For years, Michael Cohen made a second career out of attacking President Trump.

He testified against his former boss, became a fixture on anti-Trump television, and poured gasoline on nearly every legal fire Democrats could light.

Now Cohen is back at the door.

And this time, he wants a pardon.

The stunning reversal spilled into public view Thursday when President Trump called into Cohen’s WABC radio show. It was the first public conversation between the two men in roughly eight years.

ADVERTISEMENT

The tone alone was remarkable.

Cohen addressed Trump respectfully as the two revisited the collapse of their relationship. Trump said Cohen had been caught up in the political weaponization aimed at him and credited his former attorney for eventually recanting some of his earlier claims.

According to The Associated Press, Cohen told Trump that he was sorry for the personal attacks he had made against him and his family. Trump accepted the apology and described the exchange as a reconciliation.

That is a long way from the years when Cohen was celebrated as one of the resistance’s favorite witnesses.

The two men had once been exceptionally close. Cohen spent more than a decade inside Trump’s orbit, handling sensitive legal and personal matters and fiercely defending him in public.

The relationship detonated after federal investigators targeted Cohen. He turned on Trump, cooperated with prosecutors and then spent years telling the country that the man he once protected was unfit for office.

Cohen once worked as Trump’s personal attorney and fixer. After federal investigators closed in, he pleaded guilty to multiple crimes and became a central witness for prosecutors pursuing Trump.

He later testified at Trump’s New York criminal trial and built a public identity around condemning the man he once loyally served.

But Cohen himself began teasing a reunion before Thursday’s call, framing the moment as a question of whether forgiveness could revive a relationship destroyed by years of anger.

ADVERTISEMENT

There is also a very practical reason for Cohen’s change in posture.

CBS News reported that Cohen has submitted a pardon application to the Trump administration. His request concerns the federal convictions that sent him to prison after he pleaded guilty in 2018.

Cohen said he first sought clemency from the Biden administration, which denied the request. He has now resubmitted the application and said he planned to follow up with the White House on Friday.

The application puts the decision directly in the hands of the man Cohen once served, later attacked and ultimately testified against. It also comes after Cohen completed his sentence, meaning the pardon would address the lasting legal consequences of his federal record rather than release him from custody.

No pardon has been granted, and the White House has not announced a decision. For now, Cohen is simply another applicant waiting for President Trump to decide whether mercy is warranted.

CNN reported that Trump did not promise Cohen a pardon during the interview. When the subject came up, Trump said he would examine the application.

That distinction matters. A cordial phone call is not an act of clemency, and reconciliation does not guarantee that Cohen will receive the relief he wants.

Still, the conversation gave Cohen something he did not have before Thursday: a direct, public reopening with the only person who can grant his federal pardon. Trump listened, accepted the apology and left the application under consideration.

That leaves Cohen in an extraordinary position: the onetime insider who became a star witness against Trump is now asking Trump to grant clemency for the federal convictions hanging over him.

ADVERTISEMENT

Maybe Cohen’s apology is sincere. Maybe time really did cool one of the ugliest political feuds of the last decade.

But the timing is impossible to miss.

After years of helping Trump’s enemies, Cohen is calling him “boss” again while a pardon request waits for a decision.

Politics produces strange reunions. This one may be the strangest yet.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.