Trump’s lawyer charges Michael Cohen lied to jury
The central witness against Donald Trump withstood a withering cross-examination from the former United States president’s defence lawyer, who accused Michael Cohen of lying as recently as two days ago to realise his dreams of revenge against his ex-boss.
The confrontation between Cohen and Trump lawyer Todd Blanche on Thursday (US time) was the most anticipated moment in the month-long trial, which is now speeding toward a conclusion.
Because the trial will not sit today, the jurors now have three days to weigh Cohen’s answers. His cross-examination will continue on Monday morning, setting the stage for closing arguments next week.
New York Supreme Court justice Juan Merchan told the lawyers that he would try to make sure those arguments don’t stretch out over more than one day, but he warned they might because of scheduling demands for the jurors and other logistics issues.
The day’s testimony was closely watched by a cadre of Trump’s political allies sitting behind him in court, including Republican colleagues Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. There were so many congressional Republicans in court in New York that a House Oversight Committee hearing in Washington was delayed.
Trump, who paid close attention to
Blanche’s questioning of Cohen, has still not decided whether he will take the stand, Blanche told the judge. Most defendants do not testify at their trials, believing the risks of being questioned by prosecutors under oath are simply too great.
In his third day on the witness stand, Cohen remained calm and quiet – speaking in a slow, sometimes raspy voice as Blanche challenged his truthfulness again and again. At one point, Blanche shouted that Cohen was a liar.
Cohen’s ability to keep his cool under pressure is an important measuring stick for the prosecutors’ chances of success.
Perhaps more importantly, the jury must decide whether they believe the only witness who directly ties Trump to an alleged scheme to falsify business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.
Cohen, a disbarred and convicted former lawyer, has admitted that he lied for Trump for years; it would be a far more serious threat to the prosecution case if jurors came to suspect he lied to them.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. The indictment accuses Trump of creating a false paper trail to hide the fact that adult-film star Stormy Daniels was paid US$130,000 (NZ$220,000) in October 2016 to stay silent about her claim to have had sex with Trump years earlier. Trump denies the two had sex.
Cohen is instrumental to the prosecution case because he paid Daniels with his own money; the following year, the lawyer was given monthly payments from Trump in what prosecutors say was a corrupt scheme to reimburse him and keep Daniels’ allegations under wraps. Cohen is the only witness who has described conversations with Trump in which he said it was clear that his boss understood they would create the false paper trail.
The angriest and potentially most consequential moment in Thursday’s testimony came when Blanche confronted Cohen over his claim that he spoke to Trump on the evening of October 24, 2016, when he called the phone of Trump’s security chief, Keith Schiller.
Cohen testified earlier this week that during the phone call, he told Trump the plan to pay hush money to Daniels was moving forward.
Blanche, however, presented text messages between Schiller and Cohen that preceded that call and suggested an entirely different reason for the conversation. In those texts, Cohen complained about getting harassing phone calls and asked for Schiller’s help. “Call me,” Schiller replied.
After hours of mild-mannered and patient questioning of Cohen, Blanche erupted as he confronted Cohen over the Schiller texts. Accusing Cohen of fabricating key evidence against his client, the lawyer angrily grabbed the microphone and raised his voice. “That was a lie! You did not talk to President Trump that night!”
Blanche suggested the call was simply too short for it to have included Schiller handing his phone to his boss so he and Cohen could discuss a financial transaction that would ultimately be the genesis of criminal charges against Trump. “I’m not sure that’s accurate,” Cohen said.
He tried to revise his earlier account, saying he “also spoke to Mr Trump and told him that everything regarding the Stormy Daniels matter was being worked on and it’s going to be resolved”.
The back-and-forth was the most tense moment yet of Cohen’s cross-examination, and of the entire trial.
But a quieter exchange may prove more damaging to Cohen’s credibility. It happened when Blanche asked Cohen if he had been willing to lie under oath while pleading guilty to tax crimes “because the stakes affected you personally”. Cohen agreed that he had been.
A few minutes later, Blanche asked Cohen whether “the outcome of this trial affects you personally”.
Again, Cohen said: “Yes.” Throughout the day, Blanche tried to methodically rip apart the prosecution portrait of Cohen as a remorseful, reformed henchman, using elements of his prior testimony to suggest to the jury that Cohen is a singularly selfish person.
Wearing a pale yellow tie, dark suit and dark-rimmed glasses, Cohen met Blanche’s indignation with a calm insistence that whatever his faults, his story about Trump’s guilt was true.
Yet he also struggled to explain why he told a congressional committee in 2019 that he would never seek a pardon from Trump, when his lawyer was doing just that. (Cohen called it a “mis-statement”.) Or how he could claim to have accepted responsibility for financial crimes, but also call the prosecutor and judge in that case corrupt.
The trial is off today (local time) so that Trump can attend his son’s high school graduation.–