Donald Trump, flanked by his son Eric and staunch congressional supporters Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, returned to the Manhattan courthouse on Thursday for the 18th day of his hush-money trial.
The former president sat and occasionally glowered as he watched Michael Cohen, his former attorney and fixer, testify. Cohen answered questions about Trump’s reimbursements to Cohen – seemingly disguised as legal fees – for Cohen’s payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
During several hours of cross-examination, Trump’s lawyers sought to discredit Cohen as a vindictive and lying former employee with animosity towards Trump. Cohen largely remained calm.
Here are the key takeaways:
Defense plays Cohen’s anti-Trump podcast clips
Trump’s defense team kicked off its cross-examination of Cohen by playing several clips from his podcast Mea Culpa, in which he boisterously celebrated Trump’s indictment last year.
The clips featured Cohen sounding excited and high-pitched, saying that he hoped Trump “ends up in prison” and that “revenge is a dish best served cold”. Other clips played in front of the court included Cohen saying, “You better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside,” and, “Thinking about Trump in Otisville prison makes me giddy with joy.”
Prosecutors have spent the last few weeks setting up Cohen as someone with an exaggerated personality and occasionally contemptible behavior. This strategy seeks to ensure that there is nothing left to surprise jurors about Cohen and his anti-Trump attitude during his cross-examination. Still, as the defense played the clips, Cohen looked visibly upset.
At one point, Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche asked Cohen whether he believed his podcast and interviews played a role in Trump’s indictment. Cohen said: “I took some credit, yes.”
Defense tries to frame Cohen as serial liar
Blanche sought to paint Cohen as a serial liar, confronting him with various false statements he made while under oath.
One statement Blanche brought up was Cohen’s testimony in front of the House oversight committee in 2017 when Cohen lied about the number of times he spoke to Trump about a Trump Tower project in Moscow. Cohen has repeatedly said that he told lies out of his loyalty to Trump. Blanche pushed on with the suggestion that Cohen is someone who lies easily and out of convenience.
Blanche also pointed to Cohen’s guilty plea in August 2018 for federal tax evasion and false statements in New York.
“Nobody induced you or threatened you to plead guilty, correct?” asked Blanche.
Cohen said: “As I stated previously, I was provided 48 hours within which to accept the plea or the southern district of New York was going to file an 80-page indictment that included my wife, and I elected to protect my family.”
Blanche asked whether Cohen felt induced to plead guilty.
“I never denied the underlying facts. I just did not believe that I should have been criminally charged for either of those six offenses,” said Cohen. Blanche then asked, “That was a lie?” to which Cohen said, “That was not true.”
Cohen also admitted a track record of shifting blame on to others. “You’ve blamed your bank, your accountant, you blamed federal prosecutors, the judge, President Trump,” said Blanche. Cohen said: “Yes, sir.”
The defense’s cross-examination of Cohen, which did get slightly confusing and granular, was intended to suggest a clear message to the jury – that Cohen is a deceitful and opportunistic person whose small and large lies blur with his truths.
Defense yells at Cohen over 2016 call
The defense’s cross-examination of Cohen became heated when Blanche questioned Cohen about a string of phone calls he received in October 2016 from a 14-year-old prankster – a move seemingly used by Blanche to reaffirm the defense’s framing of Cohen as a liar.
Blanche’s questioning appeared to suggest that the prank calls and Cohen’s need for help to address them was why he called Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller at the time. Cohen previously testified that he instead called Schiller to confirm to Trump his plans to facilitate the hush-money payment to Daniels.
Showing several texts between Cohen and Schiller about the prank calls with zero mention of Daniels, Blanche told Cohen: “You can admit [that you lied].” Cohen remained steadfast, saying: “No, sir, I can’t.”
“Part of it was the 14-year-old, but I know that Keith was with Mr Trump at the time and there was more potentially than this,” Cohen said.
Blanche raised his voice, and suggested it was not possible for Cohen to complain about the calls to Schiller and also confirm the plans for the hush-money payment in under two minutes.
“Five minutes ago, I asked if you remembered harassing calls, and then I refresh and you said you don’t remember. Now, you say you have enough time in a 1min 26sec call to update Schiller and update Trump on the status of the deal?” Blanche said. He pressed on: “That was a lie. You did not talk to President Trump. You talked to Keith Schiller. Can you admit that?”
Cohen replied, “No sir, I don’t know that it’s accurate,” before adding: “I always ran everything by the boss immediately, and in this case, it would have been saying everything has been taken care of, it’s been resolved.”
Cohen also said he believed he “spoke to Mr Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter.” Blanche yelled back: “We are not asking what you believe … The jury doesn’t want to hear what you think!”
Defense attempts to dismantle Trump’s core charge of record falsification
At the end of his questioning, Blanche asked, “Make no mistake, this was a completely legal binding contract, correct?” in reference to Daniels technically entering a legal contract with Cohen to purchase the rights to her story about the alleged liaison. Cohen replied: “Yes sir.”
Blanche continued, “And there’s nothing illegal about a settlement contract between two parties, both of whom have lawyers?”, to which Cohen agreed.
Blanche also pointed to the NDA signed between “Peggy Peterson” and “David Dennison” – pseudonyms for Trump and Daniels, suggesting that such an agreement is not anything out of the ordinary.
“A non-disclosure agreement, an NDA, a settlement between two parties … happens all the time?” asked Blanche. “Yes,” Cohen replied.
Blanche’s line of questioning and Cohen’s responses appeared to suggest that it was perfectly legal for the Trump Organization to classify the payments as legal expenses due to the legal work that was performed – an argument that strikes at the very heart of prosecutors’ charge that Trump falsified business records as part of his alleged 2016 election interference efforts.
