Turns out the main reason Cohen was sent back to jail was...

[brush]

he refused to sign a trump book gag order. It wasn't because he went out to dinner.


Hours after being taken into custody on Thursday, Cohen was rushed back to the upstate New York prison he got released from just weeks ago over coronavirus concerns, according to his attorney, Jeffrey Levine.

Levine told the New York Daily News that the Bureau of Prisons didn’t let him or his client’s family know until Friday morning that Cohen had been returned to the federal lockup in Otisville.

“I had been trying to locate him all night and no one had any information, and this morning I spoke to the prison and they confirmed to me that he’s been there since last night,” Levine said. “We’ve been completely in the dark on this.”


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/michael-cohen-rushed-back-to-upstate-new-york-prison-after-refusing-to-sign-trump-book-gag-order/ar-BB16AASP

[Goodheart]

1. Is that legal?

[dlk]

2. With this administration I'm not sure that matters

[sarcasmo]

9. Yep, with Trump rule do Not apply.

[brush]

3. Is anything legal with trump and barr?

[Brainfodder]

4. I don't care, do you?

Snarky, indeed!

/cheers!

[brush]

7. I kinda do. I want him to write a tell-all book.

[yellowcanine]

6. Whatever Billy Barr says is legal....

Is legal, at least until a judge pushes back.

[Hugin]

5. The Golden Shower Despot and Billy Boy Barr don't even try to hide the Quid-pro-quo anymore.

Corrupt to the fricken core from top to bottom.

[handmade34]

8. prisoner's rights

https://www.hg.org/prisoner-rights-law.html

hmmm... there is so much wrong about this

[Polly Hennessey]

10. Billy Boy Barr and the

Orange Idiot are beyond redemption. Good for Cohen. He must have some interesting stuff to share.

[Hoyt]

11. If Cohen knew anything worthwhile, he would have used it to stay out of jail. His last appearance

before Congress -- where he was supposed to spill the beans -- resulted in him telling us trump is a racist, stupid, etc. We already knew that.

I'm sure when he eventually writes a memoir, he'll have some damning stories about trump and women, greed, racism, gluttony, etc. But, nothing that will take him down criminally.

[StarfishSaver]

12. This doesn't make sense to me

I sure as heck would rather stay out of jail and be confined to my own home than go back to jail.

And I assume there's nothing to stop him from working on a book during that time. He just can't publish one. He's already served a year and with good behavior should be out in a year and a half or so.

This sounds kind of like a dilemma a whole lot of prisoners would love to have to grapple with.

[brush]

13. His legal career is probably shot. Can't blame him for wanting a book deal.

[StarfishSaver]

14. He's no more likely to get a book deal sitting in prison than he is sitting at home

I think most prisoners would much rather be sitting at home.

And, according to the lawyer, the prohibition was on him "publishing" a book, not on writing one. Since it's highly unlikely he would have finished writing and gotten a book published in the next few months before the election and after that, there's not much of an urgent market for one, I'm not sure of how restrictive such a prohibition would be.

As I said, it doesn't make sense to me that he would rather go to prison than stay at home because he can't publish a book.

If the lawyer's story is correct, it's a rather privileged situation that most prisoners would love to be in."You mean, I can stay out of prison and live in my own crib for the next two years if I just promise not to write a book? Cool! Where do I sign?"

[brush]

15. Sounds reasonable. But I think there's probably more to it than what appears.

trump wanted him back in jail. The article hints that he may have been about to grant interviews.

[StarfishSaver]

16. Yes, there must be more to it than we've heard.

But giving interviews may have been a bridge too far.

He's in prison, whether he's in prison facility or at home. Holding court and opining to the media is not something most prisoners are entitled to do. When they're actually in a facility, they sometimes do interviews, but only with the permission of prison officials and under very tight restrictions. If Cohen assumed he could hang out at home and do interviews from his living room, that was pretty presumptuous.

I'm just not feeling sorry for him based on what I've heard so far.