Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen testified Monday that he was acting at Donald Trump’s behest when he made hush payments to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
For weeks, Trump’s defense lawyers tried to undermine Cohen’s credibility with the jury, and even witnesses painted Trump’s former fixer as hot-headed, self-serving and untrustworthy.
“I didn’t know Michael was an especially charitable or altruistic person,” said Hope Hicks, Trump’s former communications adviser, when she was on the stand. Cohen’s former banker said he was assigned to him because of his “ability to deal with challenging individuals.”
But for the first time on the stand, Cohen presented himself as cool-headed and recalled how he had worked at Trump’s behest to suppress stories that posed a threat, negotiating with tabloid editor David Pecker and ultimately obtaining $130,000. of your own money to pay. a porn star – with the promise of a refund.
“You are a billionaire. Just pay,’” Cohen said Trump’s friends told him. “And he told me, ‘Just do it. Meet with Allen Weisselberg and sort this all out.’”
Cohen and prosecutors have made no secret of the fact that they went to great lengths to prepare him for his testimony — but the real test could come on Tuesday, when cross-examination of Trump’s lawyer is expected to begin.
But first, here’s what you missed on Monday:
Trump vs. Cohen
Cohen’s testimony had long been considered the main event — a confident former Trump who was closer to him than almost any ally having reversed himself — a term the former president often employs — and agreeing to testify against it.
The prosecution spent much of the case trying to bolster Cohen’s credibility, using documents and accounts from reluctant witnesses and some who remain in Trump’s good graces as corroborators.
This was done to try and make the words Cohen would end up speaking sound more believable.
“What I was doing was at the direction and for the benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen said in the deposition. (Trump is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments Cohen paid. He has denied all charges.)
Trump’s shoulders were slightly slumped and his eyes remained closed as Cohen explained in detail how he was working hand in hand with tabloid editor David Pecker to “capture and kill” stories, and witnessed private conversations with Trump, including one recorded by Cohen, and was thrown into court.
Cohen Offers Some Feelings About His Time Working for Trump
Cohen made a small figure when he arrived in the room. A court officer towered over him as he walked behind the defense table and headed to the stand. He looked thinner, with graying hair, and his voice got stronger throughout the day.
Like other witnesses in the case, Cohen’s early career blossomed after he began working for Trump. He was working at a “sleepy” law firm before Trump recruited him to work on the Chapter 11 reorganization of Trump Entertainment Resorts. When Cohen approached him about the bill for his services, Trump offered him a job and he accepted. The bill was never paid.
Cohen said he enjoyed working with the “big family” of the Trump organization. He had a sense of obligation and would sometimes lie for it, he said. “The only thing that crossed my mind was doing the task to make him happy,” he said.
Damage control
After learning in early October 2016 that Stormy Daniels was trying to sell her story, Cohen said he feared a “catastrophic” effect on the Trump campaign.
The campaign was dealing with the fallout from the Access Hollywood tape and fearing mounting electoral fallout. It was Melania’s idea to dismiss the recording as “locker room talk,” Cohen said Trump told her.
Cohen described the growing concern as a deal to suppress the Stormy Daniel story that began to fall apart.
Trump pressured Cohen, he testified, to cut a deal and then delay payment until after the election — arguing that, win or lose, it wouldn’t matter if the story came out later, as long as she remained silent during Election Day, in hope of a payment.
“Because if I win it won’t matter, and if I lose, I don’t really care,” Cohen said Trump told him.
Cohen makes the payment – and then gets angry about his bonus
At the heart of Cohen’s first day of testimony was a recurring theme — something prosecutors have so far failed to demonstrate — that Trump was personally aware of every step in both the payments to Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal.
Cohen said he met with Weisselberg, the CFO of the Trump Organization, to figure out ways to be able to pay Daniels or reimburse the National Enquirer without having Trump’s fingerprints on the payment. Weisselberg proposed different mechanisms to finance the payment, such as a golf membership, but which needed to separate the payment from the Trump name, and so devised a plan for Cohen to form an outside company and use his own money to pay.
Cohen testified that months later, when he received his annual bonus — a check that had been consistently large over the years, he was shocked to discover it was two-thirds smaller than in previous years.
Add that to having already paid out of pocket to silence Daniels but still not being reimbursed, and Cohen said he was irate.
“I was really insulted, personally hurt,” Cohen testified. “After everything I went through in terms of the campaign, as well as things at the Trump Organization, shelling out $130,000 on his behalf to protect him — that gratitude shown back to me was cutting the bonus by two-thirds.”
“I actually had to look twice.”
Trump wasn’t worried about upsetting Melania
Trying to pre-empt an argument the defense appears to be invoking, Cohen was asked whether Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, was the motivation for the hush payments.
Cohen testified that he asked Trump about Melania, saying, “How are things up there?”
“Don’t worry,” Trump responded. “How long do you think I’ll be in business? Not a lot.”
Anticipation of women’s stories
Cohen recalled before the jury how Trump told him that as soon as he launched his campaign, he risked women coming out of nowhere to sell stories about him, according to his former staffer.
“You know when this comes out,” Trump said of his presidential announcement, “a lot of women are going to come forward,” Cohen said.
That’s what led to the Trump Tower meeting with Pecker in 2015, Cohen detailed — an agreement that the post could make Trump look good while he ran for president.
“If we can publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, that would be beneficial,” Cohen testified. “If we could publish negative stories about some of the other candidates, that would be beneficial as well.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
