Trump sues former attorney Cohen for $500m: report
Richard Luscombe
Donald Trump slapped his former lawyer Michael Cohen with a $500m lawsuit on Wednesday, according to Fox News.
Cohen is, of course, Trump’s one-time fixer, notorious for making the $130,000 pay-off to adult movie star Stormy Daniels that led to the ex-president’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
According to Fox, Trump’s legal team filed a 30-page federal lawsuit in the US southern district court in Florida earlier today, claiming that Cohen breached of his attorney-client relationship and unjustly enriched himself, among other allegations.
“This is an action arising from [Cohen’s] multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion and breaches of contract by virtue of [Cohen’s] past service as [Trump’s] employee and attorney,” the lawsuit states, per the Fox report.
The lawsuit, the network said, details Cohen’s “myriad of public statements, including the publication of two books, a podcast series, and innumerable mainstream media appearances,” while ignoring “cease and desist” orders.
It claims Cohen has, in recent months, “increased the frequency and hostility of the illicit acts” and “appears to have become emboldened and repeatedly continues to make wrongful and false statements” about Trump through various platforms.
Cohen has become one of Trump’s sharpest critics since being released from a prison term in 2020 for crimes including tax evasion, lying to Congress and facilitating illegal payments to silence both Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.
He wrote a memoir, entitled Disloyal, later that year chronicling his time as Trump’s henchman, and has become a regular analyst on cable TV channels on the former president’s legal perils.
Trump has always denied the affairs, or making payments to the women.
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Here’s a look back at what else happened today:
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Donald Trump said he’ll “never drop out” of the 2024 presidential race, even if convicted of a crime.
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Rupert Murdoch could be on the witness stand as soon as Monday, as Dominion Voting System’s defamation complaint against Fox News heads to trial.
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Republican senator Tim Scott inched closer to an all-out presidential run by announcing an exploratory committee.
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The new Secret Service director downplayed concerns about politicization of the agency raised by the January 6 investigation in a rare interview.
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Trump is suing his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for $500mn, alleging he unjustly enriched himself and breached attorney-client privilege. You may remember Cohen as being the vehicle for the former president’s hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, which is at the center of the indictment filed by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg against him.
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Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch could as soon as Monday appear on the witness stand when the trial of Dominion Voting Systems’s defamation case against the conservative media network begins, Bloomberg News reports.
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The trial, in which the election systems company is asking for $1.6bn in compensation from Fox for allegedly harming its reputation in the aftermath of the 2020 election, begins in Delaware on Thursday. Opening arguments are set to start on Monday, and Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, say Murdoch could appear on that day or Tuesday as the second witness called.
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Following Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, his supporters accused Dominion of rigging the vote in favor of Joe Biden though its voting equipment, which is used by municipalities nationwide. Dominion says Fox amplified these claims repeatedly, even though they knew the network’s employees knew were false. Here’s the latest on the case:
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