With prosecutors' hush money case against Donald Trump barreling towards its end, defense lawyers pressed former attorney Michael Cohen on his criminal history and past lies Thursday as they worked to convince jurors not to believe the star witness' pivotal testimony.
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Cohen was back in the hot seat for a third day of testimony as defense lawyers painted Trump's fixer-turned-foe as a spurned former employee who will say whatever it takes to put the presumptive Republican presidential nominee behind bars.
Cohen is prosecutors' final witness — at least for now — as they try to prove Trump schemed to suppress a damaging story he feared would torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign and then falsified business records to cover it up. Cohen's cross-examination is a crucial moment for Trump's team to try to chip away at Cohen's credibility, which could determine the former president's fate in the case.
Under questioning from defense attorney Todd Blanche, Cohen admitted to lying under oath when he pleaded guilty to federal charges, including tax fraud, in 2018 as well as lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate deal in Russia.
"It was a lie?" Correct?” Blanche asked Cohen about whether he lied to the late U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III at a court hearing about not being pressured into pleading guilty.
"Correct," Cohen said.
Over several days on the witness stand, Cohen placed Trump directly at the center of the alleged scheme to stifle negative stories to fend off damage to his White House bid. Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to reimburse him for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about efforts to silence women who alleged sexual encounters with him. Trump denies the women's claims.
Trump, who insists the prosecution is an effort to damage his campaign to reclaim the White House, says the payments to Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses because Cohen was a lawyer. The defense has suggested that he was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false, scurrilous claims.