President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, is suing the Trump Organization over legal costs of $1.9 million it allegedly refused to pay after Cohen began cooperating with federal prosecutors.
The lawsuit claims that the organization failed to fulfill its contractual obligations to pay the lawyer for any legal fees or related costs he had incurred while working for the Trump Organization. Cohen is further seeking reimbursement for an additional $1.9 million he was ordered to pay in fines, forfeiture and restitution after pleading guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and lying to Congress, The New York Times reports.
The Trump Organization said through a lawyer that it didn’t owe Cohen anything and that his suit was “a desperate money grab by a desperate convicted felon.”
Cohen’s lawsuit, nonetheless, says he had entered a contract with the Trump Organization to have his legal fees arising from investigations being conducted by Congress and by the special counsel paid by the organization led by the President’s sons.
The agreement was made in July 2017, about the same time when Cohen’s work for Trump first became of interest to investigators.
Back then, the lawsuit alleges, the Trump Organization agreed to pay Cohen’s legal costs and initially honored the deal. However, after he began cooperating with prosecutors in June 2018, the Trump Organization abruptly stopped paying his lawyers.
In the suit, Cohen’s lawyers list 11 separate matters in which he had continued to incur legal costs after the Trump Organization stopped paying them, including his hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and multiple House and Senate hearings and the special counsel’s probe.
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