A few legal experts are speaking out about the importance of Michael Cohen's lawsuit against former President Donald Trump's administration and Attorney General Bill Barr. According to them, it's among the most important cases dealing with the behavior of the previous White House.
Cohen is alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was told that the only way he'd be released from prison to house arrest during the COVID outbreak was if he signed over his rights. The Justice Department told him that if he gets to go home he can't appear on television or write a tell-all book.
Cohen sued, winning the case with a judge who said, "I find that the purpose of transferring Mr. Cohen from furlough and home confinement to jail is retaliatory, and it’s retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book."
In fact, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein went so far as to say, "I've never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people. How can I take any other inference but that it was retaliatory?"
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While it seems like another petty Trump inner-circle battle, the reality is much more serious, legal experts explained Tuesday.
"What happened to Michael Cohen should concern all of us," explained civil rights attorney Andrew Laufer. "The violations of law committed by the prior administration demonstrates what can occur to any of us if we are targeted for exercising our rights in a manner which offends a corrupt president."
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow made the argument that American presidents might be powerful, but they're not so powerful that they can use the U.S. government to go after their political foes.
"A [POTUS] being a bad guy and then being able to use the Bureau of Prisons and the Justice Department to go pluck his enemies out of their homes, shackle them and throw them in jail without legitimate cause, that is a blaring red siren," Christopher Alberto quoted from Maddow.
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