Michael Cohen is questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger as former U.S. president Donald Trump sits with his eyes closed during Trump's criminal trial in New York City on May 13, in a courtroom sketch.Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
When Donald Trump learned that porn star Stormy Daniels was shopping around her story of a tryst with the real estate magnate, he raged over the possibility it could cost him the 2016 presidential election, Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, told Mr. Trump’s hush-money trial Monday.
“‘This is a total disaster. Women will hate me. Guys, they think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign,’” Mr. Cohen quoted his former boss as saying.
This cinematic scene, described by the prosecution’s most important and contentious witness, goes to the heart of the case: that Mr. Trump orchestrated a US$130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels and falsified business records in a bid to illegally influence the election.
Mr. Cohen, who is expected to testify for several days at the Manhattan courthouse, spent time in federal prison after pleading guilty to criminal charges including some related to the payoff. Mr. Trump’s defence is expected to paint him as a criminal and liar out for revenge. For that reason, the prosecution waited to call him last, allowing other witnesses to previously confirm key details of his account. As the point man on the payment, he is meant to offer a start-to-finish narrative of the scheme.
Under questioning from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Mr. Cohen put Mr. Trump at the centre of a broader election-manipulation plan that culminated in the payoff. He said Mr. Trump told him to delay paying Ms. Daniels until after the election, after which time they could renege on the deal because it would not matter whether the story came out.
“‘What I want you to do is push it out as long as you can, just push it out past the election,’” Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump told him. Mr. Cohen said he asked Mr. Trump how this was affecting his marriage and Mr. Trump suggested that if his wife left him, he would not be single for long. “He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign.”
Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen told jurors on Monday (May 12) that the Republican presidential candidate personally signed off on a hush money payment to a porn star to bury her story about an alleged sexual encounter before it could derail his 2016 campaign.
Reuters
When Ms. Daniels’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, turned the pressure up on Mr. Cohen by threatening to have his client sell her story to the Daily Mail, Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump relented and ordered him to make the payment: “He expressed to me, ‘Just do it.’”
The payoff came shortly after the release of the Access Hollywood tape in October, 2016, in which Mr. Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. “Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen said he took the money out of a line of credit on his condominium to distance the payoff from Mr. Trump. Ms. Daniels signed a non-disclosure agreement with a US$1-million penalty for violating it.
After becoming president, Mr. Trump paid Mr. Cohen back via 12 cheques disguised as legal retainer payments. Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump agreed to the repayment plan at a Trump Tower meeting shortly before his January, 2017, inauguration and confirmed the cheques were specifically reimbursement and not actually for legal services. Such details back the prosecution’s argument that Mr. Trump personally directed the forging of business records.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump looks on during his criminal trial for allegedly covering up hush-money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on May 13.SPENCER PLATT/Getty Images
The courthouse was packed for Mr. Cohen’s first day of testimony, with a line of reporters and curious members of the public stretched across an adjacent park vying to get in. Mr. Trump showed up with an entourage, including Republican senators J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville, his son, Eric Trump, and several aides. For the most part, Mr. Trump sat back in his chair and closed his eyes as Mr. Cohen testified. He occasionally smirked as his former fixer described his past loyalty.
Mr. Cohen testified that the payment to Ms. Daniels was part of a larger plan by himself, Mr. Trump and the National Enquirer’s then-publisher and editor, David Pecker and Dylan Howard, to influence the election.
At the start of his presidential campaign, Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump told him, “Just be prepared: there are going to be a lot of women coming forward.”
On one occasion, Mr. Pecker’s company, American Media Inc., paid US$30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed Mr. Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. On another, AMI shelled out US$150,000 to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.
In both cases, AMI bought the exclusive rights to their stories with the intention of never publishing them, a practice called “catch and kill.”
Mr. Cohen said buying off Ms. McDougal was also done under Mr. Trump’s orders. In a recording of Mr. Trump played in court Monday, he asked Mr. Cohen about what they owed Mr. Pecker in reimbursement. “What do we got to pay for this, one-fifty?” Mr. Trump said in the recording, and suggested they “pay with cash.”
Mr. Pecker has previously testified that Mr. Trump dragged his feet on the reimbursement and ultimately Mr. Pecker opted not to be reimbursed after receiving advice that it might be illegal. AMI later paid a fine for breaking federal elections law with the payoffs.
After the election, Mr. Cohen said, Mr. Trump’s first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, offered him an administration job as assistant White House counsel, which Mr. Cohen turned down. Instead, he planned to work as something of a professional influence-peddler: he would be an unpaid personal lawyer to Mr. Trump but solicit “consulting” fees from corporations seeking advice on dealing with the president.
Despite everything he did for Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen said, Mr. Trump unexpectedly cut his 2016 year-end bonus by two-thirds. “I was truly insulted, personally hurt,” he said. “After all I had been through.”
After he complained, he said, Mr. Trump and his then chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, agreed on a repayment scheme for Mr. Cohen. In addition to the US$130,000 he had paid Ms. Daniels, the Trump Organization would also compensate him US$50,000 for other expenses, throw in a US$60,000 bonus and pay taxes on all of this for a combined total of US$420,000.
Mr. Cohen, who worked for Mr. Trump for a decade, offered details on how he said Mr. Trump operates. For one, he said Mr. Trump did not have an e-mail address because he “knows too many people who have gone down as a direct result of having e-mails” that prosecutors would use as evidence in court.
And although Mr. Trump has denied having sex with either Ms. Daniels or Ms. McDougal, Mr. Cohen said he did not deny it privately. Instead, he said, Mr. Trump unprompted described both women as “beautiful.”