WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s former fixer took the stand in a Manhattan courtroom Monday, telling jurors that Trump was well aware of a plan to conceal the repayment of funds intended to silence porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election be known.
Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, told jurors that he used a home equity loan to pay $130,000 to Daniels’ attorney, relying on assurances from Trump – then a Republican presidential candidate – that he would keep his money would get back.
The criminal trial, the first ever against a former president, centers on Trump’s restitution to Cohen and whether Trump illegally covered up the hush money as routine legal fees, a felony in New York.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts for each allegedly falsified business record related to his repayment to Cohen – 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 accounting entries.
Cohen was already in prison for several federal crimes, including campaign finance violations related to hush-money deals with women who alleged sexual affairs with Trump. In August 2019, he was sentenced to three years in prison, but did not serve the entire sentence.
Cohen’s intense loyalty to Trump waned after the then-president distanced himself. The former fixer is now an outspoken Trump critic and has published books called “Disloyal” and “Revenge” and produces a podcast called “Mea Culpa.”
Cohen was called to the stand just days after Daniels, an adult film actress and director. described in lurid detail Her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 was the affair at the heart of the payments in question.
GOP senators act as moral support
Journalists in the courthouse reported that Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, slept at times during Monday’s trial and shook his head in response to some of Cohen’s statements.
New York does not allow courtroom recordings but does make them publicly available Transcripts of the procedure.
Trump was joined by Republican U.S. Senators Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and JD Vance of Ohio, who are on the compact list as Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Republican U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York also joined senators and spoke to the media outside the courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott appeared in the courtroom last week.
Before the trial on Monday, Trump spoke to the press, with Tuberville and Vance among those behind him.
Trump defended his payments to Cohen and blamed the Biden administration for the allegations, even though New York state filed charges.
“Legal costs are legal costs. “‘Legal fees’ are noted as ‘legal fees’ in the book quote,” Trump told reporters, making air quotes with his hands.
“This all comes from Biden in the White House, by the way,” he added.
Worried about the “Access Hollywood” tape
Cohen testified that he wanted to protect Trump from further alienating female voters just weeks before the November election. after to reporters at the courthouse.
A story about Trump’s alleged extramarital affair with Daniels that broke shortly after the “Access Hollywood” recording was revealed would have been “disastrous,” Cohen said.
The video, published by The Washington Post just a month before the 2016 presidential election, showed Trump bragging to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that his fame allowed him to grab women’s genitals.
The tape caused uproar in the Trump camp as Election Day approached, former Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks testified on May 3.
According to journalists who witnessed the testimony, prosecutors presented phone records, text messages and emails of Cohen’s desperate attempts to suppress stories about Trump’s alleged trysts with Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Cohen testified for several hours about communications with David Pecker, former editor of the National Enquirer; Keith Davidson, Daniels and McDougal’s attorney; and Hicks – all of whom took the stand in the previous weeks of the trial.
Telephone records revealed a five-minute phone call between Cohen and Trump at 11:48 a.m. on October 28, 2016, in which Cohen told the jury that he had assured Trump “that this matter was now fully under control and under wraps” to reporters at the courthouse . The call came the same day Cohen signed the agreement with Daniels and Davidson.
The jury also saw records of a wire transfer from Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, to Davidson, the purpose of which was to “pay Stormy Daniels to execute the nondisclosure agreement and preserve the story and its life rights,” Cohen said. According to reporters at the courthouse.
“Legal services provided”
Late in the afternoon, Cohen began testifying that Trump knew directly about the reimbursement plan. The plan was hatched with the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who is currently in prison for crimes related to Trump’s civil fraud trial packed in February in New York.
Jurors saw handwritten notes from Weisselberg detailing how the money would be returned to Cohen. This was the second time the jury had seen the notes, as Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization’s longtime controller, testified before them on May 6.
Shortly before the court session, Cohen testified that he and Weisselberg went to Trump’s 26th floor office when he was president and obtained Trump’s approval of the reimbursement plan, reporters at the courthouse say. Cohen said Weisselberg instructed him to submit a series of invoices over a 12-month period and label them as “legal services rendered.”
Direct questioning of Cohen by prosecutors is expected to resume on Tuesday.
Weisselberg is serving a prison sentence at Rikers Island after pleading guilty to perjury during Trump’s civil fraud trial. The former Trump Treasury official had already spent three months in Rikers for tax fraud offenses related to the same case.
