Donald Trump trial updates: Defense rips into ex-fixer Cohen’s many ‘lies’ about supposed phone call with Trump over Stormy Daniels hush payment

From Rob Crilly, Senior U.S. Political Reporter in courtroom 1530

That was a moment of pure lawyering, the sort of gotcha moment that you see in LA Law but all too rarely in an actual courtroom.

Defense lead Todd Blanche had spent the morning trying to undermine Michael Cohen’s testimony, using his own words in text messages and on podcasts to portray the witness as a bitter ex-employee intent on revenge. It wasn’t until 12:30 that he finally got to the meat of Cohen’s testimony, that Trump was directly involved in the hush money and cover-up scheme.

He did so by having the jury look at text messages sent by Cohen on the evening of Oct 24, 2016, after Cohen had unmasked someone making nuisance phone calls. The culprit forgot to mask their number, and when Cohen challenged them, they admitted they were a 14-year-old.

So what, wondered the assembled ranks of press.

Blanche continued. At about 8:04 pm, Cohen messaged Keith Schiller (Trump’s body man, who is always at his side) asking for help dealing with the matter. A phone call lasting barely 90 second follows.

Now Blanche goes in for the kill, reminding Cohen that on Monday he had claimed that call was designed to update Trump on the Stormy Daniels matter.

‘That was a lie. Because you were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about you were getting harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old,’ he said in the most dramatic moment of the case so far.

Cohen says he had time to do both.

‘I always ran everything by the boss immediately, and in this case it would have been saying, ‘Everything been taken care of — it’s been resolved,”‘ he said

But a seed of doubt has now been cast. Cohen is the key to the case. And a major question has been raised with Blanche turning everying on a dime.

See for yourself Monday’s testimony below…

Dozens of pink penis balloons were released by a MAGA activist outside of the courthouse where Trump’s trial is on a lunch break.

There have been several protestors pro and anti-Trump stationed outside the court throughout the day.

The balloons have faces printed on them of Judge Merchan and Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Blanche tears into Cohen over his recollections about an 8:02 pm phone call with Keith Schiller, Trump’s former security head.

It’s the same call where Cohen testified he told Trump the Stormy Daniels matter was taken care of.

But it was sandwiched between communications with Schiller, including one at 7:48 pm where Cohen texted about a prank caller. ‘The Dope forgot to block his call,’ Cohen wrote.

At 8:04 Cohen texted Schiller the number.

‘You finalized the deal with Stormy Daniels. You said we’re going to move forward and you said ye,’ Blanche said, his voice rising.

‘That was a lie. Because you were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about you were getting harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old,’ he intoned.

‘You had enough time in that 136 second phone call to update Mr. Schiller… and also update President Trump on the of the Stormy Daniels situation?’ Blanche asked.

Cohen said it could have been quick. ‘Always run everything by the boss immediately,’ he said.

‘I believe I also spoke to Mr Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter and that it was going to be resolved,’ Cohen said.

‘I’m not asking for your belief,’ shot back Blanche.

Blanche is asking Cohen why he testified Tuesday about an October 24 phone call with Trump, but didn’t discuss it with prosecutors last year.

‘So it was the first time that you recall having a conversation with President Trump on Oct. 24 at 8:02 pm when you testified two days ago,’ Blanche asked him.

Cohen said it was to discuss Stormy Daniels and a resolution.

Cohen said he didn’t recall details and that phone logs ‘refreshed my memory.’

Cohen’s daughter daughter Samantha said Trump new people ‘were walking all over you, correct?’ Blanche asks him.

‘And you agreed with that didn’t you at the time.’

‘At the time,’ Cohen responds.

Cohen told his daughter he wasn’t the ‘right person’ for chief of staff at the White House.

‘You were not embarrassed that after all the work you had done’ you got to be ‘personal attorney and nothing role?’ Blanched asked.

Cohen said it was the role he wanted.

You were having a ‘hard time getting tickets to the inauguraiton,’ Blanche asked about a text exchange with his daughter.

‘I believe so,’ said Cohen.

Then he gets asked about his conversations with pastor Darrell Scott.

Does the turn of phrase in this tweet sound familiar?

It was used by Trump during a 2020 election debate with Joe Biden, when he was pressed repeatedly to condemn white nationalism in general and then specifcally to denounce the Proud Boys and call for them to stand down.

Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what … somebody’s gotta do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.

Blanche is getting grilled by Blanche about his texts with daughter Samantha Blake Cohen about landing a White House job.

One discussing being ‘special counsel’ to Trump.

Cohen testifies he meant a different ‘hybrid’ role, being ‘personal attorney to the president.’

‘There’s a way that I could monetize that, which I did.’

Blanch says texts show his frustration about getting passed over.

‘What you really said to your daughter … is that you were very disappointed that Reince was being given the power to determine my position,’ he said, after helping Trump choose Reince Priebus as his first White House chief of staff.

Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman, mocks the prosecution case:

It’s like the Mr Potato Head of crimes – where they had to stick together a bunch of things that did not belong together.

Blanche goes back to Cohen’s testimony that he wanted to be ‘considered’ for White House chief of staff, even if for his ‘ego.’

It is part of the defense’s plan to establish a motive for Cohen as a jilted aide.

‘The truth is, Mr. Cohen, you really wanted to work in the White House.’

‘No sir,’ he told Blanche.

‘You really wanted to work in the White House, correct?’

‘Again, no sir,’ Cohen responded.

Now Blanche is bringing up contradictions to the statements.

Prosecutors come back from break and ask Judge Merchan to issue a ‘curative’ instruction about some of Blanche’s questioning of Cohen.

He had been going after the witness over a TV appearance around the time news broke of the indictment and an apparent ‘leak.’

‘The questions were misleading,’ the prosecution said. The question related to an appearance on March 31, which prosecutors said came after the indictment was unsealed the night before.

‘That clearly left the impression with the jury that there was something improper,’ according to the prosecution.

Blanche argued that no instruction from the bench was needed.

Merchan is allowing Blanche to ‘clean it up’ and is allowing prosecutors to draft an order he will consider reading to the jury.

Trump’s allies posed for a photograph this morning before the hearing started. (From left) Reps. Luna, Gaetz, Good, Crane, Biggs, Boebert.

But court nerds will know that this is not courtroom 1530 where the Trump trial is taking place. The blinds, seen in the background, are slightly different and you cannot see any of the four TV screen specially installed for this high-profile case (one of which should be visible above the red, leather jury chairs.

The members of Congress are not in court as we resume after the recess. They are outside about to address the media in a small park across the street from the court.

Cohen testified that Trump was ‘dangling’ pardons in front of him.

He revealed he thought about it to end the ‘nightmare.’

That line contradicts what he previously told Congress, that there never was a pardon on the table.

Blanche hammered Cohen on his testimony in 2019 that he never asked for nor would he ask for a pardon.

He asked Cohen to try to square it with testimony that he spoke to lawyers about pursuing a potential pardon from Trump.

‘That’s a not true statement isn’t it?’ Blanche asked.

‘At that present moment, it was true. I wanted this nightmare to end. And so with it being dangled, seeing it on television, I asked them is this really something that they’re talking about.’

He says his other statement was meant in the ‘present sense,’ and also relies on the argument that he relied on others to pursue a pardon.

Blanche starts quizzing Cohen about a meeting with lawyer Bob Costello, who is linked to Rudy Giuliani, after the FBI raid on Cohen’s home.

It comes hours after Costello appeared before a GOP-run House committee and claimed he himself asked Cohen if he had any useful information on Trump, and that Cohen told him he didn’t.

‘Do you remember telling him that you had nothing on President Trump and could not cooperate?’

‘No sir,’ Cohen responded.

Cohen acknowledges the bank loan was to ‘hide it form your wife,’ agreeing with Blanche’s question.

But prosecutors successfully object to conversations that might get at spousal communications. Blanche also asks him about deleting text messages from his wife.

Todd Blanche is asking Cohen about one of his appearances before a House committee.

‘When Congressmen ask you questions they go on and on right?’ he says, before apologizing for his own longwinded questions.

Rep. Matt Gaetz looks up as if in mock indignation before turning and sharin a smile with Rep. Lauren Boebert who is sitting beside him.

Now Blanche gets Cohen talking about whether he lied in Trump’s fraud trial and when getting a home improvement loan

Blanche keeps going through the record, this time asking him about his testimony in Trump’s civil fraud trial down the street last year.

‘You testified under oath at a different trial that you did not commit the crimes that you pled guilty to before Judge Pauley. Correct?’

‘Correct,’ Cohen said.

