Former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York City finally heard testimony from his lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen, who worked with the National Enquirer editor David Pecker to capture and kill the Stormy Daniels sexual encounter story. Cohen’s testimony is critical for the prosecution’s case
By Kenneth Tiven
The Donald Trump trial concerns the business fraud committed by the former US president and his executives in frenetic efforts to keep adult film star Stormy Daniels from telling her story about a one-night liaison with Trump back in 2006. All of this transpired in 2016, shortly before the presidential election when audio of Trump bragging about how he treats women became public. His lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen had a long history as Trump’s enforcer and worked with the National Enquirer editor David Pecker to capture and kill the Daniels story. But, when the weekly magazine wouldn’t put up the $1,30,000 she wanted, Cohen testified that Trump ordered him to make her go away. Cohen used his own money ultimately negotiating the repayment while talking with Trump in the Oval Office at the White House.
Cohen told this story to Congress in 2019 and was convicted of federal election law violations, spending 18 months of a three-year sentence in jail before supervised release. He told this trial that he was in “The Trump Cult”. It was a power trip until he realized that it cost him his freedom and nearly cost him his family. He and Trump haven’t talked in several years.
The prosecution is using Cohen to explain Trump’s involvement, how their behaviour was synchronized and how comfortable they were together. Each believed that anything they did was justified. The prosecution, having initially laid out all the paperwork involved, will probably ask the jury in their summation: “Are you for the boss who had sex with a porn star and ordered a cover-up? Or for the lawyer who was his acolyte and did the actual payoff?
While working for Trump, Cohen was known as a brash, aggressive individual, given to profanity and threats. In this trial, he came off as calm and clear-headed, even when pressed by Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche on cross-examination. The defense was attacking Cohen in effect, for being a clone of their client, a man who would do anything for a buck.
Defending Trump in Manhattan isn’t easy because Trump has been a controversial real estate figure there for decades. Most Manhattan residents have encountered a lawyer of Cohen’s style and understand the pressure exerted by a self-promoting rich man about town as Trump portrayed himself. Journalist Lucien Truscott IV wrote that, “Paying off a porn star to protect his own reputation is supremely Trumpian, the exact kind of thing Manhattanites would expect him to do.”
Working for Trump, Cohen would call journalists who wrote negatively and threaten to sue them. In an interview with ABC News in 2011, he said: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit. If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.” Now finished with Trump forever, he appeared in court as a pussycat, not a lion.
The big surprise from Cohen was that he kept his cool throughout the cross-examination, further demonstrating that lead attorney Todd Blanche was not an experienced criminal defense lawyer. Blanche attacked Cohen for making money off his appearance as a witness against Trump with his podcast and the merchandise he sells. Cohen was unapologetic. The defense attacks Cohen for the very behaviour Trump consistently exhibits, the most recent being a Donald Trump-enhanced bible.
Trump’s extramarital affairs are not on trial. It is the falsification of company records to hide the real reason for the money spent on Daniels. She was an articulate and careful witness with a sense of humour and style. When lawyer Susan Necheles cross-examined Daniels, she accused her of making money off of merchandise about the Trump liaison. “Yes”, said Daniels, “I’m, doing what Trump does—selling merchandise.”
Necheles seemed surprised that Daniels expressed dismay when Trump undressed while she was in the bathroom. The lawyer wondered how a woman who has acted in more than 200 pornographic movies with “naked men and naked women having sex,” did not assume that was what her client wanted because he was Donald Trump.
Trump had bragged on the Access Hollywood audio tape that when you are a star you can do anything. He undressed because “you can do anything”. He paid to silence her in the final days before the 2016 presidential election because “you can do anything”. Falsifying business records is no big deal because “you can do anything”. The so-called consensual sex between adults is not a crime. Everyone in the courtroom, including Trump’s female attorney, knew the truth: Donald Trump’s crime is his assumption that he can do anything and get away with it because he is Donald Trump.
Cohen’s testimony is critical for the prosecution’s case, but it was both Daniels and Hope Hicks whose evidence supplied essential elements of the district attorney’s case. Hicks, as Trump’s mediaperson, described the fear within the campaign from the Access Hollywood tape. She made it clear that preventing another humiliating sexual revelation required silencing women who had damaging stories to tell. The campaign-related motive for the hush money cover-up is essential to prove that Trump’s conduct violated campaign finance laws, elevating the business fraud charges into felonies, not misdemeanours.
She said: “Mr. Trump’s opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election”, undercutting arguments any payments were made to protect Melania Trump from finding out that her husband allegedly had sex with a porn star just months after the birth of Barron Trump. The emotional toll from serving up testimony implicating her ex-boss included tears.
Daniels’ demeanour as a witness drew rave reviews from reporters. On cross-examination, she was utterly believable. Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance wrote: “Daniels testimony has shown them exactly what the public would have heard and who they would have heard it from—had Trump not paid her off,” adding, “Is it believable that, especially in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape, Trump would have been willing to keep it from coming out even at this price? Absolutely.”
The defense signalled that it might not call any witnesses, relying instead on its questioning of the prosecution witnesses to argue the case has not been proven. Trump, who has dozed and looked bored throughout the trial, then raged against the judicial system outside to reporters, He is unlikely to take the witness stand for all of the issues that it will open up on cross-examination.
Political supporters have been showing up to lend “observable” support to Trump, both in and out of the courtroom. Outside they say what Trump can’t say about the witnesses, the judge and his family. House Speaker Michael Johnson showed up, along with Ohio Senator JD Vance, who is considered a potential vice-presidential selection. The leader of the House of Representatives involving himself in a criminal trial is unprecedented, but then nothing about this session of Congress seems normal.
Trump has been auditioning politicians who might be his vice-presidential running mate, much as he auditioned young girls for the beauty pageants he used to operate. All conventional rules for political parties have been abandoned as Trump absorbs the Republican Party into a wholly-owned subsidiary of his business empire. This includes appointing his daughter-in-law as head of the party and arranging for election contributions to be funnelled into paying for his legal fees.
It is obvious that if Trump wins, it will be seismic change in American politics and culture, with global implications too huge to consider here. If Democrats retain the White House and gain control of both sides of Congress, it will lead to monumental changes in a different direction. Will enough voters consider these possibilities in deciding how to vote? The answer will be available in November 2024.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels