Trump blames New York prosecutors for Cohen’s role in hush money trial

President Trump blamed New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) for pressuring his former fixer Michael Cohen to testify against him in the 2024 hush money trial.

“They threatened you with jail. They threatened you with everything if you didn’t go against Trump,” the president told Cohen in an interview on WABC that aired on Sunday. “And you took it back. I wouldn’t even be talking to you right now if you didn’t, to be honest.”

The ex-attorney testified during the president’s New York hush money criminal trial, and a jury later convicted Trump — who was in the midst of his third presidential campaign — on 34 counts of falsifying business records to keep his alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels quiet ahead of the 2016 election.

Cohen previously served two-plus years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to eight criminal counts connected to the payment scheme.

After he was sentenced, the president’s former personal lawyer sued the Trump Organization to cover his financial penalties and legal fees and kicked off a years-long feud with his former client. But in January, Cohen claimed James and Bragg pushed him to testify against Trump in the hush money case.

“Letitia James and Alvin Bragg may not share the same office, but they share the same playbook,” he wrote in a Substack post .

In the radio interview, Trump said the New York officials “used” his former fixer during the criminal trial.

“What you did was actually a brave thing, because you said what they did was wrong,” the president remarked. “You agreed that your testimony, they forced you to say things that you didn’t want to say.”

The president has appealed the conviction , leaning into the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling . The case remains entangled in legal battles.