NEW YORK: Former US President Donald Trump has announced to sue his former attorney Michael Cohen for $500 million in damages, alleging that he breached the contract.
Trump, who filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Florida on Wednesday, accuses Cohen of
spreading incorrect information about him and breaching his contractual obligations by making public statements, publishing books, podcast series and other media appearances.
The lawsuit comes amid mounting attacks from Trump allies on Cohen, a main witness in a New York probe into the ex-president.
Last week, a Manhattan prosecutor charged Trump with fraud regarding hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Cohen’s spokesman and lawyer Lanny Davis told the BBC that he was sure the lawsuit against his client would fail.
In the lawsuit, Trump also accuses Cohen of making “inappropriate, self-serving, and malevolent statements about him, his family and his businesses.”
Cohen worked as Trump’s attorney for over a decade. Cohen was also a vice-president at the Trump Organisation, and was often described as Trump’s fixer. But the two had a major falling out after the 2016 general election, as investigators started looking into several of Trump’s aides.
In 2018, Cohen was handed down three years in prison and penalised after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and election campaign finance violations.
Now out of prison, Cohen has become a high-profile critic of Donald Trump, and a frequent guest on news programmes. Sohen has written a book and hosts a podcast, both of which Trump has cited in his lawsuit.
It says Cohen fabricated conversations and wrongly called Trump a “racist” in his 2020 book Disloyal.
Cohen’s lawyer, Davis, said in a statement to the BBC: ” Trump appeared once again to be using and abusing the court system as a form of harassment and intimidation against Michael Cohen.
