Trump's Pardon Application and Legal Battles: Former Attorney General's Rapprochement with
-
In the heady days of late 2024, shortly after Donald Trump had won a second presidential election while simultaneously awaiting sentencing for a felony involving a hush-money payment to a porn star, I reached out to Michael Cohen. The president’s former fixer turned primary adversary—and unlikely liberal resistance icon—had been the prosecution’s star witness in the Manhattan criminal trial just months prior. I was startled by his response.
Compare 1 other version
Washington Times CultureIn 2024, Cohen testified in the criminal case against Trump about the payment to Daniels, which prosecutors said was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
-
To be sure, Cohen may have an ulterior motive for this dizzying rapprochement. He told CNN on Thursday that he had submitted a pardon application to the White House and planned to follow up the next day; Trump is currently appealing his felony conviction related to the infamous hush-money payment. “I respect the fact that you recanted everything you said,” Trump told Cohen on the air. “And that’s a big thing that you did.” (While it’s not clear what Cohen has privately said to Trump, he has not retracted the testimony he gave under oath.)
Compare 1 other version
Washington Times CultureBut the split from Cohen was perhaps the most personal. Cohen once boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump and was by Trump’s side during his political rise. After their public breakup, Cohen’s testimony in Trump’s 2024 criminal hush-money trial instead paved the way for Trump’s criminal conviction just as he was trying to make his political comeback.
-
In his tell-all memoir in 2020, “Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump,” Cohen was unsparing, calling Trump an “organized crime don” and “master manipulator.”
Compare 1 other version
Vanity FairWith that out of the way, Trump began to ramble: about Iran, about Venezuela, about how “the rallies are potentially bigger than ever,” about how Kamala Harris “knew less about the border than a child would know.” Cohen barely got a word in, but he slipped into reminiscence easily: “Boss, you remember when I was by your side?” During the decade-long period when Cohen played Trump’s antagonist in a national psychodrama, he looked agitated and haggard, but now, he sounded as if he had stepped back into a prior state of exhilarated comfort that had never quite worn off. In Disloyal, Cohen asks himself about the source of his “starstruck, moth-to-the-flame compulsion to insinuate [himself] with a man so transparently problematic in myriad ways.”
5 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
-
01 NYT Arts Rosie O’Donnell Ends Late Night Stint With a Ditty to ‘Donny Boy’ “It’s kind of weird to think he spent more nights with me this week than Melania,” O’Donnell said of President Trump on her last night guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
-
02 Newsweek President Donald Trump’s unpopularity in Arizona could be a problem for Republican gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs, who is trailing his Democratic rival, Governor Katie Hobbs, in polls ahead of November’s elections.
-
03 Vanity Fair “The American people have spoken and re-elected Donald Trump,” Cohen wrote in an email. “Accordingly, I believe we must all acknowledge and respect the office of the Presidency and dismiss the case forthwith.”
-
04 Washington Times Culture Pop singer Ariana Grande criticized President Trump on Thursday after his administration used her 2024 song “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” in a TikTok video promoting anti-transgender views.
-
05 Fox News Lifestyle First lady Melania Trump, Roger Penske, chairman of the Penske Corporation, Doug Boles, president of IndyCar, and Fox Sports CEO and executive producer Eric Shanks announce a $2 million Fox Corporation, IndyCar partnership for a scholarship initiative for foster children for Fostering the Future.
Fact Corroboration
Which sources independently confirm the same facts. Hover a claim to see its sources, or a source to see what it corroborates.
Coverage by Perspective
Source Similarity
Connections show how similarly each outlet covered this story. Thicker lines = more similar framing.
Sources (5)
- newsweek
- washtimes-culture
- fox-lifestyle
- vanityfair
- nyt-arts