He once declared that he would be shot by Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors’ silver bullet in the first criminal trial against the former president of the United States for paying a bribe to porn actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence. The man who was the Republican’s trusted man for a decade appeared this Monday in the criminal court of Manhattan (New York) as a star witness for the prosecution, to explain that he would have done anything for Trump, “the only thing he had in mind was accomplish the task, make him happy.”
Among his tasks was to silence all stories that were harmful to him, such as affairs with Daniels and another woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The key witness in the trial, the only one capable of proving that Trump was directly involved in the accounting falsification to keep the payments secret, has described in great detail the plot orchestrated with his boss and the editor of the tabloid. National Enquirer to buy and put scandalous stories in a drawer. According to prosecutors, an entire “criminal plot to influence the elections” of 2016.
Prosecutors have indicated they could finish presenting their case this week. After Cohen, another witness is scheduled to be called. After that, the defense can call anyone else before the final arguments begin. Judging by the speed of the process, it could be a matter of days.
Cohen admitted this Monday to having lied, and even “intimidated”, by Trump, with whom he had a strangely paternal relationship. The Republican candidate for re-election has followed the first part of Cohen’s statement with his eyes closed; then, after the midday break, he leafed through and gleaned papers. Cohen was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison, which he served partially due to the pandemic, for bribing Daniels, who violated campaign finance laws. The purpose of the payment was to avoid a “potentially catastrophic” scandal for Trump’s electoral interests. The commotion caused in September 2016, a month before the payment to Daniels, for the dissemination of the audio Access Hollywood —a catalog of Trump’s rudeness about women—convinced them of the need to buy Daniels’ silence.
The relationship between the two deteriorated after the start of Trump’s presidency, and broke down completely after Cohen released a recording in which the two are heard discussing how they would buy the second wife’s story, Karen McDougal, about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006, something the former president also denies. Cohen later testified before a House committee about Trump’s involvement in the dark money scheme, which also involved tabloid editor David Pecker. National Enquirer, a personal friend of Trump and one of the most cited names in this Monday’s session (Pecker himself testified in the second week of the trial). The three of them decided in August 2015, shortly after he launched his candidacy for the White House, to bury all information harmful to the Republican. The collaboration between the Trump Organization and the National Enquirer It involved the creation of accounting departments, shell companies and misleading invoices.
$150,000 to buy silence
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The populist tone of National Enquirer, a very popular publication that was distributed “at the cash registers of so many supermarkets,” Cohen said this Monday, convinced them to spread positive stories about Trump, “which would be beneficial for his campaign,” and “negative stories about some of the other candidates.” But above all, stories like that of the janitor who threatened to talk about an alleged illegitimate son of the tycoon, to whom Pecker paid $30,000, were left in the drawer. The PlayBoy model’s silence cost $150,000. Trump thought the agreement with her was “fantastic, a great job,” although Pecker complained because it was difficult for him to justify the large payment to his company, Cohen recalled.
In a country where failure in business and trouble with the law do not bury anyone’s future, Cohen can present himself to the jury as someone who has openly acknowledged his crimes and paid for them with prison. But it will also come to the jury – the defense will be in charge – that the now disqualified lawyer not only pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the Russian plot – on which the first impeachment or impeachment of Trump, when he was still in the White House—but he recently stated, under oath, that he was not entirely sincere in admitting some of those falsehoods either. The figure of Cohen as a complete liar is a candy for the defense, which he has unsuccessfully tried to prevent from testifying, arguing that he has committed perjury more than once.
The animosity between the former boss and subordinate is mutual: if Cohen called his former boss a “racist, con man and cheat” in a congressional appearance in 2019, Trump has not spared the rudest epithets either, although he is prohibited from criticizing him and disqualify him due to the silence order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan. He did not even answer this Monday to the journalists who asked him loudly, in the hallway, if Cohen is a liar. That little walkway to enter and exit the room has become a loudspeaker for his soflamas.
This Monday, the Republican candidate boasted of the advantage he has in the latest published survey over his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in five pivotal states. “He shows Us ahead everywhere, by far,” he said. He repeated that the trial against him is “a witch hunt.” [política], I have never seen anything like it” and thanked his supporters for their support at rallies, such as the one held on Saturday on a beach in New Jersey: “100,000 people wanting to show their support. It’s like an armed camp outside, you can’t come within three blocks of this court.”
To end the rant, he called the judge “so corrupt and so conflictive.” From the silence order, or gag order, which prevents him from criticizing witnesses, jurors and judicial officials, only Merchan and the Manhattan prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, who investigated the case and in this session sat in the second row, are exempt.
”It is a shame for the country. I’m campaigning now [en el pasillo] instead of sitting in a very cold courtroom all day. This [el juicio] It is an accusation of Biden. “This is election interference on a level that no one in this country has seen before,” Trump sputtered again before entering the room, surrounded by a court of supporters, including congressmen JD Vance and Nicole Malliotakis, and his son Eric. .
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