Michael Cohen is the most central witness for prosecutors in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. But Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. He's expected to take the stand on Monday and offer jurors an insider’s view of the dealings at the heart of the case.
FILE - Michael Cohen , former attorney to Donald Trump , leaves the District Attorney’s office in New York, March 13, 2023. Cohen is prosecutors’ most central witness in former President Donald Trump ’s hush money trial. But Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is also as challenging a star witness as they come. The now-disbarred lawyer has a tortured history with Trump. FILE - Michael Cohen arrives at New York Supreme Court Oct. 25, 2023, in New York.
“What the prosecution is going to want to focus on is ‘everything he says is corroborated — you don’t have to like him,’” Serafini added. “And No. 2, this is the guy Trump chose.”Cohen’s early-2000s introduction to Trump was a classic New York real estate story: Cohen was a condo board member in a Trump building and got involved on Trump’s side of a residents versus management dispute. The mogul soon brought Cohen into his company.
Other witnesses have testified about the hush money dealings, but Cohen remains key to piecing together a case that centers on how Trump’s company compensated him for his role in the Daniels payoff. At his 2018 sentencing, he said his “blind loyalty” to Trump made him feel it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds, rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.” Outside court, he has cast himself as an avatar of anti-Trump sentiment. In social media salvos as the trial opened, Cohen used a scatological nickname for Trump, taunted him to “keep whining, crying and violating the gag order, you petulant defendant!” and commented acerbically on his defense.
To Jeremy Saland, a New York criminal defense lawyer and former Manhattan prosecutor, Cohen’s background is not such a hurdle for prosecutors. Indeed, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche used his opening statement to hammer on Cohen’s “obsession” with Trump and his admitted past lying under oath.
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