Trump considering pardon for former personal lawyer Cohen

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lim Hwa-seop = U.S. President Donald Trump announced on the 9th (local time) that he is considering a plan to pardon Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer with whom he had a falling out during his first term.

According to Politico, an American political media outlet, President Trump met with reporters before departing to attend the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, and said that he would consider pardoning Cohen "if all checks are completed." No further explanation was given.

The relationship between President Trump and Cohen appears to have recovered significantly after President Trump returned to power in January of last year.

President Trump appeared in an interview on the WABC radio program hosted by Cohen on the 20th of last month. This was the first time two people had a public conversation in about eight years.

Cohen called President Trump "boss," as he has in the past, and Trump said prosecutors "used Cohen as a weapon."

At the end of the interview, Cohen said, “It feels great to be together again.”

Ahead of this interview, he told POLITICO that he had met privately with Trump three times and had reconciled, but said he was not sure whether he would ask for a pardon.

Cohen said in a CNN interview on the 20th of last month that he submitted a pardon petition during the Joe Biden administration, but it was rejected, and that he resubmitted a pardon petition to the Trump administration, but has not yet received a reply.

In the past, he was Trump's closest personal lawyer and 'fixer', but in 2018, during Trump's first term in office, he testified against Trump by appearing as a key witness in a criminal trial related to Trump's sexual harassment scandal.

As a result, the relationship between the two deteriorated greatly, and Trump criticized Cohen as a 'traitor' and a 'liar'.

Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of tax evasion, filing false documents, violating campaign finance laws, and making false statements in connection with the work of Trump's family company, The Trump Organization.

In an interview with Politico in April 2024, before the last presidential election, Cohen evaluated the riots at the U.S. Capitol that occurred at the end of Trump's first term as 'grotesque' and said that if Trump is re-elected, "there will never be another election in the United States."

The following month, he appeared at a congressional hearing and made unfavorable remarks against Trump, saying, "When I worked for Trump, I lied and scolded others for him," and evaluated Trump as a racist and a con man.

However, Cohen is claiming that after Trump returned to power, he was 'pressed by the prosecution to testify against President Trump.'

There were also reports that the two met privately at Trump's golf course in New Jersey last year.

There is also speculation that there may have been an understanding from the White House for Cohen to become the host of the conservative WABC radio talk show in July of this year.