That brought yet another discussion about Cohen’s belief that he shouldn’t have been charged, but that he accepts the underlying facts of the case.

Then he asks about Cohen’s application for a HELOC, a type of loan, which he used to cover the Stormy Daniels statement. Cohen says he doesn’t think it was ‘material’ because he had had such a loan for years.

‘Were you lying at the time you made those statements?’ to the bank, Blanche asks.

‘Yes,’ Cohen says.

The defense has yet to get into Cohen’s testimony in the trial, his payments to Stormy Daniels and the way he was reimburse. So far this morning it has been a tour of Cohen’s convictions and his record of lying in other cases while under oath.

The defense strategy is clear: To demonstrate to the jury that this is not a witness to be trusted, reminiscent of an earlier witness claim that Cohen was a ‘pants on fire’ kind of guy.

For their part, the jurors seem engaged and attentive even as the questioning is repetitive and at times arcane (including discussions of the New York taxi medallion system).

Cohen is not fazed by any of it. He is giving measured, matter-of-fact responses, occasionally pausing to remember timelines and dates.

Trump is listening, brow furrowed, head tilted to one side.

Blanche gets Cohen to once again discuss how he beleives he was pressured into pleading guilty to the tax charge, which related to the taxi medallion business.

He says he feared if he didn’t take the deal on just 48 hours notice, his wife would be indicted.

‘You do feel like you were induced to plead guilty?’ Blanche asks.

‘I never denied the underlying facts. I just did not believe that I should have been criminally charged,’ says Cohen.

Then he hits him with the standard language that Judge William H. Pauley III asked him to repeat in court when he furnished his guilty plea.

he was asked ‘did anybody offer you any inducements or thereaten or force you to plead guilty.’

‘And you said no?’ Blanched asked him.

‘I accepted responsibility.’

‘That was a lie?’

‘Correct,’ he said.

Blanche takes Cohen to his taxi medallion business – a practice unrelated to his work with Trump that brought an investigation before he ended up jailed on a tax charge.

Cohen perks up explaining the ins and outs of the business, noting there are 13,284 taxi medallions in New York City.

He leased them to a man, Gene Freedman, who would later cooperate with prosecutors.

‘He would lease my medallion or medallions .. and he would pay me a certain sum every month, whether he made money or didn’t,’ Cohen says.

‘The only way to have a taxi is you have to have a medallion affixed to the front,’ he says.

Blanche is playing out Cohen’s lies to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about a Trump Moscow tower project he pursued.

Blanche gets him to acknowledge he lied to agents and prosecutors, to Congress, and to the special counsel.

‘You lied about the Moscow project, correct?’ Blanche asks.

‘Correct,’ Cohen responds.

‘When you stopped the project was a lie, correct?’

‘Correct,’ said Cohen.

Blanche continues to draw on Cohen’s public statements to try to get at his motive.

In one podcast statement, Cohen says ‘I truly f***ing hope that this man ends up in prison,’ referring to Trump.

‘Revenge is a dish best served cold and you better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family,’ he says in another.

And he gets another insult into the record, this time with Trump responding on X to a Donald Trump post attacking him.

‘You called him dumbass Donald does that sound right?’ Blanche asks.

‘Sounds correct,’ Cohen responds.

Cohen puts on headphones and gets played his own Mea Culpa podcast.

Prosecutors object to it being into evidence but it gets played aloud in court.

Cohen’s radio voice is notably amped up from his witness stand demeanor, as he discusses meeting with DA Alvin Bragg and his desire for Trump to go through trouble.

‘He’s about to get a taste of what I went through and I promise you, it’s not fun,’ Cohen said, mentioning fingerprinting and a mug shot.

It ‘fills me with delight and sadness all at the same time,’ the jury hears him announce on tape.

There’s been a tricky back and forth between defense lead Todd Blanche and Michael Cohen over messages he exchanged with a detective last year, around the time the New York Times reported that a grand jury had indicted Trump. Blanche is clearly trying to get at whether Cohen was given information before the indictment was unsealed, but the defense has successfully objected to multiple rounds of questioning.

Blanche asks Judge Juan Merchan for a sidebar to discuss the issue.

Blanche: ‘May we approach?’

Merchan: ‘No.’

There have already been discussions about what is allowed during this phase. And yhe brusque exchange is a blow to the defense which is struggling to land any blows and is now moving on to another line of questioning.

