CNN
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Michael Cohen once described himself as Donald Trump’s “spokesman, thug, pit bull, and lawless lawyer.”
But this week, he was given a new role. He will be a key witness for prosecutors seeking to prove that President Trump illegally falsified business records after paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels as part of a 2016 election interference scheme.
Mr. Cohen’s testimony will be a critical moment in the hush money trial, in which Mr. Trump could become the first former president to be convicted. His appearance would mark the culmination of a bitter personal feud between two cocky New Yorkers obsessed with betrayal and revenge. And it marks one of the creepiest developments yet in the presumptive Republican candidate’s legal quagmire surrounding the 2024 election.
In his autobiography, the former Trump fixer said he wanted to reflect Trump’s influence and notoriety and used the real estate mogul’s methods, including bullying, lies and mocking the rule of law, to serve Trump. He wrote that he was hired. He once vowed to take a bullet for his boss. But his testimony will be his latest attempt to atone for this Faustian pact after years as a central figure in the Trump administration paid a price that included imprisonment.
In many ways, Cohen is a mirror image of Trump. He is a flamboyant brawler and social media provocateur who craves power and wealth and is willing to blackmail anyone at any price to get it. Mr. Cohen was in charge of cleaning up his family’s personal scandals and business breakdowns at the Trump Organization, and allegedly helped pay Mr. Daniels $130,000 in hush money at the behest of his boss. President Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels, but Daniels’ testimony last week about an alleged affair in Lake Tahoe in 2006 seemed too much for the former president to bear. He has pleaded not guilty to this and three other criminal charges.
Cohen’s value as a witness is that he was involved in every aspect of Trump’s business and personal life, knew all of his secrets, and was allegedly complicit in his efforts to break the law and prevent accountability. The point is that “I know where the remains are buried, because I buried them,” Cohen wrote in his book “Unfaithful.”
“Cohen made the payments at the defendant’s direction and did so to influence the presidential election,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in his opening statement. After the election, Trump is accused of concocting a plan in the Oval Office to repay Cohen’s hush money in installments under the guise of a bill for legal services. “The defendant falsified these business records because he wanted to cover up his own and others’ criminal activity,” Colangelo said, adding that both Cohen and prosecutors have been candid about Cohen’s past mistakes. He added that he would talk.
Anthony Scaramucci, a friend of Cohen and fellow Trump ally who briefly served as the former president’s White House communications director, said the former fixer could prove the criminality of campaign interference. “Unfortunately for Donald Trump, I think Michael Cohen has the receipts for everything that happened,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday. “They’re smoking gun receipts, and he’s going to give very convincing, very honest, very direct testimony.”
But like Trump, Cohen has a long history of bashing the truth, and since betraying his former mentor, he has monetized his campaign against Trump with books, podcasts, and TV appearances, including one called “Revenge.” I’ve been trying to become That leaves him vulnerable to harsh cross-examination by Trump’s lawyers, who seek to sow reasonable doubts about Trump’s guilt in the mind of at least one juror.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers will argue that the payments to Mr. Cohen constitute legal alimony and that it is not illegal to pay someone to stop baseless rumors about the former president. In his opening statement, Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, suggested that Cohen sought revenge after he was denied a job in the new president’s administration in 2017. He also accused Cohen of having an unhealthy obsession with Trump.
“He is critical of President Trump. He has spoken extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison. He has spoken widely about his desire to see President Trump’s family go to prison.” He talked at length about President Trump being convicted in this case,” Branch said.
President Trump’s former fixer pleads guilty to lying to Congress about the president’s possible business projects in Russia, orchestrating illegal campaign contributions in the form of hush money and various tax evasion charges, and is behind bars. was sent to.
This credibility issue is precisely why prosecutors are trying to prove their 34-count indictment against Trump by forcing jurors to examine the inner workings of the Trump Organization, including bank records, text messages, and evidence from former employees. That’s why we spent so many days laying the foundation for Cohen’s testimony. Falsified financial records to hide hush money payments. Daniels’ testimony was designed to explain an incident in which Trump allegedly tried to alienate voters during his successful run for the White House eight years ago.
John Dean, former President Richard Nixon’s legal adviser, told CNN Newsroom on Saturday that the government’s case against Trump was “very strong” and that “they don’t want to create a system where Michael Cohen can come and testify.” is building, and he’s already pretty much confirmed.” ”
Mr. Cohen, seeking to counter defense claims that he had an ulterior motive to take revenge on former President Donald Trump, has characterized his decision to censure the former president as a search for redemption and that he would not be able to do so if he is elected president in November. described it as an attempt to warn the public about the danger posed by Trump. .
In a dramatic 2019 congressional hearing, Cohen brilliantly described the mob-like world in which his former boss did business, saying his “loyalty to Trump cost him everything.” . He said everything he did, from orchestrating a crackdown on tabloid coverage unfavorable to President Trump to bullying business rivals to closing deals, was “everybody’s job at the Trump Organization.” He testified that he was there for one thing: to protect the United States. He added that he had been instructed by his superiors to threaten people more than 500 times. “I’m embarrassed because I know what kind of person Mr. Trump is. He’s a racist. He’s a fraud. He’s a fraud,” Cohen said.
The Trump admirer-turned-enemy was a lowly lawyer and businessman who made his fortune in New York taxi medallions, but was looking for an executor along the lines of the late notorious New York lawyer. caught the attention of the president. Roy Cohn.
Mr. Trump, who will sit just meters away from his former henchmen in court this week, is equally unsympathetic about Mr. Cohen. He has spent months tarnishing the former lawyer’s character on social media. And Mr. Cohen’s appearance on the witness stand is likely to be one of the biggest tests of President Trump’s ability to avoid violating gag orders that protect key witnesses and court personnel, and Mr. Cohen has already He was fined $10,000 for 10 violations. Last week, Judge Juan Melchán directly warned President Trump that future violations could result in prison time.
This is not the first time the former partners have met in court. Mr. Cohen was a key witness in Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York last fall, resulting in a nearly $500 million judgment against the former president, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization. Describing it as an “unbelievable reunion,” Cohen testified that he had “reverse engineered” Trump’s financial statements to arrive at arbitrary net worth figures at key moments in the prosecution case.
He also got into a heated argument with Trump’s lawyers. They sought to undermine Trump’s credibility during cross-examination by emphasizing the risk that prosecutors would put him on the stand in a hush money trial, unlike in a civil fraud case. jury.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the trial, which legal experts consider the weakest criminal threat facing the former president, may be the only one to go to a jury before the November election. ing. All three other cases are effectively on hold. The Supreme Court is considering a former president’s request for blanket immunity stemming from a federal election interference indictment, and a Florida judge appointed by President Trump has been hobbled by pre-trial motions and adjudication of disputes that have led to the release of classified documents. The trial was postponed. A Florida election interference case is mired in controversy over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disbarred from the case.
The hush money trial is reminiscent of the 2016 election, but its outcome could play a key role in the fate of the White House eight years from now. There is still no clear sign that the proceedings have had any impact on Trump’s standing on the presidential race, after he brandished his indictment to strengthen his case that he himself was a victim of election interference. This helped him win the Republican primary, and some polls show that if he were a convicted felon in a close race against President Joe Biden, some Republicans would vote against him. He said he may be considering voting for . But the former president will use any acquittal to argue that all charges against him are equally meritless.
So Mr. Cohen’s testimony could have an impact far beyond the courtroom.
