Michael Cohen would “selfishly” accept a pardon from the president if he were to issue one, Donald Trump’s former attorney told MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, Catherine Rampell, and Antonia Hylton on Sunday.
Doing so “would make my life a little easier, going back into real estate, dealing with banks and so on,” he noted before adding, “But it’s not going to change my life.”
Cohen also said he had hoped to be pardoned by former President Biden.
“I also am concerned about the 70 million Americans, 70 million that are basically scarlet lettered for the rest of their life as a felon,” he explained. “I did my did my time. I paid all the restitution … I owe no money. Why should I be a felon for life? That’s not the way the system should work.”
In that vein, Cohen also noted those approximately 70 million Americans “are all afflicted by the fact that they have felony convictions.” He added, “They can’t get housing. They can’t get bank accounts. You can’t get credit cards and so on.”
Former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., is also hoping to receive a pardon from Trump. He and Cohen are “working on a policy that we believe would be like from the hand of God, which is what the president’s power that’s granted him in the Constitution,” Cohen explained.
“So you look at the list of people, though, who have received pardons and commutations in recent days and weeks. What do you make of the pattern that’s emerging here, though? Some of them are really bad individuals,” he continued. “Others are also caught up in white collar tax issues. And I agree with the tax issues, the nonviolent. But there are several who, let’s just say, stole over a billion dollars, paid back 100 million dollars and now receive the pardon.”
Cohen also cited Trump’s “first term to the goal of using pardons in large part for a form of criminal justice reform” when the president “was meeting with Van Jones and others and, you know, it was in part a way for him to actually reach out to black and Latino voters.”
“That does not seem to be his focus this time around,” he concluded.
Watch the interview with Michael Cohen in the video above.
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