Ex-legal fixer Michael Cohen on Friday accused New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of forcing him to testify against his former client, Donald Trump, as part of their civil fraud and “hush money” cases against the now-sitting president.
“I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking,” Cohen wrote in a Substack post. “Letitia James and Alvin Bragg may not share the same office or political calendar, but they share the same playbook.”
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Cohen took to the independent journalists’ platform to reveal his thoughts about participating in the legal proceedings, as Trump seeks to have his appeal to overturn Bragg’s conviction heard by a federal appeals court.
The president’s attorneys are also still seeking to have the $454 million civil fraud judgment against Trump for inflating his real estate empire tossed.
“From the time I first began meeting with lawyers from the Manhattan DA’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office in connection with their investigations of President Trump, and through the trials themselves,” Cohen wrote on his new platform, “I felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump.”
Cohen’s first-person account claimed he hoped by becoming involved in the trials that defined the years before Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 that his cooperation would be looked upon favorably after serving more than one year in federal prison for tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to Congress.
“During my time with prosecutors, both in preparation for and during the trials, it was clear they were interested only in testimony from me that would enable them to convict President Trump,” he noted of Bragg’s case.
“When my testimony was insufficient for a point the prosecution sought to make, prosecutors frequently asked inappropriate leading questions to elicit answers that supported their narrative.”
For the James case, Cohen also alleged that the Empire State attorney general’s team “made clear that the testimony they wanted from me was testimony” that “would go after President Trump.”
He also noted that recent debate over the cases at the appeals-level has not exonerated the president of the conviction and judgment, respectively, but exposed how a “rush” to obtain findings of guilt by prosecutors will result in witnesses being “leaned on.”
“You may reasonably ask why I am speaking out now. The answer is simple. I have witnessed firsthand the damage done when prosecutors pick their target first and then seek evidence to fit a predetermined narrative,” he concluded.
“Justice must be more than effective; it must be credible,” he added. “When politics and prosecution become indistinguishable, public trust erodes.”
