NEW YORK—On the 12th official day of testimony in the hush money trial against former President Donald Trump, the mogul-turned-politician eyed down his former personal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen, from across the courtroom.
Mr. Cohen is a central witness to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office case against Trump, which accuses him of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide a catch-and-kill scheme to silence adult star Stormy Daniels from speaking on their 2006 Lake Tahoe affair.
After days of testimony from other witnesses, including Daniels herself, the disgraced, disbarred Cohen presented himself as a man with nothing else to lose and eager to bring his former boss to justice.
In direct examination, the prosecutors asked questions allowing Cohen to recollect his work to pay Daniels $130,000 at the behest of Trump to silence her from shopping her story to potential news outlets.
Cohen explained that he managed to broker a settlement agreement between Daniels and Trump and organized the scheme for her to be paid the sum.
Reportedly, Cohen borrowed the $130,000 against his home equity line of credit to conceal from his wife the sum missing from their joint bank account.
Corroborating testimony of banker Gary Farro from earlier in the trial, Cohen created a shell company to funnel the $130,000 to Daniels via an account managed on her behalf by Los Angeles-based attorney Keith Davidson, who previously testified that he represented the AVN Hall of Famer during the negotiations of the hush money deal.
Cohen also recollected asking Trump about Daniels in 2011 after a news story ran alleging the two had sex at a Lake Tahoe resort. According to his account of that conversation, Trump sidestepped the allegation.
Daniels' account of the Lake Tahoe affair surfaced once again during the 2016 campaign. Cohen told jurors that Trump was angry and thought the news of his affair with an adult star could harm his chances against the busy Republican primary field during that election cycle and then against former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"This is a disaster, a total disaster," Cohen quoted Trump as saying in that conversation, per questioning by the prosecution. "Women are going to hate me. This is really a disaster. Women will hate me. Guys, they think it's cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign."
As he continued, Cohen indicated that Trump was simply thinking of the campaign, not the well-being of his relationship with his wife, Melania, or the reputation of his family.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania," Cohen told jurors. "This was all about the campaign.” This claim runs counter to what defense attorneys for Trump have tried to present in regards to the payment: that Trump was shielding his wife and family.
More context was also added to a reported delay in transmitting the payment from Cohen's account to Davidson and Daniels.
Cohen testified that Trump urged him to stall the payment to Daniels, saying, "If I win, it won’t have any relevance. If I lose, I don’t really care." Daniels and Davidson recalled this delay earlier in the trial, indicating that it almost nullified the deal. Cohen said he was just following his boss' directions.
Ultimately, Cohen recalled, the former president told him, "Just do it."
This recollection helps connect the prosecution's argument that paying off Daniels and other actions to catch-and-kill any negative stories about Trump directly influenced the outcome of the 2016 election and could be considered unlawful electioneering. David Pecker, the former publisher of the tabloid National Enquirer, negotiated a deal with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
McDougal alleges an affair with Trump that lasted from 2006 to 2007. She was paid $150,000 in a deal also negotiated for her by Keith Davidson, but the settlement agreement didn't stick because of several reports of Trump's infidelity, such as one by Pulitzer Prize winner Ronan Farrow for The New Yorker and reporting by the Wall Street Journal, which named Daniels and McDougal.
Pecker, a decades-long Trump ally in the supermarket tabloid news space, previously testified that he pressed Cohen on being reimbursed by Trump for the $150,000 paid to McDougal.
Also, during court today, jurors were presented with a secret audio recording made by Cohen where he discusses the reimbursement to Pecker for McDougal's silence.
Other highlights from Cohen's testimony covered the fallout from when the Washington Post highlighted a behind-the-scenes clip from Access Hollywood. In that scandal, Trump was caught on hot mic speaking with then-host Billy Bush about trying to have an affair with a married woman. It was in this video that the infamous line "Grab 'em by the pussy" was introduced into the 2016 political discourse.
In his testimony, Cohen said that he was instructed by Trump, citing a recommendation from the former president's wife, Melania, to spin the Access Hollywood story as simple "locker room talk."
“And the spin that he wanted put on it was that this is locker room talk, something that Melania had recommended—or at least he told me that’s what Melania had thought—and use that in order to get control over the story and minimize the impact on him and his campaign,” Cohen said of this conversation.
Evidence presented by the prosecution includes an email chain that included Cohen and senior Trump campaign staffers—Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie, Jason Miller and Hope Hicks—coordinating on "damage control" related to a Washington Post inquiry at the time seeking comment from then-candidate Trump. Hicks has already testified in the trial in response to a subpoena by the prosecution.
Cohen also told the court that he was paid $420,000 as a reimbursement for his services in securing and paying Daniels' silence. Cohen was informed by former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg that the payment would be a series set up to look like future legal services but was actually the reimbursement, a technical fee payment, a bonus for Cohen, and taxes.
Trump's attorneys are expected to cross-examine Cohen on Tuesday. Defense counsel is expected to present Cohen as a disgruntled former felon and disgraced high-power Manhattan attorney looking for revenge.
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A quick note on our trial day math: Trump's trial has been going on for 16 days. However, we refer to today as day 12. This is because the first four days of the trial were jury selection. So far, only 12 days of testimony have taken place—therefore, 12 days of the trial's primary proceeding, comprised of Trump's actual trial and the jury's hearing of all evidence and testimony.
