Former President Donald Trump is suing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for $500 million, alleging that Cohen’s breaches of ethics have damaged Trump’s reputation.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the Southern District of Florida and claimed “Plaintiff has suffered vast reputational harm as a direct result of Defendant’s breaches.”
The lawsuit noted that Cohen, before turning into an antagonist, lavished extensive praise upon Trump.
Citing the various published reports and media appearances at which Cohen made the comments, the lawsuit noted that Cohen said, “he had ‘been admiring Donald Trump since [] high school.’ Defendant viewed Plaintiff as a ‘wonderful man’ who would be ‘an amazing president,’ and someone Defendant thought ‘the world’ of as ‘a businessman’ and ‘a boss.’”
The lawsuit noted Cohen said Trump was “’smart,’ and ‘the greatest negotiator on the planet,’ and described his own role as the one ‘who protects the President and the family,’ and strongly stated that he ‘would take a bullet’ for Plaintiff.”
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The suit said that Cohen said, “he would ‘never walk away’ because Plaintiff ‘deserve[d]’ Defendant’s ‘loyalty’ because ‘[o]ne man who wants to do so much good with so many detractors against him needs support.’”
Noting that Cohen called Trump “an honorable guy,” the lawsuit said Cohen “never [saw] a situation where Mr. Trump has said something that’s not accurate.”
The lawsuit accused Cohen of “multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract by virtue of Defendant’s past service as Plaintiff’s employee and attorney.”
“Defendant breached his fiduciary duties owed to Plaintiff by virtue of their attorney-client relationship by both revealing Plaintiff’s confidences, and spreading falsehoods about Plaintiff, likely to be embarrassing or detrimental, and partook in other misconduct in violation of New York Rules of Professional Conduct,” the lawsuit said.
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The lawsuit said Cohen “breached the contractual terms of the confidentiality agreement he signed as a condition of employment with Plaintiff by both revealing Plaintiff’s confidences, and spreading falsehoods about Plaintiff with malicious intent and to wholly self-serving ends.”
The lawsuit cited Cohen’s “myriad public statements, including the publication of two books, a podcast series, and innumerable mainstream media appearances” as evidence of his attacks on Trump.
“Defendant has engaged in such wrongful conduct over a period of time and, despite being demanded in writing to cease and desist such unacceptable actions, has instead in recent months increased the frequency and hostility of the illicit acts toward Plaintiff,” the lawsuit said.
“Defendant appears to have become emboldened and repeatedly continues to make wrongful and false statements about Plaintiff through various platforms. Such continuous and escalating improper conduct by Defendant has reached a proverbial crescendo,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit quoted a lengthy conversation between Cohen and Trump attorney Robert Costello in April 2018 when Cohen became the focus of an FBI raid.
The suit quoted Cohen as telling Costello, “I don’t have anything against Donald Trump.”
It also quoted Cohen as telling Costello, “I want you guys to understand — I will do whatever the F I have to do. I will never spend a day in jail.”
Cohen has been considered as a star witness in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s indictment against Trump, which accuses him of falsifying business records in connection with payments made in 2016.
Fox News reported that according to a source it did not name, the complaint “has nothing to do with the Manhattan DA’s lawless and fact-less case and is a totally separate matter.”
