—with a version of the same question: How could the order to return Cohen to prison, carried out after he refused to sign documents setting the terms of his home confinement, be anything but retaliation for his plan to write a book critical ofCohen was furloughed from prison in May as part of a push to free inmates amid the coronavirus pandemic. He had been serving out the remainder of his 36-month sentence in his Trump-owned Upper East Side apartment.
The ruling was the latest bend in a twisty, protracted legal and public battle between Cohen and his former boss. Almost exactly three years ago, I sat across from Cohen in a crowded coffee shop in the Hamptons, with Trump not yet a year into his term, no masks in sight, and no need to contemplate prison, and he told me that he would take a bullet for his boss.