JUST IN: Michael Cohen to Be Released From Prison Friday

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According to multiple reports, President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen is set to be released from prison on Friday after a judge ruled he was sent back to prison as retaliation for his planned tell-all book.

CNBC reported that Judge Alvin Hellerstein “found that Cohen was sent back to prison on July 10 in retaliation for failing to agree a day earlier to not to publish a book about Trump as one of multiple conditions for serving the remainder of his three-year prison term on home confinement.”

According to Law & Crime, Hellerstein said, “The purpose of transferring Mr Cohen to jail was retaliatory because of his desire to exercise his First Amendment rights,” after he was asked to sign an agreement which would have forbidden him any contact with the media.

Cohen’s lawyers had argued that he “is currently imprisoned in solitary confinement because he is drafting a book manuscript that is critical of the President of the United States — and because he recently made public that he intends to publish this book shortly before the upcoming election.”

This story is developing.