Michael Cohen (born August 25, 1966) served as Donald Trump's personal attorney and "fixer" from 2006 to 2018, also acting as a Trump Organization vice president and deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to eight felony counts—including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud—admitting he made hush-money payments at Trump's direction to influence the 2016 election, and separately pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison in December 2018, disbarred in New York in February 2019, and completed his sentence in November 2021. Following his release, he sued the Trump Organization over unpaid legal fees (settled in July 2023), while a lawsuit Trump filed against him was dropped in October 2023. His earlier career included personal injury law, a NYC taxi medallion business, and real estate deals, and he was raised on Long Island, the son of a Holocaust-surviving surgeon.