Michael Cohen is finally taking the Trump Organization to trial over unpaid legal bills in the Stormy Daniels saga
- Michael Cohen's lawsuit against the Trump Organization is headed to trial in two months.
- Cohen says Donald Trump's company owes him $2.3 million for various investigations and court cases.
A Manhattan judge scheduled a July jury trial for Michael Cohen's long-running lawsuit against the Trump Organization, where the former Donald Trump ally alleges he's owed legal fees for the Stormy Daniels saga as well as other investigations related to the former president's conduct.
Cohen first filed the lawsuit in 2019, alleging that the criminal case against him over hush-money payments to Daniels — as well as his role in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, the New York Attorney General investigation into the Trump Organization's finances, multiple Congressional investigations into Trump, among other things — all stemmed from his role as a former vice president for the Trump Organization and as a personal lawyer for Trump.
The Trump Organization owes him $2.3 million in legal fees for all those cases and investigations, he says.
The lawsuit has wound its way through the New York state courts, surviving multiple appeals. In a January court proceeding, New York State Supreme Court Judge Joel Cohen indicated he would finally set a trial date, for July. The court docket was updated on Monday to reflect a July 24 trial date.
In the January proceeding, the judge ruled that — because the Trump Organization refused for years to produce Trump and other company officials for depositions — jurors only need to weigh in on narrow issues, like whether the Trump Organization is liable for paying Cohen in the first place.
Most of the five-day trial's evidence, he said, would focus on just how much money the company should pay him.
The case is barreling to trial at the same time as the Manhattan District Attorney's office's criminal case against Trump himself, over whether he broke criminal laws in his payments to Cohen to silence Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with the then-presidential candidate ahead of the 2016 election.
Cohen has been a witness for the district attorney's office in its criminal investigation. That case is scheduled for trial in early 2024.
The trial would also happen on the heels of a Manhattan trial, in federal court, over E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Trump. A jury found Trump personally liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her when he denied it, and awarded her $5 million in damages. Trump is appealing the case.
Attorneys for the Trump Organization and Cohen didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.