According to CNN, Michael Cohen has indicated he is at peace with his recent decision to plead guilty and serve time in prison in order to protect his family, especially his wife.
"He's very resigned to doing the time. He's resigned to the fact that he's going to go to jail for some time," the person said, adding that Cohen does not believe he will receive a presidential pardon from Trump.
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One friend of Cohen's told CNN that over the course of the past few months, they saw Cohen's outlook on his legal troubles shift.
Earlier in the year, "he was very -- 'I'm going to fight this to the death.' Very defiant," the friend said. "But I think over a period of time, you get to realize the reality of this. What are you fighting for? And who are you fighting for?"
Another friend who is in close touch with Cohen said Cohen ultimately determined that he simply had no choice but to plead guilty, and he became almost singularly focused on protecting his wife and the well-being of his family. Prosecutors in New York threatened Trump's ex-lawyer with numerous more counts that could have also implicated his wife, and also raised the possibility of his assets being seized, according to a separate source familiar with the events leading up to Cohen's indictment.
"I don't think it was such a great deal, but he had to take it because there could have been liability on the part of his wife," that friend said.
Huge legal bills and mounting expenses also factored into Cohen's decision.
Cohen's sentencing hearing is not scheduled until December. As he waits for that day, friends say Cohen wants to go about his daily routine as much as possible, including by visiting his usual haunts in Manhattan.
Last Thursday, two days after his indictment, Cohen was spotted by reporters visiting the Four Seasons Hotel in midtown. And as he exited his apartment on Friday to a scrum of reporters and photographers waiting outside, one photographer asked him: "Are you a hero? Do you think you are a hero now?"
"I'll leave that up to you," Cohen responded, before taking a selfie with a passerby.
"He's not going into hiding. He's not avoiding anything. It's business as usual. ... In New York, everything's in the public eye," the first Cohen friend said. "He wants to believe he's past this and turning a corner."
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Part of turning the corner has meant shedding some of the titles that Cohen had worn proudly until recently -- including "Trump's fixer" and "Trump's personal attorney" -- nicknames from a past life in which Cohen famously claimed he would gladly take a bullet for Trump.
"You know who Michael took a bullet for? His family," the first friend said.
Michael Cohen is resigned to going to prison to protect his family (CNN)