Attorney Lanny Davis said Wednesday that his client Michael Cohen would not accept a pardon from President Donald Trump after Cohen implicated his former boss in a campaign finance violation this week.
Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and longtime fixer, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to eight charges, including bank and tax fraud and a campaign finance violation. Referring to Trump as the "candidate" he was working for at the time, Cohen admitted he arranged payments at the direction of the candidate to two women during the 2016 election campaign to stop them from speaking about affairs they claimed they had with Trump.
"I participated in this conduct, which on my part took place in Manhattan, for the principal purpose of influencing the election," Cohen said in court.
On NBC's "Today," Davis told host Savannah Guthrie that Cohen was uninterested in a pardon from Trump because the president had acted "so corruptly."
"Not only is he not hoping for it, he would not accept a pardon," Davis said. "He considers a pardon from somebody who has acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept."
'He’s [Cohen] turned his life from what he did for Donald Trump, much of which he now regrets…but he decided, fundamentally, that his family and his country were his priorities."
Watch Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis’ full interview with @savannahguthrie pic.twitter.com/h4T4Zexc8v
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 22, 2018
Davis served as special counsel to President Bill Clinton from 1996 to 1998.
Trump tweeted Wednesday that he would not recommend retaining Cohen's services if one is "looking for a good lawyer."
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032247043992023040
Cohen was once one of Trump's most loyal defenders and even said at one point that he would "take a bullet" for Trump.