'Very Unsatisfied': Michael Cohen Reacts To Trump Sentencing In Hush Money Trial
Michael Cohen, an ex-personal attorney and former fixer for Donald Trump who pled guilty and served time in prison for charges tied to a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, said he feels “very unsatisfied” after the president-elect was sentenced without penalty in a historic New York trial.
Cohen told MSNBC’s The Weekend on Saturday that there should’ve been “accountability” or the case should’ve been dismissed.
“I believe that if there’s no accountability, there’s no deterrence. And if there’s no deterrence, no accountability, what’s the point to have the case anyway? So that we can all just turn around and refer to him now as the felon president?” said Cohen.
Friday’s sentencing arrived after a jury convicted Trump last year of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection to the payment made in the final days of his 2016 campaign.
The president-elect would took to his Truth Social platform Friday to vow that he’ll “appeal this Hoax” after he was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, or effectively no punishment.
Cohen declared on MSNBC that “nobody in this country” — whether they’re a Republican, Democrat or independent — should take “solace” in the fact that Trump is a convicted felon when he takes office in just over a week.
Cohen, who was disbarred from practicing law in New York State and has been a fierce Trump critic since being sentenced in 2018, said he’s “never heard” of an unconditional discharge in his “entire life” before adding that he couldn’t find a single case with such a sentence when he searched for one on ChatGPT.
He declared that Trump should’ve been sentenced to a “conditional discharge” and suggested that the president-elect be asked to work in a soup kitchen or to pick up garbage on the side of the West Side Highway in New York City.
“I did six years, three years of incarceration and three years of supervised release without a single second, not a second, not a minute, not an hour off of my sentence and he doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist. So I feel unsatisfied,” Cohen said.
Cohen later declared that Trump, who has complained about being the victim of a two-tiered justice system, has “taught us all” that there are people above the law.
“When you hear, ‘We’re a country of laws without justice’ — yeah, that’s an accurate statement. And worse than that is that the law is not applied equally to all citizens,” he said.
“There are three sets of laws — there’s for you and for me and for the average Joe and Jane, there’s for those that are powerful whether it’s politically powerful or financially super powerful and then, of course, there’s Donald Trump. He stands unique and alone.”
He went on to acknowledge that Trump’s election win was the one way he could’ve avoided incarceration, probation or responsibility despite “everything that was thrown against him.”
“All of this somehow managed to become inconsequential to a plurality of Americans who voted for him based upon three words: gasoline and groceries. That’s an amazing trick,” Cohen said.