‘Get past the election’: Cohen testifies Trump told him to drag out Daniels hush money talks
Key witness Michael Cohen has testified Donald Trump told him to pay off Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, saying ‘I thought you had this under control. Just take care of it.’
Michael Cohen, the star witness in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, has told jurors the former president directed him to make a payment to silence a porn star whose story could have derailed his election bid.
Mr Cohen testified on Monday that during Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, porn star Stormy Daniels threatened to come forward with her allegation of an affair with the former president.
Mr Trump was fuming because he thought Mr Cohen, his longtime personal lawyer and fixer, had handled the matter five years earlier, Mr Cohen told the jury.
“I thought you had this under control,” Mr Cohen said Mr Trump told him, later instructing, “Just take care of it.”
Mr Trump told Mr Cohen to drag out any negotiations as long as possible. “Just get past the election,” Mr Cohen said Mr Trump told him. “I win, it has no relevance because I’m president, and if I lose, I don’t really care.”
Mr Trump looked away from the witness stand, with his eyes closed, as Mr Cohen testified.
A bevy of Trump supporters filled the courtroom pews behind the former president. In addition to his son Eric Trump, and Republican politicians Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Senator Tommy Tubervilleof Alabama were in court for the morning session.
Mr Cohen, the former president’s loyalist-turned-nemesis, is a flawed but critical witness. He is the only person likely to provide direct evidence that Mr Trump himself ordered a coverup of a payment to Ms Daniels.
But he is also a convicted liar, disbarred lawyer and vocal Trump critic who has at times run into trouble for his off-the-cuff comments under oath.
Prosecutors on Monday interspersed records of phone calls and text messages throughout Mr Cohen’s testimony, providing documentation of most interactions he described.
A prosecutor repeatedly asked Mr Cohen about Mr Trump’s tendency to micromanage, and the former lawyer’s compulsion for his boss’s praise, to shore up the idea that the fixer would never take any action without the former president’s approval.
Mr Cohen, who regularly attacks Mr Trump on his podcast and social-media accounts, was more demure on the witness stand. His testimony was straightforward, with many questions answered with, “Yes, ma’am.”
Mr Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in covering up a hush-money payment to Ms Daniels. Prosecutors allege Mr Trump directed payments to Ms Daniels and others, to silence their stories on the eve of the 2016 election. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied having the affairs.
On the stand Monday, Mr Cohen told jurors how he left a private firm in 2007 to go work for the Trump Organisation, where he regularly bullied reporters, threatened to file lawsuits and spoke to Mr Trump several times a day.
Mr Cohen told jurors that Mr Trump taught him specific ways of doing business. Mr Trump instructed him that emails are like written papers, Mr Cohen said, and that people had “gone down” due to prosecutors having emails they could use in a case.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked if it was accurate to describe Mr Cohen as Mr Trump’s fixer.
“It’s fair,” Mr Cohen said.
Mr Cohen said Ms Daniels first came up in 2011 when the gossip website The Dirty published a story about her alleged affair with Mr Trump. When Mr Cohen asked if Mr Trump had had an affair, his boss didn’t answer, although Mr Trump did say Ms Daniels was beautiful, Mr Cohen told jurors.
Mr Cohen then asked Mr Trump if he should make the story go away. “He said, ‘Absolutely, do it, take care of it,’” Mr Cohen testified.
Then, in August 2015, Mr Cohen met Mr Trump and his friend David Pecker, then the publisher of the National Enquirer, and hatched a plan to boost Mr Trump’s candidacy. Mr Cohen said the trio silenced three stories – one false story from a doorman about a Trump love child as well as stories from Ms Daniels and Playboy playmate Karen McDougal.
During the McDougal deal, Mr Cohen said, he updated Mr Trump every step of the way. “Effectively, the story has now been caught,” Mr Cohen said he told Mr Trump. “Fantastic, great job,” Mr Cohen said, quoting Mr Trump and imitating his voice. Later, he updated Mr Trump on the mechanics of buying the life rights to Ms McDougal’s story – which he said he did for his boss and not himself.
“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and for the benefit of Mr Trump,” Mr Cohen said.
After the Daniels allegations emerged, Mr Cohen said he followed his boss’s instructions to drag out the deal. But when the Daily Mail appeared likely to publish the story before the election, Mr Cohen said, the matter became urgent.
Mr Trump gave him the green light, he said. “He expressed to me, ‘Just do it,’” Mr Cohen told the jury.
But complicating matters, he said, was who would fund the $US130,000 payment. Pecker refused to do it, and the Trump Organisation’s chief financial officer also baulked at the possibility, saying he wasn’t in a financial position to do so, Mr Cohen said.
Mr Cohen said that with the campaign facing a potential catastrophe, he made the payment himself, discussing the matter with Mr Trump in late October.
“Everything required Mr Trump’s signoff,” he told the jury.
“On top of that, I wanted the money back.”
Mr Trump’s lawyers will have plenty of fodder for cross-examination. They are likely to argue, as they did in questioning Ms Daniels, that Mr Cohen has built a career off attacking Trump. He wrote two books about his time with Mr Trump, Disloyal: A Memoir and Revenge, and has his own podcast.
Mr Trump’s legal team will also likely point to Mr Cohen’s social-media posts, where he regularly insults Mr Trump.
The former president’s lawyers have repeatedly complained to the judge about the posts, arguing it is unfair that Mr Trump, a presidential candidate, isn’t permitted to defend himself publicly. A gag order bars Mr Trump from attacking potential witnesses.
Last week, Mr Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to bar Mr Cohen from talking about the case. As recently as several days ago, Mr Cohen posted a video on TikTok, said Trump lawyer Todd Blanche.
“He was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of President Trump behind bars, wearing an orange jumpsuit, and discussing about how he’s now announcing he’s running for Congress,” Mr Blanche said.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said that his office had already tried to rein in Mr Cohen’s public statements, but had no control over the witness’s actions.
This time, the judge said, prosecutors should instruct Mr Cohen that they are “communicating that on behalf of the bench’’.
James Fanelli contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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