AUSTIN (VG) Michael Cohen is Donald Trump’s former lawyer and the crown witness in the indictment against him. Now Trump is suing him – at the same time as he himself is rising in the opinion polls.
The lawsuit against Cohen will be about more than 500 million dollars, or more than five billion kroner.
According to Fox News Trump claims Cohen has breached attorney-client privilegeattorney-client privilegeEthical principles and rules for how a lawyer should act towards a client, and include, among other things, a duty of confidentiality regarding what a client has communicated to his lawyer. “unjustly enriched himself by “spreading falsehoods” about the former president.
The lawsuit comes less than two weeks after the prosecutor’s office in New York issued an indictment against Trump in the case where porn actress Stormy Daniels is said to have been paid hush money.
When the payments took place in 2016, Cohen was Trump’s lawyer. He has cooperated with the prosecution and is considered the most important witness against Trump.
Sentenced to prison
The 30-plus page lawsuit refers to “myriads” of public statements, two published books and a podcast series. Trump’s lawyers here have revealed untruths and breaches of confidentiality.
According to a source close to Trump’s lawyers, the lawsuit has “nothing to do” with the recent indictment, writes Fox News.
Cohen himself was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison in a sentence related to the payments to Stormy Daniels and another woman, as well as extensive tax fraud.
According to United States Department of Justice did the payments take place to influence the 2016 election – that is, to keep Daniels’ story away from voters.
The payments were made shortly before Trump was elected US president in November 2016.
Increases in the opinion polls
The indictment against Trump is historic. Never before has a former US president been indicted for a criminal relationship.
However, there is little indication that the case is harming him in the polls in his third election campaign to become US president.
Everything indicates that the indictment has strengthened the division between supporters and opponents of Trump. 85 percent of his supporters believe the case is a “witch hunt”, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, writes FiveThirtyEight.
In another YouGov poll, the percentage of Republicans who wanted Trump as their presidential candidate had increased from 47 two weeks before the indictment to 57 percent after the indictment.
Trump’s most dangerous challenger, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, had to see his support drop from 39 to 31 percent in the same polls.
The two polls were a hypothetical duel between Trump and DeSantis.
