Michael Cohen arrives at federal court in Manhattan on April 26, 2018. (Photo: David Handschuh/NYLJ)Can Michael Cohen Say No to a Presidential Pardon?
“It is an act of state, not a gift you can say 'no thank you' to,” one leading voice on pardons says.
August 22, 2018 at 02:33 PM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on National Law Journal
Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and friend of President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty Tuesday in a hush-money scheme, would not accept a pardon from Trump if offered, according to Cohen's lawyer Lanny Davis.
But there may be a hitch: it is not clear that the beneficiary of a presidential pardon can refuse.
“Mr. Cohen is not interested in being dirtied by a pardon from such a man,” Davis said in an NPR interview on Wednesday. Davis added that Cohen “has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon—to relieve people of guilt who committed crimes, who are political cronies of his.”
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