Judge orders Cohen’s release from prison

Michael Cohen sued federal correctional officials and Attorney General William Barr on Monday for sending him back to prison. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer was serving the first year of a three-year sentence for violating campaign finance rules. He and other inmates received furloughs in May to avoid spreading the coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled Thursday that Cohen could return to home confinement.

Why did the judge rule in Cohen’s favor? Probation officers ordered Cohen back to prison on July 9 after he refused to sign a form agreeing not to publish his book about the president. Hellerstein called the decision a “retaliatory” move and a violation of Cohen’s First Amendment rights, saying, “I’ve never seen such a clause in 21 years of being a judge and sentencing people and looking at terms of supervised release.”

Dig deeper: Read Harvest Prude’s analysis of the Supreme Court rulings on Trump’s tax returns.