The Department of Justice has discussed using former attorney Michael Cohen – who has seemingly come crawling back – as a witness to build new criminal cases against President Donald Trump's legal adversaries, according to a new report.
Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng, who has a personal history with Cohen, the president's longtime personal attorney and fixer, reported that Trump administration officials are hoping to leverage his testimony to bring criminal prosecutions against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – both of whom successfully battled Trump in court.
"Bragg’s case, of course, is the reason Trump became America’s first felon president, a label Trump bitterly resents," Suebsaeng wrote.
That's why the president wants revenge against them both, Suebsaeng said, and he's apparently dangling a pardon to Cohen as leverage for his testimony.
"Cohen had previously posted on Substack that he felt 'pressured and coerced' to be those prosecutors’ star witness against Trump, though Cohen has been publicly very coy about claiming whether he was 'coerced' to give false testimony," Suebsaeng wrote.
DOJ does have the authority to charge prosecutors with coercing false testimony, although that almost never happens, but Trump officials are considering it now.
"Well before Cohen and Trump’s radio reconciliation, several sources with direct knowledge of the matter – in and close to the Justice Department – started telling me that some appointees in the Trump White House and DOJ had discussed the prospect of using Cohen as a witness if the feds criminally charge James and Bragg for, among other things, supposed civil rights violations against Trump," Suebsaeng wrote.
Trump allies have been discussing the matter since at least 2023, when policy advisers and lawyers close to Trump began drawing up strategies for a potential second term.
However, any such prosecution would face steep obstacles, and even advisers who favor charging James and Bragg acknowledge the cases would be difficult to win.
"For starters, the second Trump administration has acted in such a bumbling way in its efforts to vindictively and selectively prosecute and imprison the president’s political foes that some of those attempted prosecutions – including of Letitia James – are getting torn apart in the courts," Suebsaeng wrote. "Moreover, several senior Trump advisers simply do not trust Cohen and view him as having negative credibility as a witness or an ally."
Attorney General Todd Blanche, in particular, denounced Cohen as a liar and unreliable witness while defending Trump against claims he made in court cases involving James and Bragg, but Suebsaeng noted that the president doesn't seem to care about winning and simply enjoys tormenting them and forcing them to pay legal fees fighting the charges.
"We’ll see what happens," the reporter concluded. "But keep an eye out for moves Team Trump makes regarding the president’s former henchman."