Looks like Michael Cohen may be even more broke than we thought
Reports that the Trump campaign paid almost $228,000 to cover Michael Cohen’s legal expenses might be the best news Cohen will get soon. Whether spending money from the campaign on someone that was not part of the campaign is legal isn an entirely separate subject. Looks like he now must spend any savings he has from paying his attorneys on New York back taxes.
According to new reports, Cohen received New York state warrants for more than $185,000 in connection with his taxicab business. The total he owes to New York for his various taxicab companies now exceeds $282,000. While he may have fixed Donald J. Trump’s problems for the last decade or so, it appears that he has not been as fortunate in dealing with his own business problems. In late April, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Cohen owed more than $103,000 on his 22 taxicab medallions that he owns in Chicago. Those are fines that are owed to the City of Chicago and the city can impose additional fines of up to $2,000 per day for each taxicab that is in violation status. Add to that the $130,000 home equity loan he took out to pay Stormy Daniels according to him and just these problems add up to more than $500,000.
Cohen has denied that he owes the money, but rather it is owed by Evgeny “Gene” Friedman, who is nicknamed “The Taxi King” and who will stand trial in June for pocketing per ride fees. With the ongoing investigation into Cohen taking place in the Southern District of New York, one wonders if Cohen will be able to access his various assets, wherever and whatever they might be.
Given the need for Cohen to obtain a home equity loan to pay the amount in the Stormy Daniels settlement, one wonders if Cohen is “so broke” (the chant that Michelle Wolf used at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner regarding Donald Trump) that he will be more pressured than ever to consider his and his family’s bleak future and decide to flip.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.