Michael Cohen Reportedly Ending Joint Defense Agreement With Trump

Michael Cohen broke his silence for an extensive sit down with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos that aired Monday morning, and suggested he was breaking with his longtime client President Donald Trump.

Cohen revealed that his new lawyer is Guy Petrillo, who per ABC News is “a highly regarded former federal prosecutor who once led the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan — the very same office currently conducting the criminal investigation of Cohen.”

“Once I understand what charges might be filed against me, if any at all, I will defer to my new counsel, Guy Petrillo, for guidance,” Cohen said.

Stephanopoulos reported that the hiring of Petrillo as Cohen’s lead counsel will mark an end to “a joint defense agreement Cohen shared with the president, which allowed their lawyers to share information and documents with each other.”

“At that point, the legal interests of the president of the United States and his longtime personal attorney could quickly become adversarial,” Stephanopoulos reported. As ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams put it earlier in the show, Trump and Cohen are “no longer in this together.”

The Washington Post‘s Aaron Blake pointed out that Michael Flynn ended his joint agreement with Trump as well… right before he flipped:

Michael Flynn’s lawyers stopped sharing info with Trump’s, right before he flipped. Now Cohen’s doing it. https://t.co/LJzUdVANzg

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) July 2, 2018

Cohen’s messaging to Trump from the interview was clear: he repeatedly stressed that his family and country “have my first loyalty.”

Watch Stephanopoulos discuss his interview about, via ABC News.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Aidan McLaughlin (@aidnmclaughlin) on Twitter

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