President Donald Trump stated in an interview clip released Thursday that Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney, was "forced" by the government to testify against him during a 2024 criminal trial. In the recorded segment, Trump told Cohen that the government had been "weaponized" against them both and praised Cohen for telling his story. The full conversation is scheduled to air Sunday on Cohen’s WABC radio show.
The exchange follows a long-standing public dispute between the two men. The friction began in 2018 when Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to eight criminal counts involving a payment scheme to silence women who alleged they had affairs with Trump. Cohen subsequently served as a key witness in the 2024 New York trial where Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to payments made to adult film performer Stormy Daniels.
Cohen has recently aligned himself with Trump’s characterization of the legal proceedings. In a Substack post earlier this year, Cohen claimed he felt "compelled and coerced" by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to provide testimony. On Thursday, Cohen told CNN’s Jake Tapper that his relationship with the president has been "resuscitated" and that he believes there is mutual forgiveness between them.
For a person in Cohen's position, a pardon could restore certain federal rights or clear a criminal record that has defined his public life since 2018. The concrete day-to-day change for the public would be a shift in the legal and political relationship between a president and a former witness whose testimony led to that president's conviction. Cohen stated he has not yet received a notice that the White House has received his application, which usually involves a review process by the Department of Justice or the White House Counsel's office, though specific agency names for the current administration's process were not reported.
The knock-on effects include potential changes to the public perception of the 2024 "hush money" trial, as the primary witness and the defendant are now publicly agreeing that the prosecution was a result of government "weaponization." This sets a precedent for how a sitting president might use executive clemency powers for individuals who provided testimony against them in past criminal proceedings. What happens next depends on the White House response to the pardon request; Cohen said he intends to follow up on the status of his application on Friday.