Internet furious at Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen as he blames AI for citing fake cases

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: Michael Cohen, a former attorney for Donald Trump, has admitted to providing his lawyer with citations for non-existent cases as part of an effort to terminate his supervised release.

Cohen had previously pleaded guilty to charges related to tax evasion and campaign finance offenses in 2018, per a report by the New York Post.

In two recently unsealed court filings released on Friday, December 29, Cohen and his legal team informed Judge Jesse Furman of the Manhattan federal court that his attorney, David Schwartz, had submitted false citations created by Cohen and generated by the artificial intelligence tool, Google Bard.

These citations were used to argue for the termination of Cohen's court supervision last month.

What did Cohen reveal to Judge Furman?

Cohen stated in a seven-page declaration submitted to Judge Furman on Thursday, December 28, “As a non-lawyer, I have not kept up with emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like Chat-GPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but were not.”

He added, “Instead, I understood it to be a super-charged search engine and had repeatedly used it in other contexts to (successfully) find accurate information online.”

A recent filing dated November 29th revealed that Schwartz had submitted cases provided by Cohen without verifying their authenticity.

According to the filings, Schwartz faced sanctions if he failed to disclose the potentially 'fraudulent conduct'.

In a separate communication to the presiding judge, Cohen's legal representative, Danya Perry, stated that her client did not “have an ethical obligation to verify the accuracy of his research,” placing the blame entirely on Schwartz.

"Mr. Schwartz... did have an obligation to verify the legal representations being made in a motion he filed," Perry wrote, adding that Schwartz had a history of being "less than meticulous about the accuracy of his citations."

Perry told the New York Post, “The filings show that Mr. Cohen did absolutely nothing wrong. He relied on his lawyer, as he had every right to do. Unfortunately, his lawyer appears to have made an honest mistake in not verifying the citations in the brief he drafted and filed.”

Cohen's possible testimony in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's criminal business fraud case against Trump, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud prosecution, could be jeopardized as a result of the legal shambles he finds himself in.

Internet recommended prison time for ex-Trump ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen as he admits using AI to cite fake cases

People on X called for heavy punishment after reacting to the news that Michael Cohen's lawyer had submitted his legal filing to a judge that included baseless citations generated by an AI.

One X user wrote: "He belongs back in jail."

Another user remarked: "Seriously AI generated"

Another user said: "Once a con man always a con man."

One user tweeted: "The Convict and his own lawyer lie yet again. Revoke his parole!"

Another X user quipped: "Trump has always hired Dollar Store lawyers, then and now. It’s why he always loses…"

Finally, this user remarked: "I'm trying, but can't think of a more effective way of shooting one's reputation in the foot."

 

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.