Trump’s one-time political fixer Cohen testifies against him

Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer, former lawyer and one-time political fixer for Donald Trump, started testifying against him Monday in Trump’s New York hush money trial — the first ever criminal case against a U.S. president.

Cohen, 57, told the 12-member jury he started working for Trump, a New York real estate magnate, in the early 2000s, before Trump became a politician, doing “whatever he wanted.”

Cohen is the government’s star witness in its case against Trump. The former president is accused of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment Cohen made to porn film star Stormy Daniels ahead of Trump’s 2016 election to the presidency. Cohen said he reported only to Trump at the Trump Organization.

“Just to Mr. Trump,” Cohen said several times.

Cohen once called himself Trump’s “designated thug” and estimated in congressional testimony that over the years, he had made 500 threats to people at Trump’s behest.

Trump — as recently as 2017 — the first year of his presidency, described Cohen as “a very talented lawyer” and “a good lawyer at my firm.”

All that is in the past, however, and now they are facing off in a high stakes match with considerable consequences for Trump’s personal freedom and standing as the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate in the November election. He is likely to face President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020.

A 34-count indictment accuses the former president of falsifying his Trump Organization business ledgers to hide reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment Cohen made to Daniels just before voters headed to the polls eight years ago. The payment was to keep her from talking about her claim of a one-night tryst with Trump in 2006.

Trump has denied Daniels’ claim of a liaison at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in the western state of Nevada. He said the 2017 reimbursements to Cohen were for his legal work. Trump also has denied all the criminal charges he faces.

Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation linked to the hush money deal with Daniels and other offenses, including perjury for lying to Congress about a prospective Trump real estate deal in Moscow. Cohen served 13½ months in a federal prison and a year-and-a-half in home confinement.

Since his release, he has been on something of a mission to disparage Trump. Despite prosecutors’ efforts to rein in his contempt for Trump, Cohen recently posted a TikTok video of himself wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Trump behind bars.

With Trump making another White House run and at the same time sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant, Cohen played off that in another TikTok comment, saying, “Trump 2024? More like Trump 20-24 years.”

If convicted, Trump could be placed on probation or be 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 wasn’t and became the state’s key witness.

Prosecutors have often elicited such a negative portrait of Cohen, their star witness, knowing full well that Trump’s defense lawyers will brand him as a convicted liar not to be believed.

But prosecutors are poised to have Cohen tell the jurors how, just before the election eight years ago, “at the direction of” Trump, he made the hush money payment to Daniels. They allege that Cohen then met with Trump in the White House’s Oval Office just weeks after Trump was inaugurated to discuss the reimbursement plan.

Trump’s defense lawyers have suggested the payment to the porn star was an effort by the then-future president to hide Daniels’ claim of a sexual liaison with Trump to keep his wife, Melania, from hearing about it and had nothing to do with trying to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

The former president’s team has also suggested that Cohen, without Trump’s knowledge, made the hush money payment to Daniels out of the kindness of his heart.

But one of Trump’s closest White House aides, Hope Hicks, scoffed at that suggestion, saying that “would be out of character for Michael.”

In a tedious, document-by-document presentation last week, two Trump company payroll officials testified how they handled 11 invoices, 11 vouchers and 12 checks linked to the 2017 reimbursement payments to Cohen and that Trump signed most of the reimbursement checks to Cohen.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan the prosecution could wrap up its case this week with testimony from Cohen and one other unnamed witness.

When the prosecution completes its case, Trump’s team will have a chance to present its defense. Trump has often said he plans to testify in his own defense to deny Daniels’ claim of their alleged liaison and the criminal charges he is facing.

It is not yet clear, though, whether Trump will take the witness stand knowing that he would face a vigorous cross-examination by prosecutors.