The Supreme Court denied Michael Cohen’s request to revive a lawsuit alleging former President Donald Trump retaliated against him when the Department of Justice ordered Cohen to return to prison in 2020.
The high court included its denial of Cohen’s petition among a list of orders it released on Monday, effectively ending a yearslong court fight Cohen initiated in December 2021 over his prior imprisonment.
Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, brought the case against Trump and the DOJ, seeking damages over allegations Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr retaliated against him when Cohen sought early release from prison in 2020.
Cohen had been serving out a three-year sentence for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and false statements when, after spending about a year in prison, he became eligible for home confinement because of new COVID-19 policies.
However, according to Cohen, when he applied for home confinement, the Trump DOJ sought terms of his prison release that included atypical speech restrictions.
Cohen, who has built a brand around being critical of and hostile toward Trump, was at the time preparing to release a book titled Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.
Cohen opposed the release stipulations the DOJ presented to him, in part because they would force a delay in his book publishing.
Cohen’s refusal to accept the DOJ’s terms resulted in the Bureau of Prisons abruptly moving him into solitary confinement after he had already been out on home confinement for weeks. Cohen stayed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks in July 2020 before a judge granted Cohen an emergency application for his release.
A judge agreed with Cohen at the time that Trump had retaliated against him, but lower courts have uniformly declined to award Cohen damages over it.
Cohen’s attorneys argued he was traumatized by the experience, writing in the request to the Supreme Court that Cohen “spent roughly twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day alone in a cell with poor ventilation, no air conditioning, and a broken window.”
“Cohen’s health suffered, with his blood pressure becoming dangerously high, resulting in severe headaches, shortness of breath, and anxiety,” Cohen’s attorney wrote. “While in solitary confinement, Cohen was unable to complete his book or make any public statements.”
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The case saw an unusual alliance between Trump and the Biden administration after President Joe Biden’s current solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, agreed with Trump that the Supreme Court should reject Cohen’s petition. Prelogar argued Cohen’s case was a “poor vehicle” for making free speech arguments.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Cohen’s attorney for comment.