Michael Cohen, the main prosecution witness in Donald Trump’s case, testified against the former president of the United States in one of the most anticipated days in court since the trial began.
Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, told the court on Monday that he lied and intimidated on behalf of his former boss.
“It was what was needed to get the job done,” Cohen said, glancing periodically at Trump, who was relaxed in his chair at the defendant’s table in the New York courtroom.
Prosecutors accused Trump of falsifying business records related to secret payments made before the 2016 election, which he won.
The prosecution’s case hinges on a $130,000 payment Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the vote in an effort to prevent her from speaking publicly about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump. .
The former president denied that such a meeting took place. He also rejected the accusations against him as politically motivated. The trial comes as Trump campaigns for re-election in November.
Here are the key takeaways from Cohen’s testimony on day 16 of the trial.
Cohen says he did “everything” Trump wanted
Cohen, 57, testified Monday that it was fair to describe his role as being a fixer for Trump, testifying that he took care of “anything he wanted.”
Instead of working as a traditional corporate lawyer, Cohen reported directly to Trump and was never part of the Trump Organization’s general counsel’s office.
Among his duties were renegotiating business partners’ accounts, threatening to sue people and publicizing positive stories in the press, he said.
Trump, he added, communicated primarily by phone or in person and never set up an email address.
“He was commenting that emails are like written documents, that he knows a lot of people who have fallen through as a direct result of having emails that prosecutors can use in a case,” Cohen said.
Cohen Details Effort to Suppress Bad Press
Cohen testified that — in a 2015 meeting with Trump and David Pecker, then editor of the National Enquirer — the trio discussed using the supermarket tabloid to boost Trump’s candidacy while attacking his rivals.
According to the affidavit, Trump told Pecker to warn Cohen if he became aware of negative news that might emerge, and the three men agreed that Pecker would try to suppress such stories.
As Trump prepared to announce his campaign for president, he allegedly told Cohen that there would be “a lot of women coming forward.”
Cohen further explained that, as Trump’s lawyer at the time, he sought to harness the power of the National Enquirer to his boss’s benefit, given its high visibility at cash registers in tens of thousands of supermarkets in the US.
He testified that he went to Trump immediately after the National Enquirer alerted him to a story that was breaking about an alleged affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Cohen remembers going to Trump’s office and asking if he knew McDougal or anything about the story. Cohen said Trump told him to make sure the story didn’t get out.
Cohen said he believed the story would have a “significant” impact on Trump’s presidential campaign if it were published.
McDougal’s news came shortly after the National Enquirer paid $30,000 to quash a doorman’s false rumor that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. “You handle it,” Cohen remembers Trump telling him after learning the doorman had introduced himself.
Cohen’s testimony on Monday echoed similar statements by Pecker, the publisher, earlier in the trial. Pecker testified about the so-called “catch and kill” scheme to suppress stories that could negatively affect Trump before the 2016 vote.
Publisher Pressured Him for Refund, Cohen Says
After the National Enquirer paid $150,000 to suppress McDougal’s story, Cohen testified that the tabloid’s editor was hounding him to get Trump to reimburse him for the cost.
Cohen said he met Pecker at his favorite Italian restaurant and that the editor was upset he wasn’t reimbursed for burying the story about Trump’s alleged affair with the former Playboy model.
Pecker was worried, Cohen said, that “it was too much money for him to hide from the CEO of the parent company” and he had already shelled out $30,000 to suppress the doorman’s story.
Cohen added that at some point, Pecker had also expressed to him that his company, American Media Inc, had a “file drawer – or a locked drawer, as he described it – where files related to Mr. Trump were located.”
Cohen said he was concerned because the publisher’s relationship with Trump goes back years and that Pecker was in the running to head another media company. Cohen feared what would happen to the files if Pecker left.
Trump furious about Daniels allegations, says Cohen
Cohen also told jurors on Monday that Trump was furious that Daniels, the adult film star, was buying a story about the sexual encounter she says she had with the former president.
“He told me, ‘This is a disaster, a total disaster. Women are going to hate me,’” Cohen testified. “’Guys, they think it’s cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”
Cohen explained that he learned that Daniels was selling her story at a critical time for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. An audio recording from the TV show Access Hollywood had just leaked, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals .
The tape left the Trump campaign scrambling to contain the damage just weeks before Election Day in November 2016.
The former president’s defense team suggested that the payment to Daniels could have been made to spare Trump and his family embarrassment, rather than to boost his campaign. But Cohen testified that Trump only seemed concerned about the effect on his presidential bid.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign,” Cohen said, referring to Trump’s wife. At the defense table, Trump shook his head.
Cohen added that he remembers Trump saying, “Just get through the election, because if I win, it won’t matter because I’m the president, and if I lose, I won’t really care.”
‘Just do it,’ Cohen says Trump told him
Cohen also provided detailed testimony about the secret payment he made to Daniels, which is at the heart of the prosecution’s case.
Cohen said Trump encouraged him to delay sending the payment to Daniels’ lawyer until after the election, telling him the story would no longer be important. In October 2016, with Daniels’ story about to break, Cohen said Trump told him to finally pay up.
“He told me, just do it,” Cohen testified, saying Trump advised him to meet with Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg and figure it out. Weisselberg, however, was hesitant to pay, so Cohen said he decided to come up with the money himself.
“Ultimately, I said, ‘OK, I’ll pay,’” Cohen testified, explaining that he resisted paying out of pocket but eventually relented after Trump promised him, “You’ll get your money back.”
Trump’s lawyers argued that Cohen acted on his own, an idea he rejected on the witness stand. “Everything required Mr. Trump’s approval,” Cohen said Monday.
Cohen also described during his testimony how he created a shell company — falsely listed as a “real estate consulting firm” — to facilitate payments through a bank across the street from Trump Tower.
Prosecutors showed jurors phone records indicating that Cohen called Trump’s line twice the morning he visited the bank.
Trump’s defense team is expected to challenge Cohen’s credibility during questioning later this week and paint him as a liar who cannot be trusted.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the hush money payments, as well as lying to Congress. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
