Trump’s court is the stage for non-stop spectacle as the indictment ends

NEW YORK — On a pivotal day in the first criminal trial of an American president, the courtroom threatened to spiral out of control.

The prosecution’s main witness, Michael D. Cohen, admitted on the stand that he stole from the former president donald trumpcompany. Trump’s courtroom entourage included three supporters accused of their own crimes. And the defense’s only real witness was so defiant that the judge, after criticizing him, emptied the courtroom.

The first five weeks of the trial included dramatic descriptions of sex and scandal, and the final phase of testimony on Monday showed no sign of slowing down as the courtroom was the scene of non-stop spectacle.

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Tensions came to a head after the prosecution rested its case and the defense called its witness, Robert J. Costello, a lawyer who had previously advised Cohen. The defense saw Costello as a foil to Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and longtime henchman.

But the strategy may not have paid off: The judge immediately lost patience with Costello, a prosecutor turned defense lawyer and a fixture in the New York legal world. When Costello mocked one of the judge’s rulings — “damn,” he said, before muttering a retraction — the judge became irate.

Excusing the jury, Judge Juan M. Merchan lectured Costello: “If you don’t like my decision, don’t say ‘damn’ and don’t say ‘attack,’ because I’m the only one who can testify in court,” he said. him, adding: “Are you staring at me?”

He ordered the courtroom to be cleared, briefly expelling reporters and other spectators but allowing Trump supporters to remain. When those who were told to leave did so, according to a transcript, he told Costello his conduct was “despicable” and said, “If you try to get in my face one more time, I will remove you from the stand,” adding, to defense lawyers: “I’m going to eliminate his testimony, can you hear me?”

The explosion overshadowed the performance of Cohen, who on his fourth and final day in the stands defended himself from a barrage of attacks from the defense.

He was the only witness to offer firsthand evidence directly linking Trump to the records supporting the charges against him. Trump, he said, approved a plan to falsify records to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star.

During Monday’s questioning, Trump’s top lawyer attacked Cohen’s credibility, painting him as a pathological liar obsessed with taking down the former president. But Cohen maintained his composure, while some jurors appeared to lose focus as they shifted positions in their seats.

And when prosecutors were given a second opportunity to question Cohen, they sought to lessen much of the interrogation’s impact.

“Are you accused of a crime in this case?” a prosecutor, Susan Hoffinger, asked him. “No, ma’am,” Cohen responded, explaining that he was only there as a “subpoenaed witness.”

However, Cohen, the 20th and last person to testify in defense of the prosecution, was not just any witness. He illustrated much of the prosecution’s case like no one else could, harmonizing disparate facts to portray Trump as a criminal.

Cohen took the stand Monday amid a uniquely Trumpian display, as an eclectic entourage of the former president’s supporters — several with legal troubles of their own — filled the courtroom.

The group of more than a dozen included not only Republican lawmakers and high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz, but also a Trump legal adviser who is under indictment in Arizona, Boris Epshteyn, and Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner. York that Trump pardoned federal criminal charges. And there was Chuck Zito, a former leader of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, a man with black hair like Elvis who spent years in prison on drug charges.

They entered the courtroom to support Trump as his confrontation with his former fixer and current enemy continued.

But that wasn’t the end of the fireworks. When Costello took the stand, he tried to convince the jury that Cohen was a terrible liar.

He recalled their first meeting in the spring of 2018, after the FBI searched Cohen’s home and office amid an investigation into the secret deal. Although Cohen testified that Costello was part of a “pressure campaign” by Trump allies, Costello said Monday that Cohen was desperate for help.

“My life is destroyed,” Costello recalled the former fixer telling him before asking, “What’s my escape route?”

Costello testified that he told him he could cooperate with the government, but Cohen said he had nothing incriminating to offer.

Costello recalled that Cohen said at the spring 2018 meeting, “I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.”

Amid a chorus of objections from Hoffinger — most of which were upheld by the judge — Costello and Trump shook their heads in apparent frustration.

As he left the courtroom, Trump praised Costello but called Merchan a “tyrant” and the trial a “disaster.”

Costello, who will continue his testimony on Tuesday, was preceded by Cohen himself, who went through another tough round of questioning from the defense.

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, ventured into the heart of the case: Trump’s reimbursement of Cohen for hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Cohen’s $130,000 payment on the eve of the 2016 presidential election silenced his account of a sexual encounter with Trump that threatened to derail his campaign.

In return, Cohen received $420,000 — an amount he said included hush money, a bonus, tax money and $50,000 to reimburse a technology company in an unrelated matter. But when pressed by Blanche, Cohen acknowledged that he pocketed more than half the money earmarked for technology company RedFinch.

“You stole from the Trump Organization, right?” Blanche asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen replied.

Blanche also emphasized how much money Cohen reaped from his attacks on his former boss and mentor, Trump, suggesting his testimony was motivated by greed rather than the truth. Cohen has written two books and is considering a third, and has profited handsomely from a podcast. He even said he might run for Congress.

But when Blanche suggested that a conviction would complete Cohen’s revenge plan, Cohen corrected him, at least on the economic front.

He said it would be better if Trump escaped unscathed because “it gives me more to talk about in the future.”

Blanche sought to end the crucial exchange with a flourish, returning to her claim from last week that Cohen had lied on the stand when speaking to Trump in late October 2016 about the money-hiding deal. But Cohen forced it to end with a whimper, not a bang.

“Undoubtedly?” Blanche asked Cohen about his memories of speaking with Trump.

“Without a doubt,” Cohen replied, ending his interrogation.

There’s no way to know what the jury thinks of Cohen, whose lies and past crimes were hardly a secret — prosecutors warned the jury to expect an outsized personality with a heavy load of baggage. And their verdict is not imminent. Merchan has scheduled closing arguments for May 28, after which jurors can begin deliberations.

On Monday, when Hoffinger, the prosecutor, had the opportunity to cross-examine Cohen again, she sought to soften some of the rougher edges of her testimony.

To underscore the idea that Trump approved of Cohen’s conduct, she produced a text message from one of Trump’s lawyers, who expressed his appreciation that Cohen had told the media – he now says falsely – that he had bribed Daniels for his own initiative.

“Customer thanks you for what you do,” the text message said, appearing to refer to Trump.

She also asked Cohen whether he was wrong to steal from the Trump Organization by seeking reimbursement for the technology company’s work. Cohen agreed yes.

Finally, Hoffinger went back to the records that the indictment says Trump faked to hide the hush money deal. Trump, who faces probation or up to four years in prison, is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, one for each document related to Cohen’s 2017 reimbursement: 11 checks to Cohen (most of which Trump signed), 11 invoices submitted by Cohen and 12 entries in Trump’s ledger.

All documents referred to a “retainer agreement,” implying that Cohen received the money for normal expenses. While Blanche highlighted a variety of legal tasks Cohen performed for the Trump family around this time, Hoffinger focused intensely on specific sums and records.

“Did the $420,000 you received in 2017 have anything to do with legal services you provided in 2017?” she asked Cohen. He replied bluntly: “No.”

“When you submitted each of your 11 invoices,” she asked, “was that true or false?”

“False,” he confirmed.

What about the check stubs that reflected a supposed advance?

“False,” he told the jury.

Hoffinger also asked Cohen to assess the impact of his disagreement with Trump, which has been the focus of his existence for years.

“My whole life was turned upside down,” he said.

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