Michael Cohen is expected to testify against former President Trump in New York this week.
Alex Kent/AFP via Getty Images
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Alex Kent/AFP via Getty Images
Michael Cohen is expected to testify against former President Trump in New York this week.
Alex Kent/AFP via Getty Images
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, takes the stand Monday in the former president’s hush money case.
It is expected to bolster prosecutors’ arguments that Trump falsified business records to pay Stormy Daniels, the adult film star, with whom he allegedly had an affair.
In 2019, Cohen told Congress that he discussed hush money “refunds” with Trump early in his presidency at the White House.
“And he says to me something like, ‘Don’t worry, Michael. Your January and February reimbursement checks are coming,'” Cohen told Congress. “They were sent by FedEx from New York. And it takes a while for it to go through the White House system.'”
Jurors received a photo, a meeting memo, copies of FedEx receipts. This week, the prosecution and defense will be engaged in the battle over whether Cohen is an unrepentant liar, as Trump claims, or whether he lied, but in this case he is telling the truth.
Cohen’s journey from someone who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump to someone who became a key witness against the former president has been a long one.
In 2018, the two men fell out amid a federal investigation into Cohen’s financial dealings and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential race .
Before that, Cohen was doing Trump’s dirty work: stiffing vendors, intimidating journalists, making secret deals. But after the whole Stormy Daniels story blew up in 2018, Trump stopped paying Cohen’s legal fees, and Cohen became what Trump very publicly called “a rat.” The Daniels case is at the heart of the criminal case against Trump in New York.
In late 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to a series of federal charges, including campaign finance violations related to paying money to two women in exchange for their public silence about their personal relationships with Trump. He said he did this “at the direction” of Trump.
In February 2019, Cohen testified before the House Oversight Committee.
“Mr. Trump is a cheater,” Cohen told lawmakers at the time. “In my experience, Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be among Forbes’ richest people, and deflated his assets to reduce his property taxes.”
Trump has long maintained he did nothing wrong and has repeatedly called Cohen untrustworthy. That did little to deter prosecutors who have made Cohen’s account of working for Trump the cornerstone of their case against the former president. He is expected to be one of the final prosecution witnesses against Trump this week.
Cohen’s testimony before Congress could be a harbinger of what the court may hear from him in future statements. Some of his testimony before Congress has already been corroborated. Hope Hicks, Trump’s former communications aide, expressed the campaign’s concern after the release of the Access Hollywood tape before the 2016 elections.
“I don’t think anyone would dispute that belief that, after the wildfire that surrounded Billy Bush’s tape, a second follow-up would have been nice,” Cohen told Congress in 2019. “And he was concerned about the effect it would have on the campaign, on how women perceived him, and ultimately on whether or not he would stand a chance in the general election.
Cohen testifies just days after Daniels took a stand against the former president.
Daniels, also known as Stephanie Clifford, is one of two women the prosecution accuses Trump of paying to protect his electoral prospects the first time he ran for the White House.
The former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York to conceal damaging information to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, claims the trial himself constitutes “election interference” because of the manner in which he disrupts his candidacy for president in 2024. He must be present in court every day and is therefore unable to campaign when he does. East.
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