According to a report by Newsweek on Monday, December 25, 2023, Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer and fixer of Donald Trump, has claimed that the former president could soon face a fifth set of felony charges for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Michigan.
Cohen made the prediction on his Mea Culpa podcast, where he discussed the recent report by The Detroit News that revealed excerpts of a phone call between Trump, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, and two Republican canvassers in Wayne County, Michigan.
The phone call, which took place on November 17, 2020, showed Trump and McDaniel trying to pressure the canvassers, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, into not certifying the election results in favor of Joe Biden, who won Michigan by about 150,000 votes.
Trump told the canvassers that they would look “terrible” if they certified the results, and that they had to “fight for our country” and not let “these people take our country away from us.”
McDaniel advised the canvassers not to sign the official statement of votes that day, and promised to get them attorneys.
Cohen said that the phone call was “not a surprise, but it’s a win, and I’ll take it,” and that it proved that Trump was “caught red-handed committing election fraud.”
He also said that McDaniel could face a bribery charge for her role in the phone call. “To this very day, they’re still pushing the ‘Big Lie.’ Nonetheless, Trump might be looking at a fifth set of felony charges,” Cohen said.
Trump already faces four criminal indictments, two of which are related to his alleged interference in the 2020 election.
The federal indictment in New York accuses him of obstruction of justice, campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud.
The indictment in Georgia charges him with soliciting election fraud, making false statements, and conspiracy for his infamous phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory in the state
Both indictments also reference Trump’s actions in Michigan and other states where he tried to subvert the election results.
Cohen is not the only one who thinks that Trump could face more legal trouble in Michigan. Joe Gallina, an attorney and activist with the pro-Democratic campaign group Call to Activism, said that the Michigan phone call was “perfect evidence” against Trump.
He said that the recordings showed “the great lengths Donald Trump went to try to overturn the election,” and that there was nothing more persuasive than a defendant himself being recorded committing a crime.
A Trump campaign spokesperson denied any wrongdoing by the former president, and said that he was acting in his duty as president to ensure election integrity and investigate the “rigged and stolen” 2020 election.
The spokesperson also accused Biden and the Democrats of “spinning their wheels” and “leaking misleading information” to interfere in the election.
In July, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed felony charges against 16 Republicans who tried to pose as electors for Trump in the 2020 election.
The charges allege that they submitted false certificates that claimed they were the lawful electors for Michigan, even though Biden had won the state.
The first major hearings against six of the defendants were held on December 14, and are expected to continue into January.
