Michael Cohen asks Supreme Court to step into fight over alleged retaliation by Trump

CNN —

Michael Cohen, the one-time fixer for Donald Trump, is asking the Supreme Court to revive his lawsuit against the former president for allegedly retaliating against him for promoting his tell-all book critical of Trump, according to Cohen’s attorney.

Cohen sued Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr and other federal officials in 2021 for alleged retaliation in response to public comments he made about the book. After declining to sign an agreement barring him from speaking with the media, Cohen was taken back into custody and placed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks, court records show.

A US District Court dismissed Cohen’s lawsuit for damages, and the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision in January.

“When Cohen, who was writing a book critical of Trump, did not agree immediately to waive his right to free speech, he was summarily sent back to prison and thrown into solitary confinement,” Cohen told the Supreme Court in an appeal his lawyer said he filed Wednesday. “As it stands, this case represents the principle that presidents and their subordinates can lock away critics of the executive without consequence.”

For the claim to survive, Cohen will have to clear a tall hurdle the Supreme Court has erected that makes it difficult for Americans to sue federal law enforcement officials. A 1971 Supreme Court decision, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, established that people could sue federal agents if their rights were violated. But the court has been unwilling to expand that right beyond a limited number of circumstances.

Two years ago, the high court denied a “Bivens” claim against a Border Patrol agent in Washington state and further limited the