Michael Cohen admitted under oath that he lied to a federal judge when he pled guilty to a crime.

Posted by Deadline: White House, Sep 7, 2026Checked Nov 2, 2026

Polygraph verdictTrue

Sources: 5 support
Said: 1 time·
Confidence: 90%

Deadline: White HouseSep 7, 2026

Multiple tier1 reports of Judge Furman's March 2024 order and of Cohen's own testimony confirm that Cohen admitted under oath he had lied to Judge William Pauley when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and related charges. The claim's wording ('a crime') is a faithful paraphrase of the passage, which refers to 'something'.

What was said

… you call him or not, because there was so much other proof, but he is not the first cooperating witness who would recant, and it's worth people remembering that Michael Cohen faced real potential liability when Donald Trump was reelected in 2.0, because Michael Cohen admitted under oath and said that he, Michael Cohen, had lied to a federal judge when he pled guilty to something, because he said, I was innocent of that, and that was under oath. So that perjury case, for lying to a federal judge, which, you know, the Department of Justice would have every interest in vindicating that as a matter of a process matter, whether whatever the sentence might be is a separate issue, and so that was a bit of …

Deadline: White House · Sep 7, 2026· from the transcriptPost →

What we found

Supports. Judge Jesse Furman wrote that Cohen 'repeatedly and unambiguously testified at the state court trial that he was not guilty of tax evasion and that he had lied under oath' to Judge Pauley when he pleaded guilty.[1][3][5]

Supports. Asked at Trump's civil fraud trial whether he had lied to the federal judge who accepted his guilty plea, Cohen answered 'Yes.'[3]

Supports. Reuters reports that during the civil trial Cohen confessed to deceiving the federal judge who accepted his 2018 guilty plea.[2]

Supports. The Hill/AP reports that Cohen testified he had lied to the now-deceased federal judge who took his plea, and that the fraud trial judge found this testimony credible.[4]

Context. Cohen's testimony was given at Trump's October 2023 New York civil fraud trial, and the admission was cited in a March 2024 ruling denying his request for early release from supervision.[1][5]