Michael Cohen has undoubtedly changed. For whose benefit?

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It was a highly domesticated michael cohen who testified against the former president donald trumpof the Hush Money criminal trial in New York.

In recent weeks, jurors and reporters in the courtroom have heard others paint a visceral portrait of the man who, for a decade, worked as Trump’s personal lawyer and extremely aggressive “fixer,” becoming something of Trump’s furious attack dog. Cohen once told a magazine that he would “get shot” by his then-boss. His displeasure with others was often expressed as a barrage of loud expletives. He was so unpleasant to deal with that Keith Davidson, the former lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels who testified at the start of the trial, suggested he almost gave up an easy $10,000 salary just because he would have to talk to Cohen on the phone. .

“Nobody wanted to talk to Cohen,” Davidson said on the stand.

But the version of Michael Cohen who appeared in Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom this week was calm and polite, answering many of attorney Susan Hoffinger’s questions with “yes, ma’am.” Less pit bull, more labrador. A good family dog. And family, it seems, is very important to Cohen – perhaps it is the key to understanding him as a witness.

Cohen spoke of his family at points during his testimony, particularly when Hoffinger asked about the moment he finally decided to turn against Trump after the FBI raided his home and office looking for evidence related to hush money paid to Daniels. .

“My wife, my daughter, my son said to me, ‘Why are you maintaining this loyalty? What are you doing? We should be [your] first loyalty,’” Cohen testified. “It’s about time we listened to them.”

Asked about his regrets, Cohen said he regretted “the lie, [the] intimidate people in order to achieve a goal.

“But to maintain loyalty and do the things he [Trump] asked me to do this, I violated my moral compass and suffered the penalty, as did my family,” Cohen said.

Watching him speak on the stand — gray-haired and somber, appearing in the harsh courtroom lighting almost like an old man — it wasn’t hard to sympathize with him for a moment. He is the architect of his own despair, but also a human being who has become entangled in Trump’s web of brilliance and chaos.

However, there is another side to Cohen, highlighted extensively by defense attorney Todd Blanche, that questions just how much of a changed man he is. And which version does the jury believe is the real Michael Cohen will have implications that will resonate during the trial and, quite possibly, during the next presidential term.

Cohen still uses that loud, brash voice he once employed on Trump’s behalf — he just uses it against Trump now. In the first minutes of her interrogation, Blanche accused Cohen of having personally attacked him as a lawyer defending Trump.

“You went on TikTok and called me a ‘crying piece of shit,’ didn’t you?” Blanche asked.

He later read other attacks launched by Cohen in recent years, asking the witness to testify that he had called Trump an “asshole dictator,” a “gross cartoon misogynist” and a “Cheeto-covered cartoon villain.”

Cohen’s frequent use of the media — he has two podcasts and two books, is a regular guest on cable news and live streams on TikTok for about an hour each night — is why the U.S. district attorney’s office Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg was previously reluctant to use him as a witness. Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who helped lead the office’s investigation into Trump, wrote in the book “People vs. Donald Trump” that Bragg once said he did not “see a world” in which Cohen was the star witness in any case. (Further complicating Cohen’s credibility is the fact that he pleaded guilty lie under oath in testimony he gave to Congress in 2017.)

The media makes him money – which Cohen probably appreciates, as he can no longer legally practice as a lawyer, having been disbarred. Two books he wrote, provocatively titled “Disloyal” and “Revenge,” earned him about $3.4 million, Cohen testified Tuesday.

On his “Mea Culpa” podcast, Cohen shares his expletive-laden opinions on the news of the day. Several of his episode titles are written to insult Trump, such as “KnocK, Knock Donald… It’s The Marshalls. Keys, please! and “Tik Tok, Tik Tok Donald… Your time to escape responsibility is running out!”

Trump’s team is clearly trying to present Cohen as an opportunist, using the drama of his turn against Trump to drum up opinions and paychecks, though Blanche’s questioning is often disjointed and rudderless. Asked why he posted on TikTok, Cohen said he wanted to “build an audience” and “create a community,” two essential things for making money online. But he also said it benefited his mental health.

He liked going on TikTok “to really vent, because I have trouble sleeping, so I found an outlet,” Cohen testified.

This is the new Michael Cohen: a brash loudmouth with a New York accent but apparently much more interested in self-reflection.

Pomerantz wrote that over the course of multiple interactions with Cohen, he discovered the former Trump fixer was “a complicated person” with a “tortured psyche” who “would be the first to admit he can be a pain in the ass.”

He wrote that “there were times when he was demanding and defensive and other times when he was depressed. He told me once about his daughter, who blamed him for her involvement with Trump and the pain it caused her family.”

Pomerantz added: “Whatever his sins, Michael loved his family deeply.”

What the jury sees in Cohen, whether he is a remorseful family man or an angry vindictive, is yet to be determined. And it should be noted that he still has time to blow up his revamped image – the interrogation with Blanche is expected to continue on Thursday.

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