NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s lawyers accused the prosecution’s star witness in his secret trial of lying to jurors, portraying Trump nemesis Michael Cohen on Thursday as a serial fabulist who is bent on seeing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. behind bars.
As Trump looked on, defense attorney Todd Blanche pressed Cohen for hours with questions that focused both on his crimes and the specific allegations in the case and tried to sow doubt in jurors’ minds about Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the former president.
Blanche’s voice rose as he grilled Cohen with phone records and text messages about Cohen’s claim that he spoke on the phone with Trump about the secret payment to porn star Stormy Daniels at the center of the case, days before transferring U.S. $130K to his lawyer.
Blanche said this was a lie, confronting Cohen with texts indicating that what was on his mind, at least initially, during the phone call were harassing calls he was receiving from an apparent 14-year-old prankster. Cohen said he believes he also spoke to Trump about the Daniels deal.
“We are not asking for your belief. This jury doesn’t want to hear what you think happened,” Blanche said, her voice getting even louder, prompting an objection from the prosecutor.
The heated moment was the crescendo of two days of defense cross-examination designed to portray Cohen — a former Trump loyalist who has become one of his greatest enemies — as a media-obsessed opportunist who turned on the former president after he was denied a white mandate. Housework.
The defense’s success in undermining Cohen’s testimony could determine Trump’s fate in the case. Throughout the trial’s fourth week of testimony, Cohen described to jurors meetings and conversations she said she had with Trump about the alleged scheme to suppress sex stories that threatened to torpedo Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors tried to blunt the defense’s attacks on their star witness by having him acknowledge his past crimes early on, including a guilty plea to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia.
But the interrogation highlighted the risk of prosecutors trusting Cohen, who was repeatedly peppered with questions about his criminal history and past lies. Cohen also testified that he lied under oath when he pleaded guilty to federal charges, including tax fraud, in 2018.
“It was a lie? Correct?” Blanche asked Cohen if he lied to the late U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III at a hearing about not being pressured to plead guilty.
“Correct,” said Cohen.
Trump’s team also attacked Cohen’s motivations and obtained testimony designed to support the defense’s argument that Trump was the victim of extortion by Keith Davidson, a crucial witness and lawyer who negotiated secret deals for two women. Cohen acknowledged telling a former prosecutor that he felt Daniels and Davidson were extorting Trump by requesting payment of $130,000 to keep silent about his allegation of a sexual encounter with Trump.
“Yes, I remember making a statement like that… that they were extorting Mr. Trump,” Cohen told jurors.
He is by far prosecutors’ most important witness, placing Trump squarely at the center of the alleged scheme to silence women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump. Trump denies the women’s claims. Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to reimburse him for the money he invested and was constantly updated on behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories he feared would be damaging to his 2016 campaign.
Cohen is also important because the refunds he received form the basis of 34 criminal charges accusing Trump of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were falsely recorded as legal expenses to hide the true purpose of the payments.
Trump, who insists the accusation is an attempt to harm his campaign to regain the White House, says the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses because Cohen was a lawyer. The defense suggested he was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by suppressing what he says were false and obscene statements.
“The crime is that they are investigating this case,” Trump told reporters Thursday before entering the courtroom, flanked by a group of congressional allies that included Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.; Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; and Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.
Far-right Republican lawmakers stood outside the courthouse and protested a “kangaroo court” and the case, amplifying the former president’s attacks on the judicial system as they were questioned but also applauded by the crowd. The former president has been joined in court in recent days by a number of conservative supporters, including some considered potential vice presidential candidates and others seeking future administration roles.
Among those in court Thursday were Republican members of the House Oversight Committee, which postponed a hearing on an effort to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland accountable for contempt of Congress so lawmakers could appear alongside Trump in Manhattan. .
Blanche confronted Cohen with profane social media posts, a podcast and books she wrote about the former president, prompting Cohen to acknowledge that he made millions of dollars by attacking Trump. In a clip played in court Thursday, Cohen could be heard using an expletive and saying he really hopes “this man ends up in prison.”
“This will not bring back the year I lost or the damage done to my family. But revenge is a dish best served cold,” Cohen said. “You better believe I want this man to fall.”
Cohen acknowledged that he continued to attack Trump, even during the trial.
In a social media post cited by the defense attorney, Cohen called Trump an alliterative and explicit nickname, as well as an “orange-crusted ignoramus.” Asked if he used the phrase, Cohen replied: “It sounds right.”
Cohen — prosecutors’ last witness, at least for now — is expected to return to the witness stand on Monday. The trial will conclude on Friday so Trump can attend his youngest son Barron’s high school graduation.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said it will close the case once Cohen takes the stand, although it may have the opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses if Trump’s lawyers name their own witnesses.
The defense is not required to call witnesses and it is unclear whether lawyers will do so. Trump’s lawyers said they may call Bradley A. Smith, a Republican who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the Federal Election Commission, to refute the prosecution’s claim that the hush money payments amounted to federal funding violations. campaign.
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Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Jake Offenhartz and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
