In the final stages of the prosecution case in New York State People v. Donald Trump, prosecutors are expected to call Michael Cohen, the most high-profile witness since the indictment a year ago.
Before the trial began, some observers thought Mr. Cohen would be an essential star witness. They said that without Mr. Cohen, the district attorney could not prove the elements of the criminal offenses charged. But over the past three weeks, as I watched prosecutors meticulously and methodically present their evidence, I began to wonder. Do prosecutors need Michael Cohen as a witness? Should the jury hear from him?
Certainly, this case would not exist for anyone other than Mr. Cohen. Prosecutors in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office (I was one of the special counsel’s prosecutors) and the hush-hush that bought Stormy Daniels’ silence in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape revelations in New York He was also the first to expose the plan. .
But since then, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has independently established the crime and assembled evidence he believes supports Cohen’s version.
Calling Mr. Cohen as a witness not only has the reward of adding more important evidence to the prosecution’s case, but also the risk of damaging the case with issues related to Mr. Cohen’s personal baggage. He, like Mr. Daniels, is a colorful character. Eating Actinidia in the press and severing ties with former boss Trump are inherently dramatic.
He joins a group of high-profile subordinates who have presented state evidence to their superiors. Prosecutors will rely on the testimony of an insider who gave “favorable” testimony against his boss. And what these insiders have in common is that they can talk about the inner workings of the alleged conspiracy.
I’ve seen this in organized crime cases (former vice boss of the Gambino crime family, Salvatore Gravano, testifying against former Gambino boss John Gotti), economic crimes prosecutions (former chief financial officer of Enron, Andrew Fastow) (testimony against former CEOs). (Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling), political corruption issues (Mr. Trump’s former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates testified against former campaign manager Paul Manafort).
Mr. Cohen can provide a detailed insider account of the accused scheme and Mr. Trump’s role in it. And Mr. Cohen is less important to the outcome of the trial than originally thought, since the trial has already proven that there is no alternative story that matches all of the trial evidence.
Testimony from David Pecker, Jeffrey McConney, Hope Hicks and others revealed a clear plan to kill derogatory articles about candidate Trump and spread harmful statements about political opponents, including direct conversations with Trump. Revealed the story. And a damning handwritten memo from a Trump Organization treasurer provides evidence that the plan was allegedly concealed through documents disguising hush money refunds as legal fees.
It is a sign of the unusual politics of the trial that Mr. Daniels, rather than Mr. Pecker and Mr. Hicks, who are far more legally damaging witnesses, was subjected to much more intense cross-examination.
The key question that remains, and one that Mr. Cohen can address, is whether Mr. Trump knew about the alleged cover-up scheme regarding the reimbursement checks to Mr. Cohen disguised as legal payments. Mr. Cohen stated that he had set up a $130,000 mortgage line as hush money for Mr. Daniels, a fact well established by direct and circumstantial evidence.
Pick up a handwritten memo from former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. They revealed that he must have known about the hush money scheme and its alleged cover-up. His memo (and a memo from a former Trump Organization administrator whom prosecutors say helped carry out the scheme) states that in order to account for Mr. Cohen’s taxes, he will need to double, or “gross amount,” 13 It details how the $10,000 will be repaid. The amount of this false income. Mr. Weisselberg, a Trump Organization veteran who was clearly willing to serve time in prison rather than antagonize Mr. Trump, remains on Mr. Trump’s payroll after his guilty plea, but he is not responsible for making these payments himself. It is far from the idea that he would have approved it. -I got it. Evidence at trial demonstrated that he could not approve any expense in excess of $10,000, and here he not only authorized a $130,000 payment to Mr. Cohen, but also completely removed Mr. You will be authorized to double the amount in order to do so.
In addition to Trump’s own words read to jurors, witness after witness testified that Trump was a micromanager and a penny-pincher. Trump then signed a flurry of checks repaying the amount Cohen had paid Daniels, plus more. In short, there is no way that either Mr. Cohen or Mr. Weisselberg could have taken such action without Mr. Trump’s permission.
Against all this and other evidence, we now expect to hear from Mr. Cohen. In many cases, a successful prosecution cannot be achieved without such witnesses. This is especially true if your boss consciously leaves no paper trail. Trump famously resented White House advisers taking notes after seeing that one of his favorite lawyers, Roy Cohn, did not.
Therefore, there is no doubt that Mr. Bragg and prosecutors believe it is necessary to call Mr. Cohen to testify. Still, calling Mr. Cohen as a witness carries significant risks for Mr. Bragg. He brings baggage: He recently committed several crimes under oath in the New York civil fraud trial against Trump (the court found him credible and ruled against Trump). He claimed he lied to a federal judge when he pleaded guilty to one of the charges. . By way of explanation, he appeared to claim that he was pressured by federal prosecutors to plead guilty.
Even if we accept Mr. Cohen’s story, it would mean that Mr. Cohen lied to a federal judge after taking an oath to tell the truth — an oath he would take at Mr. Trump’s criminal trial. And his story is that federal prosecutors were so intent on prosecuting Trump that they were going to trample on Cohen’s rights, and that the expected defense would splatter the ugly federal filth on state prosecutors. This will support the claim.
The other option is that Mr. Cohen is lying about his innocence, which may be a very obvious possibility given the evidence against him. If so, he lied in a recent state court fraud case. He lied in one court, as a federal judge in New York recently concluded in denying Mr. Cohen’s motion to have his criminal sentence terminated early.
Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call Mr. Cohen. I believe that even though prosecutors have a mountain of independent evidence of guilt, they still call on flawed insiders to provide jurors with their own detailed and direct evidence of defendant’s guilt. I have repeatedly observed interesting phenomena.
Jurors often want to hear someone talk about events they already know about, but that aren’t told directly. Afterwards, juries often reach guilty verdicts, even though they discover that a conspiracy existed as detailed by a key criminal accomplice (someone like Mr. Cohen), even though that witness’ testimony later They would say they didn’t believe it and didn’t need it.
We’ll soon find out if the same thing will happen again with the People vs. Trump.
Andrew Wiseman teaches at New York University School of Law and is co-author of The Trump Indicments: The Historic Charging Documents With Commentary. He served as a senior prosecutor in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and is co-host of the podcast “Indicting Donald Trump.”
The Times is committed to publishing Diversity of characters To the editor. Please let us know what you think about this article or article.here are some chip. And this is our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow the New York Times Opinion section. Facebook, Instagram, tick tock, whatsapp, X and thread.
