President Trump’s lawyers Wednesday demanded the release of all communications between Michael Cohen and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office in response to a “revelatory” Substack post the ex-fixer made where he claimed he was “pressured and coerced” to testify against Trump.
The 25-page filing comes about a month before Trump’s team is due to file a brief with the New York State Court of Appeals in response to James’ request for the half-billion-dollar civil fraud penalty against the president – which was thrown out last August – to be reinstated.
The president’s legal team called for an order requiring the production of “all records of all communications between Michael D. Cohen” and the Democratic AG and her staff, including interview transcripts, notes, emails, letters and recordings.
The attorneys noted that Cohen’s testimony “is at the heart of the NYAG’s case” and “prompted” James’ office to launch the “politically charged” investigation of Trump, his family and their businesses,
The defendants further demanded an order forcing James to confirm that the New York Attorney General’s Office “has taken necessary steps to preserve all Cohen Records until the conclusion” of litigation related to the civil fraud case.
Cohen, in a bombshell Jan. 16 Substack post, accused James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of forcing him to testify against Trump in their civil fraud and “hush money” cases against the now-sitting president.
“I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking,” Cohen wrote. “Letitia James and Alvin Bragg may not share the same office or political calendar, but they share the same playbook.”
“From the time I first began meeting with lawyers from the Manhattan DA’s Office and the New York Attorney General’s Office in connection with their investigations of President Trump, and through the trials themselves, I felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump,” he added.
Cohen testified during Trump’s civil fraud trial that he worked with ex-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg to inflate the value of Trump’s assets on financial filings.
In his Substack post, Cohen further alleged that the Empire State attorney general’s team “made clear that the testimony they wanted from me was testimony [that] would go after President Trump.”
Trump’s lawyers argued Cohen’s communications with prosecutors “would have been vital for Defendants to use in crossexamining” him at trial, but James’ office “never produced any of the Cohen Records concerning its meetings with Cohen about President Trump and his businesses, despite Defendants’ documented demands that the NYAG do so.”
Since the publication of Cohen’s Substack article, Trump’s lawyers have contacted James’ office to “demand production of all Cohen Records,” the filing states, but they haven’t received any.
“In emails and a meet-and-confer, the NYAG has taken the untenable position that (i) the NYAG ‘doesn’t know’ whether such Cohen Records exist (i.e., it has no idea whether it has records of its communications with its key witness); (ii) the NYAG will not even take a short amount of time to determine whether it possesses any Cohen Records, apparently because, in the NYAG’s mistaken view, discovery is over,” Trump’s lawyers revealed.
The defendants also expressed concern that James has been “unwilling to take any steps to confirm whether such Cohen Records are being preserved” or are in danger of being “automatically deleted and purged.”
“In sum, the NYAG is blocking any discovery into, and possibly even preservation of, evidence of the ‘pressured and coerced’ testimony that it used to convince the trial court to enter a wrongful judgment against Defendants.”
James’ office wants the New York State Court of Appeals to reverse the mid-level Appellate Division’s decision that the $464 million judgment — which grew to more than $500 million with interest — was an “excessive” fine barred by the US Constitution.
Her office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
