Michael Cohen Says Latest Imprisonment Is Because of Tell-All Trump Book, Sues AG Barr for His Release
Michael Cohen has filed a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr in which he says the reason he was taken back into custody earlier this month was because of the book he is writing about President Donald Trump.
Cohen was released on furlough from FCI Otisville in May and was scheduled to be transitioned to home confinement. But Cohen said on July 9, U.S. Probation Officers presented him with a new condition of his release: “he had to agree to a complete bar on speaking to or through any media of any sort, including via a book.”
In the lawsuit, Cohen said his attorneys sought to negotiate the terms of that demand but he was taken into custody anyway and remanded back to FCI Otisville, where he remains in solitary confinement.
*Also Read:* Michael Cohen Taken Back Into Custody After Refusing Terms of Home Confinement
“He is being held in retaliation for his protected speech, including drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President–and recently making public his intention to publish that book soon, shortly before the upcoming election,” the lawsuit said.
Michael Cohen is suing Barr, the head of the Bureau of Prisons and the warden at Otisville and is seeking his immediate release to home confinement.
When Cohen was taken back into custody on July 9, the Federal Bureau of Prisons told TheWrap, “As a federal inmate, Mr. Cohen remains subject to compliance with BOP policy, which includes being subject to electric monitoring and obtaining pre-approval for media interviews. As a result of his refusal to consent to the terms of the program, he was returned to a BOP facility for service of his sentence.”
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress, tax evasion and campaign finance fraud involving hush-money payments to women who said they had affairs with Donald Trump, who has denied the accusations
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