New York court officially disbars Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen officially can’t practice law anymore.
The state Supreme Court in Manhattan disbarred the prison-bound former personal attorney to President Trump on Tuesday, charging he abandoned his oath when he lied to lawmakers.
“Respondent ceased to be an attorney upon his federal conviction of making false statements to the United States Congress,” a five-judge panel on the court wrote in a disbarment decision, referencing Cohen’s guilty plea last year to lying to House and Senate committees about a scuttled Trump Tower development in Moscow.
The eight-page disbarment order categorically recounted the other “serious crimes” Cohen has pleaded guilty to, including tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.
The decision bars Cohen from ever again serving as an attorney in New York, which was the only state he was admitted in. He first obtained his now-rescinded Empire State law license in 1992.
Cohen, 52, is set to start serving a three-year prison sentence on May 6 for the “veritable smorgasbord” of crimes he committed, as a federal Manhattan judge put it at his sentencing in December.
A spokeswoman for Cohen did not return a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.
The disbarment decision came in as Cohen was in Washington, D.C., testifying behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his time as Trump’s personal fixer and legal bulldog.
The confidential Senate testimony will be kept closely under wraps, but Cohen will be grilled publicly by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, and a source familiar with the matter said the ex-Trump fixer will lay out evidence showing his old boss has committed crimes while in office.
In his November guilty plea, Cohen said he lied to Congress about the Moscow deal out of a flawed sense of “loyalty” to Trump. Cohen also directly implicated Trump in the campaign finance crimes, which stem from the 2016 hush payment issued to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with the President over a decade ago.
