Michael Cohen cites ‘absence of presidential leadership’ over coronavirus in effort to move to home confinement

Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, asked a federal judge on Tuesday to allow him to serve his three-year prison sentence in home confinement because of how unsafe prison facilities are during the coronavirus pandemic and criticized his former boss’s handling of the crisis.

Roger Bennet Adler, Cohen’s lawyer, wrote in a letter to Judge William H. Pauley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is “demonstrably incapable of safeguarding and treating B.O.P. inmates who are obliged to live in close quarters and are at an enhanced risk of catching coronavirus.”

“In the absence of Presidential leadership, judges should act thoughtfully and decisively,” Adler wrote. “President Trump apparently does not subscribe to President Harry Truman’s observation ‘The buck stops here.’ ”

Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion, fraud and other charges in part connected to his role making improper payments to two women to buy their silence about alleged affairs they had with Trump.

The Bureau of Prisons announced last week that it would be suspending almost all inmate visits, inmate transfers and staff travel and training for 30 days to mitigate the spread of the virus among prisoners and corrections officers.