10 hours ago
- Michael Cohen returned to the witness stand for questioning by prosecutors, who outlined his last years of working for the Trumps before he broke publicly and became a vocal critic of President Trump.
- Mr. Cohen said he was paid $420,000 throughout 2017 even though he did minimal work for the Trumps, totaling maybe 10 hours, because the payment was reimbursement.
10 hours ago
President Trump spoke for about 10 minutes after court adjourned, largely reading from commentary published about his case, and called it “election interference.”
“That’s what they wanted to do, keep me here as long as possible,” he said.
“All around the world they’re watching this trial, and they’re seeing what a disgrace this is and a big disgrace to New York. I love this state, I love this city, but they’ve got to get it back, they’ve got to get the legal system back because businesses are fleeing.”
10 hours ago
Mr. Cohen testified that he has made about $3.4 million from his two books over four years.
“You talk in [‘Revenge’] about your frustration about President Trump not being prosecuted, right?” Mr. Blanche asked. “And you say you don’t understand why no one will hold President Trump accountable?”
“Sounds correct, yes,” Mr. Cohen said.
11 hours ago
Mr. Cohen confirmed that he met with the new district attorney team in 2021 and thanked them for continuing the investigation, because he had a strong desire to hold President Trump accountable. He affirmed he met twice in February 2021 with Mark Pomerantz.
“You wanted the DA’s office to publicly acknowledge that you were cooperating, correct?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“I would say so,” Mr. Cohen said.
11 hours ago
Mr. Cohen confirmed he had called President Trump several names on his podcast and said he hoped President Trump went to prison.
“August 2021, your podcast topped 10 million downloads, is that right?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“I think it’s more,” Mr. Cohen said.
11 hours ago
Mr. Cohen first met with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in Otisville prison in New York.
“Do you recall the first thing or one of the first things you wanted to talk to the prosecutors about when you were in Otisville was what was the benefit for you of meeting with them?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“I did ask that,” Mr. Cohen said.
11 hours ago
Justice Merchan reminded jurors that court ends at 4 p.m. on Thursday because one of the jurors has a dentist appointment, and there is no trial on Friday.
President Trump is expected to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation on Friday.
12 hours ago
In a 2017 Vanity Fair article, Mr. Cohen said he was the guy who stopped the leaks, the guy who protects the president and the family, and the oft-quoted line where he said he would take a bullet for President Trump.
“And you were offered $10 million to write a tell-all book. And your counter offer was $100 million. but according to the article at the time … you were just pushing them to see how high they would go in for a book offer, right?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“I had no intention of writing a book at that time,” Mr. Cohen said.
12 hours ago
“And you were obsessed with President Trump, weren’t you?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“I wouldn’t say that would be wrong, but I don’t know if I used that word,” Mr. Cohen said. He confirmed it began before he met or began working for the Trumps.
12 hours ago
Mr. Blanche asked Mr. Cohen when he changed his view on President Trump.
“It was around the time I had gone on George Stephanopoulos,” Mr. Cohen said, confirming it would have been the summer 2018.
He confirmed that he initially met Donald Trump Jr. at his apartment building, and helped resolve a construction issue. Mr. Cohen confirmed he still lives in a building with Trump’s name on it and previously had several Trump properties.
12 hours ago
“You’ve also talked, extensively, on Mea Culpa, your desire that President Trump get convicted in this case?” Mr. Blanche asked.
“Sounds like something I would say,” Mr. Cohen said. “Yes, probably.”
“Do you want President Trump to get convicted in this case?” Mr. Blanche asked.
12 hours ago
Mr. Blanche asked how many times Mr. Cohen had been on TV. “More than 20?”
“It could be,” Mr. Cohen said.
12 hours ago
Mr. Cohen said he did not recall leaking to CNN that he had given his cell phones to the Manhattan District Attorney in January 2023, and did not recall the prosecutors being frustrated with him about his commenting on the case in media appearances.
“I don’t even recall having conversations with Lanny Davis about not going on TV,” he said. “I don’t recall ever agreeing not to go on TV.”
“You don’t recall the DA telling you that you were unwittingly helping President Trump by going on TV?” Mr. Blanche asked.
12 hours ago
After a lunch break, defense attorney Todd Blanche began cross-examination of Mr. Cohen. He asked Mr. Cohen if he had watched MSNBC and CNN coverage of the trial, and whether he referred to President Trump as a derogatory term recently in a TikTok video.
