Former fixer Cohen gives more evidence in Trump hush money trial
Michael Cohen has told Donald Trump’s hush money trial that it was not until after a decade in the fold, after his family pleaded with him, after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room, that he finally decided to turn on the former US president.
That decision led to a 2018 guilty plea to federal charges involving a payment to the adultfilmactorstormydaniels to bury her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump and to other, unrelated crimes.
And it is that insider knowledge of shady deals that pushed Manhattan prosecutors to make Mr Cohen the star witness in their case against Trump about that same payment,whichthey saywasanillegaleffort toinfluencethe2016presidential election.
Under questioning this week, Mr Cohen has described the nuts-and-bolts of how the scheme worked.
“To keep the loyalty and to do thethingsthathehadaskedme to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Mr Cohen said yesterday.
There has been no witness box bombast or fireworks so far from Mr Cohen, a man who was defined for years by his braggadocio as Trump’s problem-zapper.
Instead, his evidence about purposefully mislabelled cheques, false receipts and blind loyalty, however dry it was,placedtrumpatthecentre of the scheme and underscored the foundational argument of the case – that it is not about the spectacle of what Trump was paying for, but rather his alleged effort to illegally cover up those payments.
A shocking moment did come, but it was courtesy of House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson, who appeared at the courthouse with Trump and who used his powerfulbullypulpittoturnhis political party against the rule oflawbydeclaringthemanhattan criminal trial illegitimate.
“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they’re speaking very beautifully,” Trump said before court. “And they come … from all over Washington. And they’re highly respected, and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen.”
The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guiltyanddeniesthatanyofthe encounters took place.