Former President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen said on Sunday his former client will “absolutely” go through the formalities of being fingerprinted and photographed if he is arrested in connection to the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into a hush money payment before the 2016 election.
“Do I think that Donald will be fingerprinted, swabbed, mugshotted? Absolutely,” Cohen said in an interview with Alex Witt on MSNBC. “Do I think he’ll be handcuffed? No. And in fact, I don’t want to see Donald Trump handcuffed and paraded through… because I respect the institution of the presidency.”
Cohen has become a sharp critic of Trump since he began cooperating with prosecutors in a Trump-related case that saw the attorney arrested in 2018 and sentenced to three years in prison. He testified for a second time before the Manhattan grand jury this past week.
His latest comments come after the former president said over the weekend that he expects to be arrested in the case on Tuesday, blasting Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg as corrupt. Trump called on his supporters to protest the possible arrest.
Anticipation is building for a possible indictment in the case, which centers around a hush money payment that Cohen admitted that he made to Stormy Daniels during the fall of Trump’s 2016 White House bid to keep her from coming forward about an alleged affair she had with the then-candidate. Trump has denied the affair.
Cohen was jailed for his involvement in the hush money payments to Daniels and others. His prison term, much of which was spent in home confinement, ended in 2021. He was also ordered to pay $1.4 million and forfeited another $500,000.
Despite the prison term and personal cost, Cohen insists his desire to see Trump held accountable is not due to a personal vendetta.
“This is about Donald Trump being held accountable for his own dirty deeds,” Cohen said. “I don’t want to see anyone, and that includes Donald Trump, indicted, prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, because I fundamentally, or the country, fundamentally disagrees with so much of what comes out of his mouth.”
He said Trump being publicly handcuffed would be humiliating for the institution of the presidency and would not reflect well on the U.S. in the eyes of allies and adversaries.
“I don’t want to see Donal handcuffed and paraded through… because it’s an embarrassment to our country,” Cohen said. “Could you imagine our allies and our adversaries, how they could either enjoy this or despise us as a direct result?”