Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen is expected to return to the witness stand on Tuesday for testimony that is expected to delve into payments he said he received from the former president in exchange for hush money paid to the movie star. adult Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors allege that Trump falsified business records relating to these payments, classifying them as legal services under the terms of a retainer agreement. Cohen testified Monday in New York City that no such retention agreement existed.
Cohen is a key witness in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump. He told the jury during his first full day on the stand that Trump directly authorized him to pay Daniels the $130,000 and that Trump was involved in efforts to quash two other salacious stories that he feared could have hurt his candidacy.
“I was following his instructions,” Cohen testified.
Cohen is the only witness directly linking Trump to the business records falsification scheme, and Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche is expected to try to portray him as a serial liar when he begins questioning him as early as Tuesday .
Blanche told jurors in her opening statement that Cohen “cannot be trusted.”
“He is a convicted felon. And he is also a convicted perjurer. He is a self-confessed liar,” Blanche said, referring in part to Cohen’s 2018 guilty plea to making false statements to Congress about a proposed project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Prosecutors said he lied to downplay Trump’s ties to Russia, which Congress and federal investigators were examining at the time.
Cohen also pleaded guilty to a number of other criminal charges, including tax fraud, and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Cohen testified on Monday that Daniels’ allegations of having had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 were extremely problematic because she began telling her story after the Trump campaign was already suffering from a scandal – the discovery of the tape. Access Hollywood” from 2005, in which Trump is heard saying he can grope women without their consent.
Asked what kind of impact Daniels’ story might have had on Trump’s campaign at that time, Cohen said: “Catastrophic.”
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, who testified in detail about his account last week.
Cohen, who began working for Trump in 2007, said he advanced the money to pay Daniels through a shell company and that Trump assured him he would pay him back.
Cohen said the refund details were worked out by Allen Weisselberg, who was then the chief financial officer of Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. The agreement called for Cohen to receive the $130,000 and $50,000 more he had previously settled for Trump involving a technology company in payments that were “stacked” — doubled — to cover Cohen’s taxes. The money, which included a $60,000 bonus, was then paid in monthly installments of $35,000, listed as being for legal services provided under a retainer agreement.
Cohen testified that there was no retention agreement and that Trump approved the deal in a meeting with him and Weisselberg.
It is unclear whether Trump, the only other person who could directly refute Cohen’s claims, will testify.
Weisselberg will not testify — he is in prison after pleading guilty to perjury charges related to his testimony in last year’s civil fraud case against Trump and his company.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records and has pleaded not guilty.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, had several prominent supporters in court Monday, including Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y.
One of Trump’s former GOP primary rivals, Vivek Ramaswamy, is expected to appear in court with him on Tuesday, a source familiar with the plan said.
Prosecutors said in court Friday that they anticipate wrapping up the case this week.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
