Former President Donald Trump has filed to dismiss his lawsuit against Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, but plans to revisit his claims at a later time.
“Plaintiff, President Donald J. Trump, by and through undersigned counsel, hereby gives notice that ... he is voluntarily dismissing this action without prejudice,” President Trump’s legal team said Thursday in the court filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
After President Trump’s lawyers filed to dismiss the civil case, Mr. Cohen’s attorney Danya Perry said in a statement that the former president was scheduled for deposition on Monday.
“Rather than be deposed by me on Monday, Donald J. Trump voluntarily dismissed his $500 million lawsuit against our client Michael Cohen,” Ms. Perry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Mr. Cohen was President Trump’s personal attorney from 2006 to 2018, and also once served as a vice president of the Trump Organization.
In 2018, he was convicted after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations linked to hush-money payments, made during President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and another woman alleging affairs with President Trump. Mr. Cohen served part of a three-year prison term—from May 2019 to July 2020—for these charges.
Lawsuit Against Cohen
President Trump’s civil lawsuit against Mr. Cohen had requested a jury trial and sought relief that was “expected to substantially exceed” $500 million in damages.The civil lawsuit accused Mr. Cohen of breaking a confidentiality agreement that he signed as a condition of his employment. He also accused Mr. Cohen of “spreading falsehoods ... with malicious intent” and inflicting “vast reputational harm” by talking publicly about the hush-money payments, which are central to other criminal charges President Trump currently faces in New York.
Mr. Cohen’s conduct after his 12-year attorney-client relationship with President Trump ended in 2018 consisted of “multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract,” as well as “spreading falsehoods” about President Trump that would likely be “embarrassing or detrimental,” the lawsuit alleged.
Trump Plans to Revisit Civil Case
Mr. Cohen had asked the court in May to throw out the lawsuit against him, calling it an “abusive act of pure retaliation and witness intimidation.” He reiterated on Thursday the lawsuit was “nothing more than a retaliatory intimidation tactic.”“Mr. Trump’s cowardly dismissal spells the end of this latest attempt to deter me from providing truthful testimony against him,” Mr. Cohen said in a statement. “My legal team and I now look forward to turning our full attention to holding Mr. Trump accountable for his latest abuse of the legal system. More to come.”
A spokesperson for President Trump said on Thursday that the former president plans to revisit his claims in the future, but is momentarily halting his legal battle with Mr. Cohen because of his run for presidency and ongoing legal cases.
“Given that President Trump is required to sit for deposition in a civil matter on Columbus Day, when he is scheduled to be in the Great State of New Hampshire, and while the President is fighting against the meritless claims that have been lodged against him in New York, Washington D.C., Florida, and Georgia, as well as continuing his winning campaign ... President Trump has decided to temporarily pause his meritorious claims against Michael Cohen,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
President Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
The spokesperson added that once President Trump “has prevailed in dealing with the witch hunts against him, he will continue to pursue his claims against Michael Cohen, who rightfully deserves to, and will be held accountable for his unlawful words and actions just as the Southern District of New York held him accountable for numerous non-Trump related acts and crimes, making Cohen a very ‘proud’ felon.”
