The defense of Donald Trump, accused of 34 crimes for falsifying the record of the payment of an alleged bribe to a porn actress to buy her silence, had this Monday the last opportunity to undermine the credibility of the star witness, Michael Cohen, at the time. right hand of the Republican and in whose testimony the Prosecutor’s Office supports the accusation in the first criminal trial of the four faced by the former president of the United States. Cohen, who was in charge of the payment of $130,000 in October 2016 [cerca de 120.000 euros] to Stormy Daniels to avoid a sexual scandal that would harm his boss at the polls – he was elected president a month later – he already declared last week in marathon sessions, and neither then, nor this Monday, has he lost his composure despite the bombardment of questions from the defense, installed in an imperturbable monosyllable: Yes sir (either no sir), fixed gear.
This Monday, the interrogation has further impacted Cohen’s questionable credibility. If in last week’s sessions Cohen admitted to having lied on several occasions – in his statements before Congress about the Russian plot that led to the first impeachment or impeachment of the then president; to the treasury and in court—Todd Blanche, who leads Trump’s team of lawyers, today brought up dark episodes, some unpublished, of Cohen in continuous time jumps that confused many in the room. Blanche had a coup in store: the thousands of dollars that the then lawyer and fixer The Republican’s (fixer) brought down the Trump Organization by pocketing more money than he said he spent with a technology company, RedFinch, owned by a friend of his, which had been commissioned to poll polls favoring Trump. The technology company charged $50,000 for the work. Cohen only paid them 20,000, although he assured Trump’s company that he had paid the full amount, which was reimbursed to him twice, up to $100,000, to include taxes. “You stole from the Trump Organization, right?” Blanche asked. “Yes, sir,” Cohen admitted evenly.
Those $50,000 that hissed They were included in the $420,000 payment the attorney received after advancing the money to pay Daniels. The final amount included repayment of the bribe, a bond and money to cover taxes. Cohen justified the theft by saying that he felt underpaid for having managed that service: “I got angry about the reduction in my bonus, so I felt like it was almost like self-help,” he explained.
Cohen, the prosecution’s 19th witness, is expected to be the last, although it remains unclear whether the defense will call any of its own. Although Judge Juan Merchan aspired to settle the case this week, with the presentation of the final arguments by the parties, procedural issues, and the undisguised attempt by the defense to lengthen the process as much as possible, the closure will be delayed for another week, the moment in which the judge entrusts the jury of 12 members—residents in Manhattan, where the Prosecutor’s Office that has investigated the case is located and the headquarters of the criminal court where the trial is held—to reach a unanimous verdict based on everything heard and seen in seven weeks of trial.
Blanche has tried at all times to suggest that the checks Cohen received from the Trump Organization, all of which were legal expenses, were in fact legal expenses, since he provided legal advice to the candidate and subsequent president and his family. For example, she advised Melania Trump, in 2017, about the contract signed with the Madame Tussaud wax museum to transfer her figure. Without flinching, clear and audible, as if an autopilot was answering for him, Cohen showed no signs of displeasure or discomfort despite the barrage of questions from the defense and mechanically repeated the argument already heard from the Prosecutor’s Office: how in 2015 he came to form part of a criminal plot, along with Trump and the editor of the tabloid National Enquirer, to silence all information potentially harmful to the Republican’s electoral interests. And how, after sending Daniels the $130,000 on October 27, 2016, two weeks before the election in which the Republican would end up winning over Hillary Clinton, he was reimbursed in 2017 in several consecutive checks for his various services. Nine of them, worth $35,000 each, he explained this Monday, came directly from Trump and were signed in his own handwriting.
On the giant screen that broadcasts via closed circuit the view of the room set up to welcome the public—individuals and journalists—no short shots are shown, and it is difficult to see more than a small orange head, Trump’s, in the lower right corner. from the screen. Cohen himself admitted on Thursday to having referred to his former employer as, among other niceties, a “cartoon villain sprinkled with Cheetos,” a popular snack in a rabid orange color. On the screen, which many present focus on with binoculars, only a short shot appears, that of the witness: a circumspect Cohen, with a pink tie and removable glasses to examine the evidence provided by the defense on a monitor.
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The defense team’s lead lawyer has presented Cohen, in addition to being an unrepentant liar, as an opportunist who only tried to take advantage of his privileged closeness to Trump before the president’s non-payment of a few legal bills began the path of no return to the breakup, a path that has brought them together again these days in Manhattan. Benefiting from that proximity, and subsequently from his enmity, became, according to Blanche, the modus vivendi Cohen, who acknowledged that he tried to make a reality show about himself, titled The Fixera clear reflection of the program that launched Trump to stardom—and to the White House—, The newbie. The witness also admitted to having earned around four million dollars from his books and podcast since the fall of 2020. However, he assured that he had no financial interest in a hypothetical conviction of Trump. If he were acquitted, he declared, “it will give me more to talk about in the future.”
Trump nodded and closed his eyes, as if he did not want to see or hear, and his former confidant answered without raising an eyebrow, both within a hand’s breadth of a distance where the most difficult thing is not to cross your gaze once. The last part of the defense’s interrogation reviewed Cohen’s contacts with lawyer Michael Costello, very close to Trump and who once served as a channel to contact the two men, already at odds.
While the defense, insistent, insisted on its delaying maneuvers, which have given such good results so far with the other three criminal proceedings (in Washington, Georgia and Florida), a message from the Trump campaign to the fundraising teams He falsely complained that the Republican “may be sent to prison for life.” Any time is a good time, even the defendant’s apparent sleeplessness in the dock of a dark Manhattan courtroom, to campaign. With a gesture of annoyance, he also took advantage today of the walk at the entrance and exit of the room to rail against his rival in November, Democrat Joe Biden, whom he described as “mentally incapable” to preside over the United States. “This trial is an attack directed by someone who is mentally unfit to be the president of the country,” said Trump, who also complained about how “dark and cold the courtroom is” where he is forced to sit from Monday to Friday (except for Wednesday) during office hours, “instead of campaigning.”
At the doors of the court, among a considerable deployment of police and satellite dishes and television cameras, a few Trump supporters, counted on the fingers of one hand, demonstrated wearily while another march of the opposite direction assured, according to the banner, that “no one is above the law”.
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