Estranged Trump lawyer Cohen grilled over social media posts

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s legal professionals sought to make use of Michael Cohen’s phrases in opposition to him on Tuesday, grilling him about insulting social media posts and tv appearances to attempt to undermine his testimony that Trump approved a hush cash cost to a porn star.

Beneath aggressive questioning from Trump legal professional Todd Blanche, Cohen acknowledged calling the previous president a “dictator (expletive)” on TikTok and stated he had endured in commenting on the case even after prosecutors expressed frustration about it.

Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and now the prosecution’s star witness, spent about 9 hours on the witness stand on Monday and Tuesday answering prosecutors’ questions. Intimately, he testified that Trump ordered him to pay grownup movie star Stormy Daniels in 2016 to remain quiet about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter, lest it torpedo his presidential marketing campaign.

However Cohen’s checkered historical past — he served time in federal jail for numerous crimes, together with the hush cash cost, and has admittedly lied below oath — is a major goal for Trump’s legal professionals, who’ve forged him as a liar with an ax to grind. Cross-examination by Trump’s legal professionals started after a break for lunch.

The protection confirmed jurors photos of Trump-themed merchandise on the market on Cohen’s web site, together with shirts with an illustration of Trump behind bars and mugs studying, “Ship him to the large home, not the White Home.”

As Blanche peppered Cohen with questions, Trump sometimes exchanged notes together with his legal professionals earlier than assuming his customary posture, leaning again together with his eyes closed. At one level, his mouth appeared to hold slack for a second.

Cohen’s $130,000 cost to Daniels in October 2016 is on the coronary heart of Trump’s historic trial, now in its fifth week.

Prosecutors say Trump paid Cohen again after the election by creating false data indicating they have been for authorized charges. These disguised reimbursements present the premise for the 34 counts of falsifying enterprise data that Trump faces.

Trump, 77, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate, has pleaded not responsible and denies any sexual encounter with Daniels. He has characterised the case as a partisan try to intrude together with his marketing campaign to take again the White Home he misplaced in 2020 to Democratic President Joe Biden.

Earlier on Tuesday, Cohen described an Oval Workplace assembly in February 2017 the place Trump instructed him that Cohen would quickly obtain the primary month-to-month installments of a bonus bundle, which Cohen stated included reimbursements for the Daniels cost.

‘I violated my ethical compass’

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger walked Cohen by a sequence of invoices and checks — some signed by Trump himself — that Cohen stated have been falsely marked as paying to retain him for authorized companies.

“There was no retainer settlement, was there?” Hoffinger requested.

“No, ma’am,” Cohen replied.

Cohen, 57, stated he lied a number of occasions to Congress throughout an investigation into Trump’s Russia ties, finally pleading responsible to perjury. He additionally instructed jurors he lied repeatedly in regards to the cost to Daniels, telling journalists Trump had no involvement.

In 2018, after the Justice Division started investigating the Daniels cost, FBI brokers raided Cohen’s dwelling. He stated he referred to as Trump in a panic.

“He stated to me, ‘Don’t be concerned, I am the president of america … you are going to be OK,'” Cohen stated. That was the final time they spoke straight, Cohen added.

As a substitute, Cohen testified, a lawyer named Robert Costello who was near Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani provided a “again channel” to Trump. In emails proven to jurors, Costello handed alongside Giuliani’s assurances that he had “pals in excessive locations.”

In the meantime, Trump was defending Cohen on social media and decrying the concept he may “flip” and cooperate with prosecutors.

All of it added as much as a “strain marketing campaign” to maintain Cohen in line, he stated. However he finally determined to cooperate after talking together with his household.

Cohen pleaded responsible to federal crimes in 2018, together with offenses associated to the Daniels cost, and stated he was performing on the behest of Trump, who was not charged.

“I remorse doing issues for him that I mustn’t have,” Cohen stated on Tuesday when requested to mirror on his a few years working for Trump. “To maintain the loyalty and to do the issues that he requested me to do, I violated my ethical compass. And I suffered the penalty — as has my household.”

‘A complete catastrophe’

A day after a number of Republican lawmakers attended the trial in help of Trump, U.S. Home Speaker Mike Johnson joined him and later criticized the case outdoors the courtroom.

Whereas Cohen testified on Tuesday, a mid-level appeals courtroom denied Trump’s newest effort to throw out a gag order that Trump asserted violated his proper to free speech. The choose imposed the order to stop Trump from interfering with the case.

On Monday, Cohen stated Trump authorized a number of funds to maintain damaging intercourse scandal tales out of the general public eye.

“Every thing required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” Cohen stated.

In October 2016, Cohen stated, he discovered Daniels was purchasing her story to tabloids. On the time, the Trump marketing campaign was in disaster mode after the discharge of an audio recording by which Trump bragged about grabbing ladies’s genitals.

“He stated to me, ‘It is a catastrophe, a complete catastrophe. Ladies are going to hate me,’ Cohen instructed jurors Trump had stated.

Cohen testified that Trump was solely involved in regards to the impression Daniels’ story might have on his White Home bid — and never, as Trump’s legal professionals have instructed, in regards to the impact on his spouse and household. That distinction is essential to the prosecution’s case.

Beneath New York regulation, falsifying enterprise data will be elevated from a misdemeanor to a felony if the crime helped conceal one other offense. In Trump’s case, prosecutors have argued the cost was successfully a secret contribution to his marketing campaign, violating federal and state legal guidelines.

The Manhattan trial is taken into account much less consequential than three different felony prosecutions Trump faces, all of that are mired in delays.

The opposite circumstances cost Trump with making an attempt to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling categorised paperwork after leaving workplace. Trump pleaded not responsible to all three.