Michael Cohen took the stand again this Thursday to undergo cross-examination by Todd Blanche, the lawyer leading Donald Trump’s defense, in the criminal trial – the first of the four that the former president faces – for the payment of a bribe to a porn actress to buy her silence. This Thursday is the third consecutive session in which Trump’s former lawyer monopolizes the spotlight, with a more prominent role even than that of Stormy Daniels, beneficiary of the payment, who testified for two days last week. As the star witness’s testimony draws to a close, the key is figuring out whether Trump will ultimately testify or decline to do so to avoid getting involved.
The defense is clear about its line of action: to present Cohen as a complete liar, who also 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. Cohen is expected to be the Prosecutor’s last witness in the first criminal trial against a former US president. The lawyer, now disbarred, admitted his lies on Monday, in his first appearance before the Manhattan criminal court, although he specified that they had been “for making his boss happy.”
While outside several hard-line Republican congressmen, such as Representative Matt Gaetz, denounced the alleged political witch hunt of which the candidate for re-election claims to be the object, inside the gloomy room on the 15th floor of the Blanche court has sought to undermine Cohen’s credibility, portraying him as a criminal and unrepentant liar who, driven by spite, is only out for revenge after being rejected for a White House job in 2017. “Did you expect to be named head of White House Cabinet, not only that they consider you, but that they name you White House Chief of Staff?” asked the lawyer. Cohen responded negatively.
Most of the cross-examination, during which Trump exchanged numerous handwritten notes as comments with his lawyers, has consisted of bringing up cases in which Cohen has lied over the years, with few questions about the agreement with Daniels nor the repayment of the bribe money by Trump, as Cohen stated on Tuesday had occurred. But the role of the former lawyer as fixer (solver, in English), as the designer of the agreement with Daniels in the last weeks of the 2016 campaign, places him precisely at the center of the case: his testimony supports the 34 criminal charges against Trump for the irregular registration, such as “legal expenses ”, of that $130,000 payment to the actress, when the purpose of silencing the woman was to avoid a potentially “catastrophic” scandal, especially among voters. For the Prosecutor’s Office, this attempt constituted “a criminal plot to influence the result” of the elections.
Electoral financing laws
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison—which he served partially due to the pandemic—for illicit campaign financing and tax evasion. Blanche asked her this Thursday about her statements that she wanted to see Trump in jail, as she stated in some episodes of her podcast (an undisguised attempt, according to the defense, to monetize his relationship with Trump). The lawyer also pressed Cohen about his statements retracting some of what he told Congress. Cohen still admits to violating election finance laws by paying the bribe, but maintains that he was wrongly accused of tax evasion, another of the charges for which he was convicted.
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Cohen detailed on Monday how Trump had ordered him to pay Daniels to avoid a new scandal on the eve of the elections, in which he would end up winning against his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. When he was already in the White House, the Republican signed a series of checks to reimburse Cohen for the money he had advanced. The $130,000 from Daniels’ silence became $420,000, when Trump added interest and a bonus to Cohen for services rendered. The repayment plan was confirmed according to Cohen in February 2017, in a meeting the two held in the Oval Office of the White House.
Blanche accused Cohen of also lying during his deposition on Monday by claiming that he spoke with Trump and closed the deal to pay Stormy Daniels. Phone records show the call was made to Trump’s bodyguard, but Cohen says Trump passed the phone to the then-president. “That’s a lie! You didn’t talk to President Trump that night,” Blanche said, more heated than usual. Cohen reaffirmed himself in what happened.
The lawyer also tried to get Cohen to admit that, while working for Trump, he made statements to journalists without consulting his boss: another idea to try to convince the jury that Cohen was an autonomous agent, as well as dishonest, who did things without asking. to Trump, including the payment of the bribe to Daniels, whom the defense described as a person motivated solely by economic interest.
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