“It sounds like something I said,” Mr. Cohen said.
“Now over the past several years, let’s go back to January 2021, is it fair to say that the government, meaning the Manhattan DA’s office, has repeatedly asked you to stop talking about the case,” Mr. Blanche asked.
A New York court on Tuesday upheld a gag order that a lower court judge placed on former President Donald Trump in his ongoing criminal trial.
The order, imposed on the former president in March by Judge Juan Merchan, prohibits him from commenting on court staff, prosecutors, potential witnesses, and members of the jury. It was later expanded by Judge Merchan to include members of his own family, and the order doesn’t block President Trump from making comments about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge himself.
14 hours ago
An appeals court denied President Trump’s appeal of Justice Merchan’s gag order.
The defense had filed the appeal ahead of Mr. Cohen’s testimony, arguing that Mr. Cohen did not need a protective order as he continues to attack President Trump publicly and court viewership through livestream sessions about the trial. The judge had declined to narrow his order to exclude Mr. Cohen or Ms. Clifford, who had finished her testimony.
“We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” the order reads.
14 hours ago
Defense attorneys are expected to cast Mr. Cohen as financially motivated against President Trump, pointing to the amount of money he has made attacking him, and prosecutors are asking about Mr. Cohen’s ventures to get ahead of this.
“Michaen Cohen, are you still a practicing attorney?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
14 hours ago
Mr. Cohen last fall testified he had never committed tax evasion, blaming his accountants for error, and saying that he did lie to a federal judge in taking a plea bargain.
“Are you disputing the facts of those underlying charges, of making false statements to a bank?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
14 hours ago
“Now, at various times you mentioned that you provided information to special counsel’s office. Did you also provide information to other offices at their request?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Cohen said.
14 hours ago
Then in May 2019, he surrendered to prison pursuant to his guilty plea. He served 13 months and then because of COVID-19 and his comorbidities, he served the remainder under house arrest.
He affirmed that he was sent back to prison at one point, because of paperwork to do with his ankle monitor. Mr. Cohen shared a lot of details about the agreement that he felt were suspicious, and the judge sustained an objection about this line of questioning.
14 hours ago
Then in February 2019, Mr. Cohen testified before Congress that Mr. Trump directed him to pay off Ms. Clifford before the election.
“I testified about the reimbursement of the $130,000 with the payments being made to me on a monthly basis,” Mr. Cohen said. “I apologized to Congress, I apologized to the country, I apologized to my family.”
“What did you apologize to the American public for?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
15 hours ago
“At that point in time we didn’t even know what the SDNY was even looking at, and the conversation with my family was what to do in this unique situation, never experience, and my family, my wife, my daughter, my son, all said to me, why are you holding onto his loyalty? What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty,” Mr. Cohen said.
“What decision did you make?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
“That it was time to listen to them,” Mr. Cohen said.
15 hours ago
On June 14, 2018, Mr. Costello emailed Mr. Cohen a YouTube link of a video of Mr. Giuliani talking about the possibility of Mr. Cohen cooperating on the Mueller investigation.
Mr. Cohen wrote back, “Why send this to me?”
Mr. Costello wrote back, “The answer to your question will be found in watching the video. It seems clear to me that you are under the impression that Trump and Rudy G. are trying to discredit you and throw you under the bus to use your phrase. I think you are wrong because you are believing the narrative promoted by the left wing media.”
15 hours ago
Mr. Cohen said FBI agents were around for hours, and then told him that there were things he needed to know about criminal law, which Mr. Cohen had never practiced.
“They asked me to consider Robert Costello for my representation,” Mr. Cohen said. He said Mr. Costello told him he had worked in with federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and was incredibly close with Rudy Giuliani.
16 hours ago
“I was raided by the FBI. At the time I was residing at the Loews Regency because my apartment had been flooded by the apartment above. At 7:00 a.m. there’s a knock on the door, and I look through the peephole and saw a ton of people in the hallway, and I saw a badge,” he said.
“So I open the door and they identify themselves as the FBI and ask me to step out into the hallway so I did. And I found out they had raided my law office and a safe box I had put valuables in, because I didn’t want to keep them in my apartment while it was under construction.”
