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Michael D. Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer and current antagonist, faced a tough cross-examination on Thursday as the defense drilled into his past lies.
Mr. Cohen, once known as a hothead and a paid bully, did not explode as he did when testifying last fall at Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial. He seemed at times stressed under the searing questioning from Mr. Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche. In one dramatic moment, Mr. Blanche accused Mr. Cohen of inventing the content of a phone call just before the 2016 election that he testified was with Mr. Trump and in which they discussed a hush-money payment.
“That was a lie,” Mr. Blanche said, his voice rising.
Mr. Cohen is not done. After more than seven hours of cross-examination over two days, he will return to the stand Monday; the judge granted Mr. Trump a day off on Friday so he can attend his son Barron’s graduation.
The former president is charged with falsifying 34 business records related to the reimbursement of the $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in Lake Tahoe, Nev., in 2006. Mr. Trump, 77, has denied the charges and having had sex with Ms. Daniels. If convicted, he could face prison or probation.
Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s 18th day, and his fifth week, on trial.
The content of a call could be trouble for Cohen.
It was a startling moment: Mr. Blanche on the attack, accusing Mr. Cohen of lying about a brief phone call on Oct. 24, 2016, which Mr. Cohen had previously said was to update Mr. Trump about the $130,000 he was going to pay to Ms. Daniels. Mr. Blanche, however, suggested Mr. Cohen was instead talking to a Trump bodyguard, Keith Schiller, about being the victim of phone pranks.
“You were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old,” Blanche said heatedly.
Mr. Cohen said no, but wasn’t definitive: “I believe I spoke to Mr. Trump.”
The call, made to Mr. Schiller’s phone, lasted about a minute and a half. Whether jurors believe that conversation was an update on a hush-money payment — or about prank calls — will affect Mr. Cohen’s credibility.
Reciting Cohen’s lies has a cumulative effect.
Prosecutors have tried to blunt attacks on Mr. Cohen’s credibility by introducing the jury to his myriad legal problems and stint in prison.
That strategy, however, could only go so far. The defense had many lines of attack available on Thursday: Mr. Blanche pressed Mr. Cohen about disavowing his 2018 guilty pleas for personal financial crimes and tax evasion related to the hush-money payoff. He was also asked about lying to a federal judge and making a false statement to Congress.
Jurors may not remember every attack, but they could buy the defense’s overall contention that Mr. Cohen is not to be trusted.
The defense finds a motive in Cohen’s self-interest.
Mr. Cohen said this week that he had turned against Mr. Trump after he was raided by federal agents in 2018, saying his loyalty should have been to “my wife, my daughter, my son, and the country.”
But defense lawyers suggested Mr. Cohen was out for payback, playing a portion of an October 2020 podcast in which Mr. Cohen sounded giddy as he celebrated the investigations into Mr. Trump, saying that “revenge is a dish best served cold.” He concluded: “I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family.”
Mr. Blanche also painted Mr. Cohen as upset over not getting a White House job after the 2016 election, asking him about conversations that indicated he had wanted to be chief of staff.
Cohen kept his cool.
He has been called a liar, a loser and a money-grubber in court. Through all of these attacks, Mr. Cohen has remained mostly calm, soft-spoken and deliberate on the stand.
Mr. Cohen also appeared unfazed as Mr. Blanche brought up slights and humiliations after Mr. Trump won the election in November 2016, potentially to provide a motive for Mr. Cohen’s testimony. But the witness largely stood firm, saying at one point that he was pleased with being Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and that it was “the role that I wanted.”
The back-and-forth appeared to frustrate Mr. Blanche, who at one point rubbed his forehead after one of Mr. Cohen’s answers.
Jurors could get the case soon.
Mr. Cohen’s cross-examination will continue on Monday, but should be done before noon, according to Mr. Blanche. Prosecutors may re-interview Mr. Cohen and then are expected to rest their case.
Next comes the defense’s turn. Mr. Trump’s lawyers told the judge late Thursday that the former president had yet to decide whether he would testify. It is unclear whether his lawyers might call other witnesses.
Justice Juan M. Merchan told the lawyers they should be ready to make closing arguments on Tuesday.
That means that the jury, which has been on duty since April 22, could get the case just in time before the Memorial Day weekend.
Then the wait for a verdict begins.
