Don Jr. to be deposed on Cohen’s bills
Donald Trump Jr. is expected to be deposed about Michael Cohen’s legal bills, a lawyer for the Trump Organization said Tuesday.
Cohen (photo), ex-President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is still seeking to have his old boss cover lawyer fees associated with his decision to cooperate with authorities. Attorneys for Cohen and the Trump Organization squared off in a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing and revealed new details about who in Trump’s inner circle is involved in the case.
The ex-president’s son Eric has already been deposed in the case. The Trump Organization is fighting Cohen’s bid to grill the former president under oath. The elder Trump, attorney Kenneth Caruso said, is outside the jurisdiction of the court because he does not live in New York and has not reassumed his role atop the company since leaving the White House.
Trump Jr. was one of three decision-makers who had authority to pay invoices for Cohen’s legal bills, according to Cohen attorney Hunter Winstead. He is expected to be “made available for deposition,” Winstead added.
The dispute centers on which of Cohen’s many legal controversies the Trump Organization should pay. Cohen argues he has nearly $800,000 in lawyer fees related to congressional probes, special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the New York attorney general’s inquiry into of Trump’s charity. He thinks his former employer should pay for it all.
Caruso argued that Cohen’s testimony before Congress was voluntary.
“He did not have a right to do that on my client’s dime,” Caruso said.
The scope has narrowed since 2019, when Cohen argued Trump should pay a $1.9 million legal bill.
Trump allegedly stopped paying Cohen in June 2018, after the bulldog lawyer revealed he was willing to cooperate with Mueller. Trump called his former right-hand man “a rat.”
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for campaign finance violations, lying to Congress and dodging taxes. He’s completing that sentence on home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic.