Michael Cohen says NY prosecutors 'pressured and coerced' him into anti-Trump testimony
President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, said Friday that prosecutors in both the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office "pressured and coerced" him into delivering testimony tailored to securing convictions against Trump.
Cohen, who was a key prosecution witness in two New York cases against Trump, accused New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of pursuing evidence aimed at Trump, saying prosecutors were uninterested in testimony that didn’t fit their narrative.
"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 wrote in a post on Substack.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Office of the New York State Attorney General and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office for comment.
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Cohen, who was Trump's personal lawyer for many years, said he was writing as a federal appeals court considers the president's request to move his hush money case to federal court for further review.
The former Trump fixer testified in a civil case brought by James' office in 2023, where Trump was found liable for fraudulently inflating his assets to obtain favorable loan terms. He also took the stand in Bragg's case in 2024, where Trump was ultimately found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Cohen accused both James and Bragg of using their high-profile cases to elevate their careers, claiming they sought credit as officials who "took down Trump."
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"They blurred the line between justice and politics; and in that blur, the credibility of both suffered," he wrote.
Cohen said that both before and during the trials, prosecutors made it clear they were only interested in testimony from him that would convict Trump.
"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," he said.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to several crimes, including tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He described cooperating with authorities while incarcerated, saying he sought sentence relief and felt compelled to provide testimony fitting prosecutors’ narratives with the hope that his sentence would be reduced.
"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," Cohen said, while noting that he was not writing in defense of Trump.