“Their search warrant gave them the right to take my two cell phones to take any all electronic devices as well as records. They took a series of my tax books as well as other documents. They packed up much of the documentation that was in my law office and took that as well.”
16 hours ago
Mr. Cohen affirmed that it was Mr. Trump’s direction that he work with Larry Rosen to get a temporary restraining order.
“We filed the arbitration proceeding in California with an in-house attorney,” Mr. Cohen said.
16 hours ago
Mr. Cohen confirmed he was also contacted by the Wall Street Journal in February 2018 regarding an article about American Media Inc. and the contract with Karen McDougal.
“So David [Pecker] was very concerned because it was going to affect AMI, it was going to affect him, and so I told him that I would assist with this matter,” he said. “And I ultimately told him after conversations with the president, do not worry, we have this thing under control, it’s going to be taken care of.”
Justice Merchan told jurors that this testimony about Mr. Pecker was to help the jury assess Mr. Pecker’s credibility and for context only.
16 hours ago
Mr. Cohen affirmed he received a complaint letter from the FEC about his payment to Ms. Clifford.
His attorneys, paid for by The Trump Organizations, sent a response: “In a private transaction in 2016, before the US presidential election, Mr Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction.”
Mr. Cohen said that was “a true statement, but it’s deceptive, misleading.”
16 hours ago
“Did you continue to lie about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the Stormy Daniels payoff?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Cohen said, affirming that he also continued to pressure Keith Davidson to do the same.
“In early 2018 did you tell the truth about Mr. Trump’s role in the payoff?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
16 hours ago
“During the time you served as personal counsel to the president, did you continue to lie for him?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Cohen said. “Out of loyalty, and to protect him.”
He affirmed that he testified before Congress during the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
16 hours ago
Mr. Cohen continued to hold the title of personal attorney for Mr. Trump a few more months into 2018. He said he did more work in 2018 than 2017, and did not bill for his 2018 work.
“As a result of the Stormy Daniels matter and her electing to go public, Mr. Trump wanted an arbitration action to be filed against her for the breach of the NDA, so I was contacted by Eric Trump as well as Mr. Trump regarding how to go forward with this proceeding,” he said.
He said he earned about $4 million from other clients in 2017 and 2018, monetizing his title of personal attorney to the president. He said he was also contacted by managing partners of Patton Boggs, “and they were interested in having me on their letterhead, because of the title.”
16 hours ago
“Did you do in the year 2017 any work for Mr. Trump or his wife Melania Trump?” Ms. Hoffinger asked.
“Minimal,” Mr. Cohen said. “There was a matter that dealt with an individual … I was working with Mark Kasowitz on that, I spoke with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, gave him some documents that Mr. Kasowitz had given me to pass along.” He said he hadn’t done substantial work as Mr. Kasowitz did the work, and he wasn’t expecting to be paid for this.
Mr. Cohen said he reviewed an agreement that was sent to Mrs. Trump to create her likeness and image for a museum.
17 hours ago
Mr. Cohen confirmed he submitted an invoice for $35,000 to be paid for services rendered in January and February 2017.
“And was this for any services rendered?” prosecuting attorney Susan Hoffinger asked.
17 hours ago
Attorneys conferred with the judge before Michael Cohen was brought back on the witness stand.
Mr. Cohen said he visited the White House on Feb. 8, 2017, and met with President Trump in the Oval Office.
“So I was sitting with President Trump and he asked me if I was okay, he asked me if I needed money, and I said no, I’m OK,” Mr. Cohen said. “He said alright, just make sure you deal with Allen.”
17 hours ago
President Trump entered the courthouse with several supporters, but told reporters he found out that he was the only allowed to speak to the media in the hallway.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) were spotted in the courthouse.
He continued to blast the case as politically motivated, sharing bits from legal commentators following the case. President Trump said his bookkeeper “called a legal expense a legal expense,” and that was the prosecutors’ “whole case.”
20 hours ago
Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office will continue to question Michael Cohen on the witness stand as they aim to fill in the last pieces of their case against former President Donald Trump.
President Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, which prosecutors allege was done to cover up a scheme to influence the 2016 election. This elevated the charges from misdemeanors to felonies.
Mr. Cohen has testified that he kept President Trump abreast of his efforts to kill negative stories during his 2016 campaign, claiming that the real estate mogul responded with praise when Mr. Cohen shared developments.
Original News Source Link – Epoch Times
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