In a courtroom sketch, Michael Cohen, right, is depicted under cross-examination by defence lawyer Todd Blanche during former U.S. president Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York on May 16.Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
Donald Trump’s lead defence lawyer accused star prosecution witness Michael Cohen of lying on the stand about a conversation with Mr. Trump over a payoff to a porn star, in the most confrontational moment so far at the former president’s criminal trial.
In a Manhattan courtroom Thursday, the lawyer, Todd Blanche, challenged Mr. Cohen’s testimony from earlier in the trial about a phone call on the evening of Oct. 24, 2016. Mr. Cohen had testified that the call was about the US$130,000 payoff, which is at the heart of the case against Mr. Trump. “That. Was. A. Lie!” Mr. Blanche shouted. “Admit it.”
Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, appeared irritated but kept his composure as he denied the accusation.
In the third day of testimony from Mr. Cohen, Mr. Blanche’s cross-examination portrayed the former president’s erstwhile fixer as a serial liar bent on revenge.
Mr. Cohen’s testimony has been crucial to the prosecution’s efforts to put Mr. Trump at the centre of the payoff plan, which was intended to hush up porn star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors charge that the scheme was meant to boost Mr. Trump’s fortunes in the 2016 election, and that he falsified business records to cover up the payoff. Ms. Daniels says she had a one-night stand with the married Mr. Trump, which he denies.
Prosecutors pre-emptively had Mr. Cohen detail his sordid past earlier this week. Mr. Cohen went to prison and was disbarred as a lawyer for breaking elections laws, cheating on his taxes and lying to Congress. He has also admitted lying to investigators and making US$4-million from an influence-peddling scheme.
Mr. Blanche asserted that Mr. Cohen is still lying. “You know what perjury means, correct?” he asked.
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He zeroed in on the October, 2016, phone call between Mr. Cohen and Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s bodyguard. Mr. Blanche pointed to text messages that Mr. Cohen exchanged with Mr. Schiller before the call, in which Mr. Cohen asked the bodyguard to deal with a 14-year-old who was making harassing calls to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Blanche charged that this was the actual purpose of the call with Mr. Schiller, and that Mr. Cohen had fabricated the discussion with Mr. Trump.
“You did not talk to President Trump on that night. You talked to Keith Schiller,” Mr. Blanche said. Mr. Cohen replied that he spoke to both men in the one-minute-and-36-second call. The court previously heard that it was common for people seeking to speak with Mr. Trump to call Mr. Schiller, who would then hand his phone to Mr. Trump. “I always ran everything by the boss immediately,” Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Blanche pressed Mr. Cohen to concede that he had not remembered the exact timing of the call until he had reviewed phone records in preparation for the trial. “I don’t remember specific phone calls back in 2016,” Mr. Cohen said. “That’s not what you testified on Tuesday – you testified that you remembered,” Mr. Blanche shot back.
Part of the defence’s strategy is to distance Mr. Trump from the payoff scheme enacted on his behalf, while Mr. Cohen says the former president directed it and signed off on every move.
Under Mr. Blanche’s questioning, Mr. Cohen also confirmed that, despite expressing contrition as part of his tax-evasion plea, he did not think he should have been charged in that case. “You lied to a federal judge” when you expressed remorse, Mr. Blanche said. “Yes,” Mr. Cohen replied.
Mr. Blanche also brought up a bizarre episode earlier this year in which Mr. Cohen used Google Bard, an artificial intelligence program, to help draft a legal brief requesting that the conditions of Mr. Cohen’s supervised release from prison be eased. The AI program fabricated citations to non-existent legal cases, which Mr. Cohen’s lawyer included in the document filed with the court. “The citations were inaccurate,” Mr. Cohen conceded.
At other moments, Mr. Cohen hit back at Mr. Blanche. When the defence lawyer reminded him that it is an ethical breach for a lawyer to secretly record privileged conversations with a client, as Mr. Cohen did to Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen parried, “Well, there’s the crime-fraud exception rule.”
To suggest that Mr. Cohen was simply doing everything possible to get Mr. Trump convicted, Mr. Blanche had court listen to excerpts from Mr. Cohen’s podcast. In contrast with his subdued, cautious demeanour on the witness stand, the clips showcased his more familiar bombastic style.
“He is about to get a taste of what I went through,” Mr. Cohen shouted excitedly in an episode shortly before Mr. Trump’s arrest. In another, he said: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Another line of Mr. Blanche’s inquiry appeared designed to cast aspersions on the prosecutors themselves, whom Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked on social media.
Mr. Blanche had Mr. Cohen confirm that Jeremy Rosenberg, a former investigator for District Attorney Alvin Bragg, texted Mr. Cohen to compliment one of his television appearances bashing Mr. Trump, even though others in Mr. Bragg’s office were telling Mr. Cohen to stop talking about the case.
Mr. Cohen, however, denied Mr. Blanche’s insinuation that Mr. Rosenberg leaked him the indictment of Mr. Trump before it became public.
Less clear was the purpose of a lengthy line of inquiry from Mr. Blanche about Mr. Cohen’s dealings with reporters when he worked for Mr. Trump. Mr. Blanche had Mr. Cohen confirm that he dealt extensively with Katy Tur of NBC; Chris Cuomo, then a CNN anchor; and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, who was in the courtroom.
Mr. Cohen also recounted that John Santucci, an investigative journalist with ABC, had been trying to land an interview with Ms. Daniels before the payoff. After the hush money was doled out, Mr. Cohen said, Mr. Santucci visited him to complain that Ms. Daniels was now not speaking with him.
Court is not sitting Friday, so Mr. Trump can attend his son Barron’s high-school graduation. Mr. Blanche said he expects to finish cross-examination early on Monday. After that, he said he may call an expert witness on campaign finance law and has not yet decided whether Mr. Trump will take the stand.
Justice Juan Merchan told both sides to be prepared to present their summations as soon as Tuesday. This could see the jury begin deliberations sometime next week.