For weeks, jurors have heard about Trump fixer Michael Cohen and the role he played in the hush money saga involving Stormy Daniels. Monday, the star witness took the stand, where he’ll be filling in the final blanks in the prosecution’s case, now is in its final days.
Once among the closest allies of the former president, Cohen flipped on Trump when he pleaded guilty to crimes related to the hush money payments in 2018. He has now testified against Trump several times and even mocks him during TikTok lives, which last week prompted Justice Juan Merchan to ask prosecutors to tell him to zip it.
The former fixer paid off Stormy Daniels in October 2016 to buy her silence about her claim that she slept with Trump 10 years prior. The DA’s lawyers charge that Trump then reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment — in the process of falsifying business records — all to conceal a scheme to influence the results of the election.
Here are some of the highlights of day one of Cohen’s testimony:
“A lot of women coming forward”
Trump allegedly warned Cohen ahead of the election that many negative stories would surface.
“Just be prepared, there’s gonna be a lot of women coming forward,” Cohen said Trump warned him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The two women whose allegations of trysts and affairs with Trump have been central in the trial are Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. But many other women have accused the presumptive Republican nominee of different forms of sexual misconduct, which Trump has denied.
Last year, he was found liable in a civil trial for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, who went public with her rape allegations in 2019.
Doing “poorly” with women
“He said to me this is a disaster — total disaster,” Cohen testified of Trump on the possible release of the Daniels allegations. “Women are going to hate me, this is really a disaster, women will hate me. Guys may think it’s cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”
At the time, Cohen said, Trump was polling “very poorly” with women.
“And this, coupled with the previous “Access Hollywood” tape, just stated this is a disaster. Just, get control over it.”
Not thinking about Melania
The prosecution has hammered in that the release of the tape, where Trump made the infamous “grab them by the p—y” comments, was taken as a potentially catastrophic hit to the Trump campaign.
His wife and family, Cohen said, did not get much consideration in all of this.
“He wasn’t really thinking about Melania, he was thinking about the campaign,” Cohen said.
At Trump’s direction
Many times throughout his testimony, Cohen recalled carrying out tasks at Trump’s direction — directly implicating the former president in the payoff of Daniels and in the reimbursements to Cohen.
“You handle it,” Trump allegedly told Cohen when a Trump Tower doorman was selling a story about a possible love child Trump had fathered.
“Make sure it doesn’t get released,” Cohen said Trump directed him when Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story almost went public.
“Just take care of it,” Trump allegedly told Cohen after he learned Stormy Daniels was peddling her story.
This key point, about Trump’s direct involvement in paying people off, and its repetition, is crucial to the prosecution’s case. Only Cohen, who worked most closely with Trump at the time of the alleged hush money payments, can testify to it.
Under questioning from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Cohen testified that Trump was intimately involved in the payoffs, and that “everything” needed his signoff.
Lie, bully, threaten
Earlier in the day, Cohen testified that he enjoyed his work for Trump, for whom he’d lie and bully and nearly threaten others to deliver results for the then-future president.
Trump himself approved the reimbursements for the payments to Daniels, Cohen said on Monday. The payments, with $130,000 going Daniels, were slated to begin in February 2017, a month after Trump was inaugurated.
“This is going to be one heck of a ride in D.C.,” Trump allegedly told Cohen after he gave the payments the green light.”
