‘Compelled and coerced’: Michael Cohen's allegations about anti-Trump testimony has Letitia James on the hot seat

President Donald Trump’s lawyers are demanding the release of all communications between Michael Cohen and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office after Cohen claims he was “compelled and coerced” to testify against Trump.

Cohen, Trump's former attorney who testified against the president twice, published an article on his Substack in mid-January titled "When Politics Blind Justice." In this piece, Cohen described how government lawyers made him the "key witness" in two cases against Trump.

'In sum, the NYAG is blocking any discovery into, and possibly even preservation of, evidence of the "pressured and coerced" testimony that it used to convince the trial court to enter a wrongful judgment against Defendants.'

"From the time I first began meeting with lawyers from the Manhattan DA's Office and the New York Attorney General's Office in connection with their investigations of President Trump, and through the trials themselves, I felt pressured and coerced to only provide information and testimony that would satisfy the government's desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump," Cohen wrote.

He stated that prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office first approached him in 2019. At that time, Cohen was serving a three-year prison sentence, and he "wanted to do whatever" he could to return home to his family and resume his life. Cohen acknowledged that one of the first questions he posed to prosecutors was how he would benefit from cooperating with them.

He was released in September 2020 and permitted to serve out the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.

"After my release, I continued to meet with prosecutors and hoped that, in exchange for my cooperation, my home confinement and later my supervised release sentence would be shortened," Cohen wrote. "During my time with prosecutors, both in preparation for and during the trials, it was clear they were interested only in testimony from me that would enable them to convict President Trump."

He claimed that prosecutors asked "inappropriate leading questions to elicit answers that supported their narrative."

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Alvin Bragg. Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Cohen described a similar experience with Attorney General Letitia James' civil case against Trump.

"Letitia James made it publicly known during her 2018 campaign for attorney general that, if elected, she would go after President Trump," Cohen continued. "Her office made clear that the testimony they wanted from me was testimony that would help them do just that. Again, I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking."

He accused James and Bragg of sharing "the same playbook" and sacrificing their credibility by blurring "the line between justice and politics."

"You may reasonably ask why I am speaking out now. The answer is simple. I have witnessed firsthand the damage done when prosecutors pick their target first and then seek evidence to fit a predetermined narrative," Cohen added.

A mid-level appeals court in August threw out James' $454 million penalty against Trump, which grew to $500 million with interest. James appealed that decision in September.

In Bragg's case, Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts in 2024. However, he received an unconditional discharge, meaning that while the convictions stand, he did not face any punishment. Trump has since filed an appeal to have those convictions removed from his record.

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Letitia James. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Trump's attorneys sent a demand letter to James' office, requesting all records of communications with Cohen, the New York Post reported. It is unclear whether a similar request was made to Bragg's office.

Trump's attorneys argued that Cohen's communications with James' prosecutors "would have been vital for Defendants to use in crossexamining" him during the trial, according to the news outlet. They claimed that her office "never produced any of the Cohen Records concerning its meetings with Cohen about President Trump and his businesses, despite Defendants' documented demands that the NYAG do so."

"In emails and a meet-and-confer, the NYAG has taken the untenable position that (i) the NYAG 'doesn't know' whether such Cohen Records exist (i.e., it has no idea whether it has records of its communications with its key witness); (ii) the NYAG will not even take a short amount of time to determine whether it possesses any Cohen Records, apparently because, in the NYAG's mistaken view, discovery is over," Trump's attorneys wrote, the Post reported.

They expressed concern that these records may be "automatically deleted and purged," as James has been "unwilling to take any steps to confirm whether such Cohen Records are being preserved."

"In sum, the NYAG is blocking any discovery into, and possibly even preservation of, evidence of the 'pressured and coerced' testimony that it used to convince the trial court to enter a wrongful judgment against Defendants," Trump's lawyers added.

James' and Bragg's offices did not respond to a request for comment.

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