Michael Cohen testifies on the witness stand with a National Enquirer cover story about Donald Trump displayed on a screen in Manhattan criminal court, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe awaits a bruising round of questioning from the former president's lawyers on Tuesday after testimony that linked the celebrity client to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign.
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump's activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible.
Trump's lawyers will get their chance to begin questioning Cohen as early as Tuesday, where they're expected to attack his credibility — he was disbarred, went to prison and separately pleaded guilty to lying about a Moscow real estate project on Trump's behalf — and cast him as a vindictive, agenda-driven witness. The defense told jurors during opening statements that he's an "admitted liar" with an "obsession to get President Trump.
Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments' true purpose.
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