Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, dropped state and federal defamation lawsuits against Buzzfeed and the political research firm Fusion GPS over the publication of a dossier compiled by a former British spy that claimed connections between Cohen and Russian government agents, his attorney confirmed Thursday.

“The decision to voluntarily discontinue these cases was a difficult one,” Gerstman Schwartz name attorney David Schwartz said in a statement. “We believe the Defendants defamed my client, and vindicating Mr. Cohen's rights was—and still remains—important. But given the events that have unfolded, and the time, attention, and resources needed to prosecute these matters, we have dismissed the matters, despite their merits.”

Cohen filed the state claims against Buzzfeed and federal claims against Fusion GPS in their respective courts in Manhattan after the news company published the information in the report by Christopher Steele, at the behest of Fusion GPS, shortly after Trump was elected. Cohen claimed he was defamed by claims in Steele's dossier that Cohen was in Prague meeting with a Russian connection in 2016.

Cohen has denied those claims, offering up his passport, absent any Czech stamps, at one point to reporters as evidence of the fact. A recent report by McClatchy, however, cast doubt on Cohen's claims, reporting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has information that Cohen was, indeed, in the Eastern European city in late-summer 2016.

However, it is likely another development in Cohen's life that weighed more heavily.

Earlier this month, federal agents raided Cohen's homes and offices. Federal prosecutors said in court filings that a criminal investigation into Cohen has begun. Reports indicate Cohen is being looked at in a number of areas of interest, from his business ties to the taxi industry for tax violations, to the payments and hush agreements he helped arrange for Trump ahead of the 2016 election that violated campaign finance laws.

Cohen was in court earlier this week attempting to slow the government's review of the material seized in that raid over attorney-client privilege concerns. Those concerns ultimately resulted in revealing that Fox News host Sean Hannity was also communicating with Cohen, though Hannity downplayed the connection in public statements.

In a statement, Buzzfeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal said Cohen's suit, among a few filed against the company over the dossier's publication, has “never been about the merits of our decision to publish it.”

“If there's one thing Democrats and Republicans agree on today, it's that the dossier was an important part of the government's investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia,” Mittenthal said. “Its interest to the public is, and always has been, obvious. Today's news suggests that Donald Trump's personal lawyer no longer thinks an attack on the free press is worth his time.”

A separate defamation suit against Buzzfeed is currently proceeding in Florida, where Russian tech executive Aleksej Gubarev sued over allegations in the dossier that he was connected to Russia's hacking of Democratic Party targets during the 2016 presidential election.

Additionally, a defamation suit filed on behalf of so-called Russian oligarchs against Buzzfeed over the same underlying material is proceeding in New York County Supreme Court.

In a statement issued by Fusion GPS, the company said it welcomed “but was not surprised” by Cohen's decision, “rather than face a discovery process that would have forced him to defend his reputation and address the allegations of the Steele dossier under penalty of perjury.”

“With his decision, it appears that Mr. Cohen can now focus on his many other legal travails,” the statement said.