Michael Cohen blows off subpoena from Donald Trump's lawyers: 'I ignored it'

• Michael Cohen was subpoenaed by Trump lawyers in a case involving a violent 2015 protest at Trump Tower.
• "I ignored it," Cohen told Insider, calling the subpoena "defective."

Donald Trump's fixer-turned-critic Michael Cohen is under a new spotlight, and for an uncharacteristic move — his refusal, despite a ready microphone and a subpoena, to talk about his old boss.

"I ignored it," Cohen told Insider on Tuesday of the subpoena.

Cohen had been summoned to tape a deposition in Manhattan last week in a lingering lawsuit that claims Trump sicced security guards on protesters outside Trump Tower in 2015. Trump is the lead defendant in the case, which is scheduled for trial on May 2 in The Bronx, a New York borough. The former president will not appear in person, but his recorded "testimony" will be played for jurors.

Cohen worked side-by-side with Trump at Trump Tower back in 2015, when protesters were allegedly roughed up at a rally prompted by the then-presidential candidate calling immigrants from Mexico criminals, drug dealers, and rapists.

The lawsuit alleges that Trump Tower security guards were acting on Trump's orders when they assaulted some of the protesters and stole their signs. But Cohen won't say what, if anything, he personally witnessed of the protest or Trump's possible involvement in it.

"I have no interest in being involved," he said on Tuesday, adding that Trump's subpoena was "defective" on its face.

"It didn't even identify the purpose or need for me to be called as a witness," Cohen said. "So I elected to ignore it."

Benjamin Dictor, a lawyer for the plaintiff protesters, meanwhile calls Cohen's testimony crucial.

Cohen has told people on both sides of the case that he "was present when our clients were assaulted on the public sidewalk by Trump's security guards," Dictor said.

"Mr. Cohen has advised counsel for all parties that he witnessed events that day that directly contradict the deposition testimony of [Trump bodyguard] Keith Schiller and Donald Trump," Dictor told Insider in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

"He is an essential witness for trial."

Trump's attorney Alina Habba had subpoenaed Cohen to sit for a deposition last week at law offices near Manhattan's Lincoln Center. A transcript filed Monday night as an exhibit in the lawsuit confirms that Cohen indeed blew off the subpoena, keeping mum on whatever light he might have to shed about a sidewalk rally that turned violent while he still worked at Trump Tower.

Known for blasting Trump high and low in tweets, media appearances, a 2020 memoir, and a podcast, Cohen was a no-show.

"We have waited 30 minutes," Habba said as she and the opposing counsel, a lawyer for the protesters, sat idle on the morning of April 6.

"The time is now 10:30 a.m. and he has not yet appeared for his deposition. The parties will move appropriately. Thank you very much for your time," Habba said at the time.

Fast forward to the night of April 11, and Habba, a relatively new addition to Trump's stable of attorneys, filed what is called a proposed order to show cause.

Apparently wary of being blindsided by what she calls a "surprise witness," she asked the judge who would preside at the trial to keep Cohen off the witness stand now entirely.

If the judge — Bronx Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez — chooses instead to allow Cohen's testimony, Habba has asked that Cohen be forced to be deposed first, in which case the trial date be delayed.

Habba omitted any place for the judge to sign the proposed order, instead signing it herself.

"Mr. Cohen, a former disgruntled employee of the Trump Organization, has a long and well-documented disdain for Mr. Trump and has publicly disparaged him on countless occasion," Habba wrote the judge in an affidavit also filed Monday night.

And his "credibility has been challenged in prior proceedings," she added.

Her long laundry list of Cohen's disdainful moments and credibility shortfalls goes back to 2018.

That's the year Cohen called Trump a "con man," a "racist" and a "cheat" in his 2018 testimony before the House Oversight Committee, and was sentenced for previous lies before Congress on Trump's behalf.

Both Habba and Cohen cite other ongoing litigation as another obstacle in whatever happens next in the case.

"In December of 2020, Mr. Cohen sued Mr. Trump, among others, alleging that he was "retaliated against" in connection to his lawful imprisonment following his 2018 conviction," Habba's filing notes.

Cohen responded that "I am already in litigation with Miss Habba and her firm in my own case in federal court. I am suing the United States government, her client Donald J. Trump, Bill Barr, et al, for my unconstitutional remand back to Otisville" prison in Upstate NY.

He is also suing the Trump Organization for unpaid legal fees.

The judge must now decide whether to bar Cohen from the case entirely or order that he be deposed and delay the trial.

"We are entitled to depose all witnesses before trial," Habba told Insider in an email. She said Trump and the other defendants only learned recently that Cohen would be called as a witness in the case.

"This type of "trial by ambush" tactic is improper and we have moved accordingly," she said.

Dictor counters that there was no "ambush." Trump's side had longstanding knowledge of Cohen's involvement that day — knowledge dating back to the day of the 2015 protest itself, the lawyer told Insider.

"Defendants did not previously disclose to us that Mr. Cohen had knowledge and information about the subject of this case," Dictor said.