Judge: Cohen may have committed perjury, refuses to end his probation

NEW YORK — A federal judge suggested Wednesday that Michael Cohen committed perjury under oath, giving fresh support to former President Donald Trump’s claims that his onetime personal lawyer — poised to be a star prosecution witness at his upcoming New York criminal trial — is an untrustworthy liar.

Judge Jesse M. Furman in Manhattan questioned Cohen’s truthfulness in a written order denying his request for early release from the court supervision that followed his threeyear prison sentence for crimes including tax evasion, lying to banks and Congress and violating campaign finance laws.

Furman cited Cohen’s testimony at Trump’s civil fraud trial in a Manhattan state court last October. On the witness stand, Cohen insisted he wasn’t actually guilty of tax evasion even though he pleaded guilty to the charge in 2018. Asked if he had lied to the federal judge who accepted his guilty plea, Cohen said, “Yes.”

“Cohen repeatedly and unambiguously testified at the state court trial that he was not guilty of tax evasion and that he had lied under oath” to the late Judge William H. Pauley III, Furman wrote.

He said Cohen’s testimony “gives rise to two possibilities: one, Cohen committed perjury when he pleaded guilty before Judge Pauley or, two, Cohen committed perjury in his October 2023 testimony.”

“At a minimum, Cohen’s ongoing and escalating efforts to walk away from his prior acceptance of responsibility for his crimes are manifest evidence of the ongoing need for specific deterrence,” Furman wrote as he explained why he left in place the court supervision that is scheduled to end later this year.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly attacked Cohen’s credibility, saying he “committed MASSIVE PERJURY” in the civil fraud case “at a level seldom seen on the stand before.”

Trump, who was accused in the case of lying about his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals, reacted after Cohen backtracked from initial testimony that Trump had directed him to boost the value of assets to “whatever number Trump told us to.”

Pressed on crossexamination, Cohen conceded Trump never told him to inflate the numbers — though Cohen later said Trump signaled it indirectly, and “we understood what he wanted.”

Trump lost the case and was ordered last month to pay a $454 million penalty.

In response to Furman’s findings, Cohen sent reporters a statement from his lawyer, E. Danya Perry, in which she said she takes exception to the judge’s conclusion, calling it “factually inaccurate and legally incorrect.”

“Judge Furman did not have a front seat to the testimony at the lengthy trial,” she said. Perry added that the trial judge ultimately stated that Cohen “told the truth.”

“And Judge Furman ignores that Mr. Cohen has never disputed the underlying facts of his conduct, and also what many of Judge Furman’s own colleagues on the bench have long noted: that defendants often feel compelled to agree to coercive plea deals under severe pressure,” she said. “That is exactly what happened to Mr. Cohen.”

Trump lawyer Alina Habba said Furman “confirmed what we already know: that Michael Cohen committed perjury and should be prosecuted.