Former President Trump went after his former personal attorney Michael Cohen again Tuesday, despite a court order not to discuss witnesses in his criminal hush money trial.
“Michael Cohen is a convicted liar, and he’s got no credibility whatsoever,” Trump told 6ABC Philadelphia in an interview. “He was a lawyer, and you rely on your lawyers. But Michael Cohen was a convicted liar. He was a lawyer for many people, not just me. Then he got in trouble because of things outside of what he did for me.”
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in 2019 for fraud and campaign finance violations related to his role in the Trump hush money scheme and lying to Congress.
The court-imposed gag order in the Manhattan case is intended to prevent Trump from discussing witnesses and other court figures in the media. Judge Juan Merchan already began considering Tuesday if Trump previously broke the order by making social media posts about the case.
Prosecutors alleged Tuesday that he has violated the order 10 times, demanding a $1,000 fine for each violation.
Trump has been very critical of the gag order, claiming it muzzles his free speech rights and impacts his reelection campaign. Appeals courts have upheld similar gag orders in his other legal cases.
“It’s election interference,” he said of the case. “They’re trying to get Joe Biden elected. And what they want to do is see if they can damage his opponent, but it has the opposite effect.”
The former president has repeatedly attacked Cohen, who was at the center of the alleged hush money scheme the trial focuses on. Prosecutors claim Trump falsified business documents while illegally covering up hush money payments made to hide previous affairs, just before the 2016 election.
The trial, the first criminal prosecution of a former U.S. president, is expected to last about six weeks.