Trump’s former lawyer will face tough questioning after testifying that the former president participated in a hush money scheme.
Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, returned to testify in a New York court, one day after Cohen accused the former president of the United States of participating in a scheme to suppress negative media coverage ahead of the 2018 elections. 2016.
Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, faces what is expected to be tough questioning from Trump’s legal team on Tuesday.
Trump, the first former US president to stand trial, was joined in the Manhattan courtroom by an entourage of Republican supporters, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Their presence on Tuesday, when Cohen returned to the stand, is a not-so-subtle show of support aimed not just at Trump — who is seeking re-election in November — but also at voters tuning in at home and the jurors who are deciding . the fate of the former president.
On Monday, Cohen testified that the former president ordered him to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said she had a sexual encounter in 2006 with the married real estate developer turned politician. Trump denied that any meeting took place.
The $130,000 payment made by Cohen in October 2016 is at the center of Trump’s trial, the first of a former US president, which began in New York state criminal court in Manhattan last month.
The case is one of four criminal charges against Trump, who is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee ahead of November’s presidential election despite his legal troubles.
The former president faces 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records in connection with payments made to Daniels.
Prosecutors focused on the political dimensions of the payments, arguing that Trump engaged in a conspiracy that aimed to “undermine the integrity” of the 2016 presidential election, which he won.
Trump pleaded not guilty and called the prosecution a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
During his first day on the witness stand, Cohen, 57, described several episodes in which he said Trump approved payments to keep damaging sex scandal stories out of the public eye in an effort to prevent them from harming his campaign for the White House. .
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s approval,” Cohen said Monday.
Cohen also told jurors that Trump was furious that Daniels was making up a story about their alleged sexual encounter.
“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.’”
However, Trump’s defense team is expected to challenge Cohen’s credibility during interrogation 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.
Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, reporting outside the courthouse on Tuesday morning, said “it really comes down to [Cohen’s] word”.
“And his word has been highly suspect since the beginning of this case, given that he was arrested for lying under oath in the past,” Saloomey said.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
