial set for May 2024 in Florida in a federal criminal case surrounding his handling of classified documents.
- A second federal civil trial involving writer E. Jean Carroll's claim that he defamed her in denying her sexual assault allegation.
Trump also disclosed this week that the U.S. Justice Department had told him he was a target of an investigation into efforts to unravel his loss in the 2020 presidential election — a notification that could signal forthcoming charges.
Separately, prosecutors in Georgia plan to announce charging decisions within weeks in their inquiry into attempts by Trump and his allies to reverse the vote outcome there.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all of the matters and says prosecutors are ginning up charges to damage his ongoing presidential campaign.
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Credit belongs to : www.cbc.ca
