Trump lawyer accuses Michael Cohen of lying at hush money trial (2024)

Donald Trump’s lawyer has accused his former attorney Michael Cohen of lying about a phone conversation he claimed to have had with the former US president about a hush money payment to a p*rn star shortly before the 2016 election.

Mr Cohen was grilled by the Republican presidential candidate’s legal team on Thursday, as Mr Trump’s criminal hush money trial continued in Manhattan.

Mr Trump is charged with falsifying records to cover up a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged sexual encounter.

His lawyer, Todd Blanche, said a phone conversation described by Mr Cohen was about harassment from a prank caller and not, as the star witness had asserted in previous testimony, a payment to Ms Daniels.

“That is a lie,” Mr Blanche said. “You can admit it!”

“No sir I can’t, because I am not certain that is accurate,” Mr Cohen responded. He said he believed that he spoke with Mr Trump’s then-bodyguard Keith Schiller about the harassment and also spoke briefly with Mr Trump about the payment.

“We are not asking for your belief,” Mr Blanche said, raising his voice.

The exchange followed several hours of questioning by Mr Blanche designed to cast Mr Trump’s former fixer as a spiteful turncoat eager to see his former boss behind bars.

Mr Blanche played jurors audio clips of Mr Cohen saying that the case “fills me with delight” and that he felt “giddy with hope and laughter” imagining Mr Trump and his family in prison.

He told them that Mr Cohen had previously lied to Congress and to the US Justice Department and had lied in court as well. He pointed out that Mr Cohen had privately sought a pardon from Mr Trump while publicly saying he would not accept one.

Mr Cohen agreed that he had blamed others, including Mr Trump, in the wake of his own criminal convictions on tax and campaign-finance charges.

“Does the outcome of this trial affect you personally?”Mr Blanche asked.

“Yes,” Mr Cohen said, maintaining his composure while answering questions, in contrast with his aggressive and often profane public comments.

Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in the first criminal trial of a former US president and denies having sex with Ms Daniels.

The New York case, one of four criminal prosecutions he faces, is likely to be the only one with a jury verdict before his 5 November election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

Mr Cohen is central to the case.

He testified earlier this week that Mr Trump ordered him to pay Ms Daniels to protect Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, and discussed a plan to reimburse Mr Cohen, 57, through a series of bogus invoices for legal fees.

Their chats included one in the White House Oval Office when Mr Trump was president in 2017, Mr Cohen said.

Mr Cohen carries baggage as a witness. He has pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from the Ms Daniels payment, and has admitted that he lied repeatedly about the Ms Daniels scandal.

But Mr Cohen’s testimony has been corroborated by other evidence, including records from Mr Trump’s company.

He said he could clearly remember some conversations from the hectic 2016 campaign, including one where he spoke with Mr Trump about an effort to buy the silence of another woman who claimed to have sex with him.

“These phone calls are things that I’ve been talking about for the past six years,” he said.

Trump, 77, faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York to cover up a payment to the p*rn star in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecutors say the altered records covered up election-law and tax-law violations – since the money was essentially an unreported contribution to Mr Trump’s campaign – that elevate the crimes from misdemeanors to felonies punishable by up to four years in prison.

Mr Trump characterises the case and three other prosecutions as an attempt to interfere with his campaign to take back the White House.

Members of the right-wing US House of Representatives Freedom Caucus attended the trial on Thursday and echoed his complaints.

“We’re seeing today what lengths the Democratic Party will go to to try to rig or steal another election,” the group’s chairman, Republican Representative Bob Good, said outside the courthouse.

Mr Trump has argued that his monthly payments to Cohen throughout 2017 were for his work as his personal lawyer to the president, meaning there was nothing improper about the word “retainer” being written on the checks Mr Trump signed.

Prosecutors say the reimbursem*nt payments were falsely labeled as legal expenses in the Trump Organisation’s records to conceal the Ms Daniels payoff, which they say violated US election campaign finance law.

Mr Cohen is the 20th and final witness to be called to testify by prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office at the trial, which began on 15 April in New York state criminal court.

It was unclear whether Mr Trump would testify next week when the defence will have an opportunity to present its case. Before the trial Mr Trump said he would testify, but Mr Blanche has since said Mr Trump has yet to decide whether to do so.

The defence is not required to present a case, and Mr Trump does not have to decide ahead of time whether he will testify.

Additional reporting by Reuters