The Internet Weighs In On Michael Cohen’s Prison Time

Michael Cohen Image by Getty Images (8)

By Jenny Singer December 12, 2018

Michael Cohen, longtime lawyer to President Donald Trump, was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday morning.

Cohen will serve time after admitting to having illegally paid women, including Stormy Daniels, to keep quiet about their relations to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, and for lying to congress about a Trump building project in Russia. Cohen will also have to pay nearly two million dollars in fees and restitution.

Out in the public square, there is all the rejoicing, quiet terror, smugness, and ice-skating tweets we’ve come to expect when the Trump administration births a major news story. Here are some of the wildest reactions:

Michael Cohens everywhere poured one out for Michael Cohen:

My efforts not to be “The Worst Michael Cohen” have received a significant boost today

— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) December 12, 2018

Jonathan Van Ness of “Queer Eye” demonstrated Cohen taking a tumble:

Michael Cohen be like pic.twitter.com/UllEUTFFiV

— Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn) December 12, 2018

Jewish Twitter star “Oh No She Twitnt” did the math on Cohen’s time:

Michael Cohen got 3 years in prison which, if you’re counting, is 2 years and 9 months more than Brock Turner got for raping an unconscious woman and 5 years less than Rosa Maria Ortega got for illegally voting.

— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) December 12, 2018

Fans celebrated Cohen’s silverlining:

Congratulations on receiving three years of free room and board, #MichaelCohen! pic.twitter.com/NGPnd10tUi

— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) December 12, 2018

Some wished Michael a mazal:

Huge congrats to Michael Cohen on going to prison, something it seems like he’s been trying extremely hard to do for the last few years

— Dominick the Italian Christmas Branson (@bransonreese) December 12, 2018

And Cohen was compared to another late, great fallen hero:

who said it best, Michael Cohen or Anakin Skywalker https://t.co/9wBBzEQGmq

— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) December 12, 2018

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO