Trump’s Criminal Justice Reform Bill Would Help Michael Cohen Get Out of Prison Early
Donald Trump has thrown his support behind a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that could become a rare legislative win for him, but will also help out former Trump lawyer and current Trump-federal-crime-implicator Michael Cohen.
On Thursday morning’s edition of Fox & Friends, Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano noted that under current law, Cohen will have to serve 85 percent of his three-year sentence.
“But, if the criminal justice reform act that the president wants, that Democrats want, that Republicans want, from Cory Booker and Rand Paul passes,” Napolitano noted, “one-third of his time will be removed. And he will be out in a year and nine months.”
The First Step Act, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has finally agreed to bring up for a vote, contains provisions which allow federal inmates to reduce their prison sentences more quickly than current law allows. It increases the number of days prisoners can earn for good behavior, and allows them to accumulate “earned time credits” toward supervised early release.
On Wednesday, Cohen was sentenced to 36 months in prison, and took several hard shots at Trump while he was in court to receive that sentence.
“Recently the president tweeted a statement calling me weak and it was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying,” Cohen said. “It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”
Trump’s implication in hush-money payoffs to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal deepened even further this week with National Enquirer publisher AMI’s admission that the scheme was intended to affect the presidential election.
So if Trump is at all disturbed by the irony that his potential legislative victory will help the man who implicated him in federal crimes, perhaps Trump can take solace in the fact that the First Step Act will also result in reduced prison time for everyone, including former presidents.
Watch the clip above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
