The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Michael Cohen’s efforts to appeal a lawsuit against his former boss and president, Donald Trump on Monday. Cohen accused Trump, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other federal officials of sending him back to prison in 2020 as a “retaliation” effort for speaking negatively about his former employer in his memoir and on social media.
“This case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence. That cannot be the law in the country the Founders created when they threw off the yoke of the monarch,” Cohen’s petition to the Supreme Court said.
Cohen based his lawsuit on the 1971 Supreme Court ruling of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, which states “that a violation of one’s Fourth Amendment rights by federal officers can give rise to a federal cause of action for damages for unlawful” to a person’s constitutional rights, according to Cornell Law School.
The former Trump lawyer was serving time after pleading guilty to nine counts in 2018, including lying to Congress. He began his sentence for his federal crimes in May 2019 before being released on furlough and put on house arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While in home confinement, Cohen claims he was approached by probation officers who ordered him to sign an agreement prohibiting him from speaking with the media or posting on social media.
After refusing to agree, Cohen was allegedly sent back to the correctional institution in Otisville, New York, where he said he was put in solitary confinement for 16 days. He was ultimately sent back to home confinement after a federal court judge said his return to the facility happened because Cohen wanted “to exercise his First Amendment rights to publish a book critical of the president and to discuss the book on social media,” per CBS News.
In 2020, U.S. Federal Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein found that the Trump administration violated Cohen’s First Amendment rights. Still, two lower courts dismissed the case, prompting Cohen to ask the Supreme Court to revive it.
President Joe Biden’s administration requested that the Supreme Court reject Cohen’s appeal. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a filing that Congress is a better fit than the courts for handling these kinds of damages:
“In deciding whether a plaintiff may seek a remedy under Bivens, a court must first determine whether the case presents ‘a new Bivens context.’ If it does, ‘a Bivens remedy is unavailable if there are ‘special factors’ indicating that the Judiciary is at least arguably less equipped than Congress to ‘weigh the costs and benefits of allowing a damages action to proceed.’”
“In light of those concerns, courts are ‘at least arguably less equipped than Congress,’ to weigh the costs and benefits of permitting damages actions for decisions about whether an inmate will be placed in prison or home confinement.”
Following the higher court’s decision, Alina Habba, one of Trump’s current attorneys, told Fox News, “Michael Cohen has exhausted every avenue of his pathetic attempt to drag my client into court time and time again. As expected, the Supreme Court has correctly denied Michael Cohen’s petition and he must finally abandon his frivolous and desperate claims.”
The justices did not elaborate on their ruling on Monday, but it came just over two weeks before the presidential election, in which Trump is the Republican presidential nominee.