Michael Cohen vows to gag himself during Trump trial days after pushing unflattering nickname for ex-president

Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen announced he had voluntarily “gagged” himself ahead of his expected testimony in the historic hush money trial, where a judge imposed a gag order on the former president for attacking Cohen and others.

“Despite not being the gagged defendant, out of respect for Judge Merchan and the prosecutors, I will cease posting anything about Donald on my X…account or on the Mea Culpa Podcast until after my trial testimony,” Mr Cohen tweeted on Wednesday.

“See you all in a month (or more),” he added.

Cohen’s decision comes after much hostile back-and-forth between the former “fixer” and Mr Trump — the latter of whom is barred by a court order from making public statements about potential witnesses or staff of the judge or Manhattan district attorney’s office during the criminal proceeding.

Days before his announcement, Cohen branded Mr Trump as “Von S***zInPantz” on his social media. On his podcasts, before the Manhattan criminal trial began, Cohen remarked on the frequent death threats that he has received since leaving Trump’s orbit — and said they had ramped up ahead of the trial.

Meanwhile, despite a gag order, the hush money defendant has repeatedly bashed Cohen’s credibility, accusing him of “lying”.

“When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial? He got caught lying. Pure lying. And when are they going to look at that,” Mr Trump said outside the Manhattan courthouse on Monday.

The following day, Judge Juan Merchan held a hearing over the Manhattan DA’s office accusations that the defendant violated the gag order at least 10 times over his online posts about Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels, another probable witness.

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