Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former political fixer, told a jury in New York on Monday how deeply concerned Trump was when he learned, just before the 2016 election, that porn actress Stormy Daniels was trying to market his claim that she and Trump had a one-night sexual encounter ten years earlier.
Cohen said that when he learned that Daniels was trying to sell his story, he realized that would be “catastrophic” for the Trump campaign, especially since his story emerged just days after the release of a 2005 videotape of a celebrity show outtake ‘Access Hollywood’ in which Trump boasted that he could grope women with impunity because he was a star.
Cohen testified that Trump, upon learning of Daniels’ efforts to sell his story, told him: “’This is a disaster, a total disaster, women are going to hate me. The kids will think it’s great, but it’s going to be a disaster for the campaign.'”
Cohen, who loyally did Trump’s bidding from the early 2000s until their relationship soured in 2018, testified that Trump ordered him to stop Daniels’ story from coming to light.
“I want you to delay it as long as you can, because after the election is over, if I win it won’t matter because I’m president, and if I lose, I don’t even care,” Cohen claimed Trump told him.
Cohen maintained that Trump did not express any concern about Daniels’ story reaching his wife Melania.
“’Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘how long do you think I’ll be on the market?’ Not much’. She wasn’t thinking about Melania. It was all about the campaign,” Cohen testified.
Trump, listening in the courtroom during Cohen’s testimony, smiled and shook his head as Cohen offered his comments about Melania Trump.
Cohen, the prosecution’s key witness, testified Monday at the start of the fifth week of the trial.
Trump, 77, faces a 34-count indictment for falsifying his Trump Organization’s accounting books to conceal $130,000 in refunds to Cohen. That was the amount of money Cohen finally paid Daniels just before voters went to the polls eight years ago to prevent her from speaking out about her claim about her affair with Trump.
Daniels herself, sometimes in graphic detail, described last week the appointment during two days of testimony.
Trump has denied Daniels’ claim that they had a relationship at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in Nevada. He claims the 2017 payments to Cohen were his dues for his legal work. Trump has also denied all criminal charges he faces.
Trump’s defense has suggested that the motivation behind paying the hush money was to hide Daniels’ story from Melania Trump, not to try to influence the outcome of the election as prosecutors have alleged.
Cohen, a convicted perjurer and now disbarred attorney, told jurors how, at Trump’s behest, he also helped orchestrate hush payments to two other people. The effort was to keep them quiet about his obscene claims against Trump in the run-up to the election that he narrowly won and sent him to the White House for a four-year term.
Cohen testified how he negotiated a $30,000 payment to a doorman at a Trump property in New York who was making what turned out to be a false accusation that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock.
Cohen later told the 12-member jury that he helped negotiate, through the National Enquirer tabloid, a $150,000 silence agreement with Playboy model Karen McDougal to prevent her from speaking publicly about her claim of an affair. 10 months with Trump in 2006 and 2007.
Cohen said that when he first mentioned McDougal’s name to Trump, Trump told him, “She’s really beautiful.” But when Cohen warned Trump that McDougal was selling her story, Trump told him to “make sure it doesn’t get out.”
Trump has denied McDougal’s claim of having an affair and she is not expected to be called as a witness in the case.
But Cohen’s account supports a previous testimony in the trial of the tabloid’s editor, David Pecker, over how he paid McDougal for his story without intending to publish any information about the alleged relationship with Trump. It was a scheme that became known as “catch and kill,” to buy stories with negative information about Trump and then bury them, to help you win the White House.
Cohen, 57, described how he worked for Trump since the early 2000s, doing “whatever he wanted” and reporting only to the now-former president.
Cohen distanced himself from Trump in 2018 when pleaded guilty of a campaign finance violation related to the hush money deal with Daniels and other crimes, including perjury for lying to Congress about a potential Trump real estate deal in Moscow. Cohen served 13 and a half months in federal prison and a year and a half in house arrest.
Since his release, he has been on something of a mission to discredit Trump. Despite prosecutors’ efforts to rein in his disdain for Trump, Cohen recently posted a TikTok video of himself wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Trump behind bars.
With Trump immersed in another White House bid this year and at the same time sitting in court as a criminal defendant, Cohen took advantage of this situation to mock in another TikTok comment, saying: “Trump 2024? More like Trump from 20 to 24 years old.”
If convicted, Trump could be placed on probation or imprisoned for up to four years.
Cohen’s name has been mentioned almost daily during three weeks of testimony. Prosecution witnesses often described him as demanding, volatile, profane and always loyal to Trump, until he stopped being so and became the state’s key witness.
One witness, Keith Davidson, Daniels’ attorney, called Cohen a “moron” and avoided speaking to him whenever he could.
Prosecutors have often painted such a negative portrait of Cohen, knowing full well that Trump’s defense lawyers, when cross-examined, will brand him a convicted liar who cannot be believed.
But prosecutors are prepared to ask Cohen to tell jurors how, just before the election eight years ago, “at the direction of” Trump, he made the hush money payment to Daniels. They claim Cohen then met with Trump in the Oval Office of the White House just weeks after Trump took office to discuss the repayment plan.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan that the prosecution could conclude its case this week with testimony from Cohen and another unnamed witness.
When the prosecution completes its case, Trump’s team will have the opportunity to present its defense. Trump has said he plans to testify in his own defense to deny Daniels’ relationship claim and the criminal charges.
However, it is unclear whether Trump will take the witness stand knowing he will face vigorous cross-examination from prosecutors.
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