Michael Cohen Wanted to Cooperate in His Own Way. Prosecutors Had Other Ideas. – The New York Times

Mr. Cohen also told the prosecutors through his lawyers that he was considering whether to fully cooperate with their investigation, the Southern District said in the document. Later, Mr. Cohen decided against making such a deal.

The prosecutors said that during their meetings with Mr. Cohen, he was “forthright and credible,” and that he had potentially “useful information about matters relating to ongoing investigations being carried out by this office.”

But Mr. Cohen “specifically declined to be debriefed on other uncharged criminal conduct, if any, in his past,” the prosecutors wrote. He also “declined to meet with the office about other areas of investigative interest.”

“In order to successfully cooperate with this office,” the prosecutors said, “witnesses must undergo full debriefings that encompass their entire criminal history, as well as any and all information they possess about crimes committed by both themselves and others.”

That process allows prosecutors to “fully assess the candor, culpability and complications attendant to any potential cooperator, and results in cooperating witnesses who, having accepted full responsibility for any and all misconduct, are credible to law enforcement and, hopefully, to judges and juries.”

By not pursuing this process, the prosecutors wrote, “Cohen’s efforts thus fell well short of cooperation,” and as a result, he was not offered a deal.

Jessica A. Roth, a former Southern District prosecutor who teaches at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, said full cooperation is extensive and demanding in the Southern District. “It’s a soul-searching process in which you’re being asked to come clean about everything,” she said.