Why was Michael Cohen sentenced to three years in prison?

The trial for the Stormy Daniels ‘hush money’ case is well underway, with 34 charges included for former U.S. president Donald Trump, who is now the first former president of the United States to be indicted on criminal charges. Yet to testify is the key witness Michael Cohen, a long-time collaborator and former personal lawyer of Trump for over a decade. He could be crucial for the defense’s case but has been in trouble himself in recent days.

The judge overseeing the trial has urged prosecutors to tell Cohen to stop making public statements about the case before his expected testimony. Todd Blanche, Trump’s defense lawyer, said that the former ‘fixer’ had taken to social media on Wednesday wearing a T-shirt showing Trump behind bars. And talking of prison, Cohen is rather familiar with that himself.

Cohen’s jail time from 2018

During a 2018 interview with The New York Times, Cohen confessed to prepaying Daniels to forestall any accusations against the former president. Trump’s company, according to federal prosecutors who charged Cohen in 2018, then redirected the reimbursement to him for the funds he disbursed to Daniels. Cohen purportedly received around $360,000 plus a $60,000 bonus.

Allegedly, the Trump Organization deceitfully categorized these payments to Daniels and Cohen as “legal services.” Cohen, after admitting to these actions, served three years in prison and has since cooperated with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Trump has labeled him a “rat” – curiously a term often used to describe someone revealing the truth about bad deeds – but disavowed any culpability. News outlets sympathetic to the former president have also said some defamatory statements about Cohen, but faced with lawsuits have had to retract them admitting they were false.

In 2018, Cohen was incarcerated after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws and perjuring himself in Congress. He admitted to acting on Trump’s instructions to make the payments and covering up for him out of loyalty. Cohen was released from prison in 2021.

Reflecting on Trump’s presidency, Cohen remarked to ABC News, “I was working for a man who ultimately became president of the United States, and, yes, there are things that we did that were wrong – for example, the hush-money payment – but I never expected that democracy would be on the line as a direct result of the former president,” referring to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.