NEW YORK — Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, is suing the president’s eponymous company for more than $1.9 million in legal fees. The Trump Organization refused to pay the fees “only after it became clear that Mr. Cohen would cooperate in ongoing investigations into his work” for the company and its officials, says the complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The Trump Organization agreed around July 2017 to cover Cohen’s legal costs related to investigations by Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the lawsuit.
The company continued to pay legal fees for Cohen through at least May 2018, the month after his office was raided in connection with a probe by the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, the suit says.
But payments dried up around the following month, the suit claims, leaving a still-growing pile of legal costs.
By failing to hold up its end of the deal, “the Trump Organization breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing in the indemnification agreement,” says the suit, a copy of which was published by CNN.
The lawsuit was filed about two months before Cohen is reportedly slated to start his three-year prison sentence for crimes including campaign fianance violations stemming from hush-money payments to women who allegedly had affairs with Trump.
The case is just Cohen’s latest interaction with New York’s courts. The Long Island native — who once ran for City Council and owned several taxi medallions — pleaded guilty to eight felony counts in Manhattan federal court in August. He also reportedly pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in connection with the Mueller probe in November.