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Michael Cohen Finally Released From Prison Amid Coronavirus Concerns

   DailyWire.com
Michael Cohen, Presidents Trump's former attorney arrives at his Park Avenue home after being released from federal prison on furlough due to medical concerns related to Covid-19 on May 21, 2020 in New York City. Mr.Cohen was scheduled to be released in November of 2121 from his three year sentence.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen was finally released from federal prison on Thursday, two weeks after he was initially supposed to be released into home confinement over coronavirus concerns.

NPR reported that it is unclear why Cohen was released this week, since his “release was originally granted in April but had been delayed.” Cohen was serving three years in prison after he pleaded guilty in 2018 to a host of campaign finance crimes and lying to Congress.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, Cohen was supposed to be released on May 1, but his adviser and friend Lanny Davis said at the time the release had been delayed without explanation.

“We are disappointed not only that there was this delay but that no explanation has been offered to him or his family as to the reason for the delay,” Davis said. “We also hope that authorities at the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons remain committed to implement the Attorney General’s humane policy during this Covid-19 pandemic crisis, and that no political influences are allowed to interfere that might lead to any further delay.”

At the time, Davis hinted that political meddling may have been the reason for the delay, since President Donald Trump was allegedly “visibly agitated” at Cohen’s Release. Why? Because Trump’s attorneys with the Trump Organization have also sent the former “fixer” a cease-and-desist letter to stop him from writing a “tell-all” book about his time working for Trump. The attorneys said Cohen would be violating a non-disclosure agreement if he wrote the book.

Politico reported at the time:

However, Cohen also appears to be caught up in a broader policy flip-flop by the federal Bureau of Prisons — and perhaps, Justice Department officials — about which of the roughly 170,000 federal inmates are eligible for home confinement because of the threat posed by Covid-19.

In the middle of last month, as the virus spread rapidly through some prisons, hundreds or more inmates were put into a 14-day prerelease quarantine after senior officials at the Bureau of Prisons indicated that standards for home confinement were being relaxed. A requirement that prisoners have served 50 percent of their sentence was being reduced to 25 percent, officials said.

However, a little over a week later, some of those inmates were pulled out of quarantine and told they were not eligible because that decision had been reversed. After reports in POLITICO and elsewhere about the shift, Attorney General William Barr issued a clarification that appeared to give the prisons the authority to drop the 50 percent requirement again.

It is still unclear whether Cohen’s release was due to the clarification from the DOJ.

Last week, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who had been imprisoned for financial crimes, was also released from prison over coronavirus concerns.

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