Michael Cohen has failed in his attempt to sue Donald Trump for trying to silence him by locking him up in solitary confinement.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the disbarred attorney’s civil lawsuit claiming the former president violated his human rights.
Trump’s former personal lawyer and “fixer” was serving a three-year prison sentence after being convicted in connection with a hush-money scandal where he worked as a go-between to bury stories potentially harmful to his boss in the tabloids when he was allowed out on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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While on furlough, he posted messages online relating to his upcoming book about working with Trump.
As a result, he said he was forced back behind bars because he refused to sign a form barring him from talking to the media or posting on social media.
Cohen said he was put in solitary confinement for 16 days until a judge ordered his release, finding that officials had prevented his free speech.
The judge ruled he’d been imprisoned in retaliation for acting “to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the president and to discuss the book on social media.”
In December 2021, the former fixer then sued Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and prison officials, alleging breaches of the First, Fourth, and Eighth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
He argued that his case “represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence. The possibility that the federal government has the power to retaliate against critics with imprisonment, without any consequence for or check against the officials engaged in such retaliation, is a chilling prospect.”
His lawyers added: “This court should not turn its eyes away from this profound breach of the contract between a government of limited powers and a free citizenry.”
However, the Supreme Court justices ruled on Monday to leave in place a lower court decision that Cohen could not pursue his case against Trump.
