Marshall Cohen

Senior Reporter

Marshall Cohen is a CNN senior reporter based in Washington, DC.
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Marshall Cohen
Marshall Cohen —
1506450 CNN Expansion 2024 - D.C. Q1 - March 21-22, 2024 - Washington, D.C., Marshall Cohen
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SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk speaks during an America PAC town hall on October 26, 2024, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Lawsuit claims Elon Musk stiffed canvassers who helped his 2024 campaign efforts
Apr 2, 2025
A new lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses tech billionaire Elon Musk and his super PAC of failing to pay canvassers who helped his pro-Trump political operation in 2024.
Law enforcement detain a man in the Bronx during ICE-led operations to apprehend illegal immigrants in New York in January.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images/File
IRS sidelines dozens of top IT officials seen as possible ‘blockers’ to immigration enforcement data-sharing
Apr 1, 2025
As many as 50 senior IT professionals at the Internal Revenue Service, including some of the agency’s top cybersecurity experts, were placed on administrative leave Friday as the Trump administration finalizes controversial plans to share taxpayer data with federal immigration authorities, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
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CNN
Court lets Trump fire labor and worker protection board members while they fight to keep their jobs
Mar 28, 2025
A federal appeals court on Friday let President Donald Trump remove for now the chair of a critical “merit board” that reviews federal firings, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board, handing him a major win in his efforts to control independent federal agencies and potentially hobbling both agencies by depriving them of a quorum.
Judge James Boasberg stands for a portrait at E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, DC on March 16, 2023.
Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post/Getty Images
‘Principled and fair’: Judge Boasberg had nonpartisan record before facing Trump’s fury
Mar 22, 2025
He’s a former law school roommate of Brett Kavanaugh and his personality has poked through his rulings with quirky references to Star Trek and Fugees lyrics.
Drake at the Kings-Raptors game in Toronto in 2024.
Mark Blinch/Getty Images
Drake’s label UMG says he ‘lost a rap battle’ with Kendrick Lamar, seeks to dismiss his defamation lawsuit
Mar 18, 2025
Universal Music Group is requesting to dismiss Drake’s federal defamation lawsuit against the label over Kendrick Lamar’s blockbuster song “Not Like Us,” saying in a legal filing that the rapper’s lawsuit is a “misguided attempt to salve his wounds” after he “lost a rap battle that he provoked.”
A demonstrator holds a sign in support of federal workers during a President's Day protest near the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. Thousands of probationary employees in multiple government agencies are facing dismissal as the Trump administration continued its effort to rapidly thin the ranks of federal workers. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Getting paid not to work: Federal probationary workers are being reinstated but put on paid leave
Mar 18, 2025
Days after a Maryland federal judge ruled that terminated probationary workers must be temporarily reinstated, multiple federal agencies have told their staffers that they are complying with the decision – but placing the employees on paid administrative leave.
This handout image obtained March 16 from El Salvador’s Presidency Press Office shows Salvadoran police officers escorting alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the US government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison.
El Salvador’s Presidency Press Office/Handout/Reuters
How controversial deportation flights and a judge’s race to stop them unfolded, minute by minute
Mar 17, 2025
Over the weekend, the Trump administration invoked wartime powers to deport hundreds of people from the US to El Salvador. After a lawsuit was filed, a federal judge ordered the administration to stop the deportations, for now. Here’s a timeline of where the deportation flights were as the legal case unfolded:
A traffic light is red outside the US Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, DC, on February 20.
Kent Nishimura/Reuters
‘‘Delete’ is one of their favorite terms’: Inside DOGE’s IRS takeover ahead of tax season
Mar 15, 2025
The chaos at the Internal Revenue Service began almost immediately after the first envoy from the Department of Government Efficiency arrived last month at the agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters.
A Newsmax microphone in the spin room ahead of the first vice presidential debate at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Vice presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz will face off for their first and potentially only debate before the November election Tuesday, as the two Midwesterners with economic populist streaks strive to sway undecided voters in the tight race.
Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Newsmax agreed to pay $40 million to settle Smartmatic’s 2020 election defamation lawsuit
Mar 14, 2025
The pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax agreed to pay $40 million in a confidential settlement last year to end a 2020 election-related defamation lawsuit brought by voting technology company Smartmatic, according to regulatory filings recently made public.
Carts containing documents sit organized at the IRS Processing Facility on September 6, 2024 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
DOGE proposes cutting IRS workforce by a total of nearly 20%
Mar 13, 2025
The Trump administration and Department of Government Efficiency are proposing a dramatic downsizing of the IRS that would result in a nearly 20% reduction of its workforce by May 15 — one month after Tax Day in the United States.
This photo posted to the social media platform X on March 5 by FBI Director Kash Patel shows Mohammad Sharifullah being escorted from a plane by two FBI officers. Editor's note: Portions of the faces of the FBI officers have been obscured by the FBI.
From Kash Patel/X
Trump says US has apprehended ‘top terrorist’ responsible for 2021 Kabul airport bombing
Mar 5, 2025
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening that the US has apprehended a “top terrorist” involved in the 2021 bombing at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate in Afghanistan where 13 US service members and at least 170 Afghan civilians were killed.
Cathy Harris of the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board poses as she leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in downtown Washington, D.C., U.S., March 3, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Scarcella
Mike Scarcella/Reuters
‘Merit board’ chair was unlawfully fired by Trump, judge rules, keeping her on the job
Mar 4, 2025
The chairwoman of a critical agency that reviews federal employee firings can stay on the job, a judge ruled Tuesday, formally reversing President Donald Trump’s “unlawful” decision to fire her.
Candidate Tina Peters speaks during a debate for the state leadership position Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023, in Hudson, Colo.
David Zalubowski/AP
Trump’s Justice Department throws lifeline to GOP clerk in prison for 2020 election tampering
Mar 4, 2025
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is going to bat for an avowed election denier who’s in prison for tampering with Colorado voting machines after the 2020 election.
Cathy Harris speaks to CNN's Jake Tapper on February 11.
CNN
Federal workers turn to little-known ‘merit board’ as they try to avoid Trump’s mass layoffs
Feb 28, 2025
Federal workers are rushing to a little-known and understaffed office to try to save their jobs from President Donald Trump’s mass government layoffs, in hopes that it will be a bulwark against the president and Elon Musk as they push for more cuts.
In this June 2023 photo, Ed Martin speaks at an event at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP/File
What to know about Ed Martin, the right-wing activist Trump tapped to be DC’s top prosecutor
Feb 19, 2025
While Trump administration officials were preparing to install a seasoned conservative lawyer as the top prosecutor in Washington, DC, the firebrand right-wing activist in the job on a temporary basis was waging a public campaign to keep the job permanently.
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 11: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk delivers remarks as he joins U.S. President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump is to sign an executive order implementing the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) "workforce optimization initiative," which, according to Trump, will encourage agencies to limit hiring and reduce the size of the federal government. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The almighty Musk: How the world’s richest man became Washington’s most powerful bureaucrat
Feb 14, 2025
After accruing immense governmental power over the past month, tech billionaire Elon Musk got his biggest boost yet this week when President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving him broad authorities over the hiring and firing of federal workers.

About

Marshall Cohen is a CNN senior reporter based in Washington, DC. Since joining the network in 2015, he has covered the Russia investigation, President Donald Trump’s two impeachments, the fallout from the January 6 insurrection, Trump’s legal cases, Hunter Biden’s criminal cases, the historic Fox-Dominion defamation lawsuit, and voting rights during the 2020 and 2024 elections.

Cohen appears on-air for CNN and CNN Max, and in original videos on CNN’s digital platforms. Over the years, he has published more than 1,000 articles, fact-checks, analysis pieces and interactives.

Cohen won an Emmy Award in 2019 for his coverage of the Trump-Russia probe, and has received three additional Emmy nominations. He has also received awards from the Radio & Television Correspondents’ Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. He was a Livingston Awards finalist in 2022 for his exclusive reporting about Trump’s “fake electors” scheme in 2020.

Before joining CNN, Cohen was a DC-based producer for CBS News, working for its Sunday morning public affairs program, “Face the Nation.” Cohen was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Northwestern University with degrees in journalism and political science.