After five hours of cross-examination, in which attorney Todd Blanche sought to paint Michael Cohen as a liar, an unhinged user of social media and a man bitter that he never got a job in the White House, Donald Trump's defense team on Thursday finally got around to addressing what the former president's onetime fixer said on the stand earlier this week.
Cohen, who in 2018 was sentenced to three years in prison for his own role in the hush money scheme, had testified that he received explicit approval from Trump to buy Stormy Daniels' silence ahead of the 2016 election. On Tuesday, prosecutors introduced phone logs showing that Cohen called Trump's personal body guard, Keith Schiller. Cohen testified that he often called Schiller in order to speak with Trump, saying he did so on Oct. 24, 2016, "to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it."
But just before the court broke for lunch on Thursday, Trump's attorney challenged Cohen's account, suggesting that he actually called Schiller to complain about prank calls he was receiving from an apparent teenager.
"That was a lie!" Blanche said of Cohen's earlier testimony. "You did not talk to President Trump on that night. You talked to Keith Schiller about what we just went through," he said, suggesting the two had texted about the matter earlier in the day. (Cohen had also testified that he called Schiller, months earlier, to speak with Trump about another hush payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal; Blanche did not challenge that recollection.)
"I'm not certain that is accurate," Cohen responded to Blanche's accusation Thursday. "I believe I spoke to Mr. Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter."
Whatever the truth, Lisa Rubin, a legal analyst with NBC News, said the exchange could sow doubt in jurors' minds.
"If the jury is convinced that Cohen mixed up or purposefully misrepresented when he spoke to Trump, Blanche can potentially cast doubt over a broader swath of Cohen’s testimony about the substance of calls at other times," Rubin noted.
