Michael Cohen felt “giddy with hope and laughter” imagining Donald Trump being sent to jail, the former US president’s hush money trial has been told.
Mr Trump’s defence lawyer Todd Blanche played the jury clips of Mr Cohen celebrating the prosecution of Mr Trump in a bid to undermine the prosecution’s star witness.
Mr Trump is facing trial in Manhattan over claims he paid ‘hush money’ to adult actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair over fears it would damage his 2016 campaign.
Defending Mr Trump, Mr Blanche told jurors that Mr Cohen had lied to Congress and had also lied under oath when pleading guilty to tax violations.
He pointed out that Mr Cohen had privately sought a pardon from Mr Trump while publicly saying he would not accept one.
Mr Cohen agreed that he had blamed others, including Mr Trump, in the wake of his own criminal convictions on tax and campaign-finance charges.
The 57-year-old testified earlier this week that Mr Trump ordered him to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to protect Trump's presidential campaign.
Mr Blanche noted in cross-examination on Tuesday that Cohen had called his former boss a "dictator douchebag," and other insults on podcasts and in social media posts.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in the first criminal trial of a former US president and denies having a sexual encounter.
The New York case, one of four criminal prosecutions he faces, is likely to be the only one with a jury verdict before his November 5 election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
Mr Cohen also testified earlier this week that he and Trump discussed a plan to reimburse Cohen for the payout through a series of fake invoices for legal fees.
Their chats included one in the White House Oval Office when Mr Trump was president in 2017, he claimed.
Mr Trump, 77, faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York to cover up a payment to the porn star in the run-up to the election.
Prosecutors say the altered records covered up election-law and tax-law violations, offences punishable by up to four years in prison.
However, Mr Trump has characterised the case and three other prosecutions as an attempt to interfere with his campaign to take back the White House.
He has argued that his monthly payments to Mr Cohen throughout 2017 were for his work as his personal lawyer to the president.
