By The American Tribune | Created at 2026-09-06 10:20:50 | Updated at 2026-09-06 12:34:58
2 hours ago
President Donald Trump said Friday that his former personal attorney Michael Cohen had “fully RECANTED” his testimony in the two New York cases that made Cohen one of the most important witnesses against him. Trump said Cohen had been “pressured” and “coerced” to say things that were not true, and he accused New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of abusing their offices to target him. Cohen has separately accused both prosecutors’ offices of pressuring him, though he has stopped short of clearly saying his sworn trial testimony was false.
The explosive claim came in a September 4th Truth Social post after months of increasingly friendly exchanges between Trump and Cohen, whose relationship collapsed years ago after Cohen became a cooperating witness and fierce Trump critic. Cohen testified in James’ civil fraud case and later served as a key prosecution witness in Bragg’s 2024 criminal case involving business records connected to the Stormy Daniels incident. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in the Manhattan case and received an unconditional discharge in January 2025 while continuing to challenge the conviction.
“I am pleased to report that Michael Cohen, the Prosecution’s Star Witness and, in actuality, only Witness in the New York State Attorney General and Manhattan DA Witch Hunt Cases brought against me, has just fully RECANTED his testimony,” Trump wrote. He continued, “He was ‘pressured’ and ‘coerced’ to say things that were not true.” Trump thanked his former attorney for what he described as the “Wisdom and Courage to step forward and do the right thing.”
ECIKS reportedthat while Cohen has indeed accused the two New York prosecutors’ offices of coercion, when asked in February whether that meant his testimony was untruthful, Cohen rejected that interpretation. He said his feeling of being pressured should not suggest that the information he gave was anything other than “truthful and accurate.”
Cohen first made the coercion allegation publicly in a January 16th Substack post titled “When Politics Blind Justice.” He wrote that from his first meetings with lawyers from Bragg’s office and James’ office through the trials themselves, he “felt pressured and coerced” to provide information and testimony that would help prosecutors build their cases against Trump. Cohen also accused prosecutors of being interested in testimony that advanced their theory of the case and said he encountered leading questions when his answers did not support points they were trying to establish.
Trump nevertheless treated Cohen’s statements as a wholesale repudiation of the New York prosecutions. “Now we are asking that any remnant of those Politically Weaponized Cases against me be immediately terminated and dismissed,” he wrote. Trump added, “Their Star Witness said everything they did was WRONG and UNLAWFUL!” before accusing James and Bragg of breaking the law in an effort to prevent him from returning to the White House.
The dispute over whether Cohen has actually recanted became even more pronounced after Trump and Cohen publicly reconciled this summer. During an August radio interview, Trump told Cohen that he respected him for having “recanted everything you said.” But when CNN’s Jake Tapper later asked Cohen directly whether he was retracting his prior sworn statements, Cohen declined to revisit them and answered, “What I said was said and that’s where I stand with it.”
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