Star witness Michael Cohen directly implicates Trump in testimony at N.Y. criminal trial

📆 5/13/2024 8:25 PM
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“What I was doing was at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.

Assistant district attorney Susan Hoffinger, center, questions witness Michael Cohen, far right, as Donald Trump, far left, looks on in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, directly implicated the former president in a hush money scheme Monday, telling jurors that his celebrity client tasked him on several occasions to stifle stories about sex that he feared could torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case, and his much-awaited appearance on the stand signaled that the first criminal trial of a former American president is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they could wrap up their presentation of evidence by week’s end.

Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Cohen’s testimony is crucial to prosecutors because of his proximity to Trump and because he says he was in direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to prevent from surfacing.

Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer who was such a close Trump ally that Cohen said he told him that his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer as he described it, where files related to Mr. Trump were located.” That effort that took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.

Cohen also said he was with Trump as Trump spoke to Pecker on a speakerphone in his Trump Tower office.

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