Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen arrives at a New York courthouse on March 13, 2023.
Eduardo Muñoz | Reuters
Michael Cohen, who served as Donald Trump’s personal attorney and fixer for years, will testify against the former president on Monday in what could be the most critical moment in Trump’s New York criminal hush-money trial.
Cohen, once devoted to Trump, is now his open enemy. Cohen will tell jurors how he paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her keeping silent about a one-night stand with Trump a decade ago.
Trump’s reimbursement of Cohn’s compensation while he served in the White House was the basis for the Manhattan district attorney’s case against the former president.
The Trump Organization reported Daniels-related reimbursements to Cohen as legal expenses. But District Attorney Alvin Bragg claimed it amounted to criminal falsification of business records, which Trump committed to conceal the fact that hush money protected his then-faltering presidential candidate at a critical moment. offense.
Trump has denied having sex with Daniels and said the felony charges are false. The Republican presidential candidate said the move by Democratic prosecutors was an effort to hurt his chances of defeating President Joe Biden in the upcoming election.
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen (center) arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court for the trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on May 13, 2024, for allegedly covering up hush-money payments related to an extramarital affair in New York City.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Cohen, who has said in the past that he was “blindly loyal” to Trump while working for him, is expected to testify for several days at Manhattan Supreme Court.
He will be questioned Monday by Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger, who has spent the past year preparing for his trial, NBC News reported.
In addition to the payment to Daniels, Cohen was closely involved in arranging another hush-money payment in 2016 from the publisher of the National Enquirer to Playboy model Karen McDougall in exchange for her relationship with Trump Pu’s extramarital affair story.
After Hoffinger completes the first round of questioning, Trump defense attorney Todd Branch will cross-examine Cohen.
Branch is expected to harshly criticize Cohen’s self-admitted history of lying – often to benefit Trump – and his federal criminal guilty pleas to tax crimes and campaign finance violations related to Stormy Daniels’ hush payments.
“He’s a convicted felon. He’s also a convicted perjurer. He’s an admitted liar,” Branch said in opening statements about Cohen at the start of the trial.
On Friday, Branch asked Judge Juan Merchant to impose a gag order on Cohen, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump. The former president himself is under a gag order against witnesses in the case.
Merchant did not agree to gag Cohen, but he did tell Bragg’s prosecution team to let Cohen know that the judge wanted him to stop making public statements about Trump or anything else in the case.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
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