‘If the prosecution rests its case based on the evidence they’ve put forward, then this judge should redeem himself for all the erroneous rulings he’s made so far by directing a verdict of not guilty,’ Cotton said on CNN this morning.

He went on to add that there has been no evidence of a crime whatsoever.

Trump’s campaign has been highlighting clips and opinion pieces of his allies saying there’s no case for the prosecution.

Cohen was asked about his texts with detective Jeremy Rosenberg, a supervising investigator in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Questions are going to where and when Cohen learned Trump was being indicted.

Cohen says he learned it from the New York Times.

‘He didn’t tell you before there was an unsealing indictment that it was done?’ Blanche asks him.

Prosecutors objected to the use of the term ‘leak’ in Blanche’s questions.

Donald Trump is seated in the courtroom wearing a blue suit and red tie.

He had been closing his eyes during the long sidebar between the attorneys and Judge Merchan.

Lawyer Bob Costello appeared on Fox News just as Michael Cohen was set to retake the witness stand as a key witness in Donald Trump’s hush money case.

Costello appeared before a House committee on Wednesday where he claimed Cohen lied on the stand.

Costello told Fox News on Thursday that he spoke with Cohen during his prior criminal trial. He claims he advised Cohen in 2018 to offer up information on Trump in order to cut a deal, but Cohen told him he has ‘nothing’ on the then-president.

Costello said he has not been subpoenaed to testify by the defense but said he would recommend that Trump’s lawyers call on him.

Judge Merchan tells the jury it may be ‘necessary’ to work Wednesday – the day the Trump trial has usually been pausing.

He wants to know if any have conflicts or hardships, He also mentions various holidays and other factors. It could signal the trial is wrapping up.

Judge Merchan didn’t say what the lengthy sidebar was about.

‘I apologize for all the whispering, we’re ready to get started,’ is all he told the jury.

Lawyers for the prosecution and the defense begin the day in court with another sidebar with Judge Merchan.

They ended Tuesday with some housekeeping discussion of when Cohen’s cross-examination might end and whether or not an expert witness would be called.

Members of the House Republican Freedom caucus are seated behind Trump in the courtroom. Members spotted include Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Reps. Tim Walz, Bob Good, and Andy Biggs are also part of Trump’s entourage.

There was some shuffling in the courtroom to find space for everyone, and Gaetz got moved to the front next to Eric Trump.

Former President Donald Trump is seated in the courtroom. He chatted with lawyer Emil Bove at the defense table. Blanche stood as he prepared to resume cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Photrgraphers are once again getting a close-up of the defendant.

Former President Donald Trump spoke to reporters before entering the courtroom.

Trump blasted the case against him as a ‘scam’ and claimed the security outside the Manhattan criminal court is like ‘Fort Knox.’ While there is enhanced security at the court, members of the public is allowed to attend his trial.

The ex-president said the one good thing to come out of the hush money trial is his polling.

He did not answer a shouted question about whether he would testify.

Trump is flanked by a handful of his closest GOP allies at his trial.

Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Anna Paulina Luna, Michael Waltz and Andy Biggs are standing behind him as he addresses reporters outside the courtroom.

Reps. Tim Waltz, Diana Harshbarger, Eli Crane, Ralph Norman, Andy Ogles, Michael Cloud and Virginia State Sen. McGuire are also in court supporting Trump.

Judge Juan Merchan decided to end court for the day on Tuesday during lawyer Todd Blanche’s cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Blanche had asked Cohen if he was concerend that a new DA was circulating negative stories about him.

Cohen agreed that he dealt with the subject in his book.

Cohen had admitted calling himself a ‘fixer’ and said he made about $3.4 million on a pair of books that dealt extensively with Trump.

Blanche told the judge he would likely finish his cross-examamination Thursday.

‘No rush, take your time,’ Merchan told him.

Before his appearance in court on Friday, Trump conducted an interview with KTSP in Minnesota.

He has lamented that the court’s schedule is keeping him off the campaign trail.

Trump’s legal team initiated a new appeal of his gag order on Wednesday evening.

He is not allowed to discuss witnesses, jurors and others in the twisted web of his hush money case.

Trump has already been fined $10,000 by Judge Merchan for violating the order.

He has also been threatened with jail if he violates it again.

Michael Cohen arrived to court before he is set to answer questioned by Trump’s attorneys.

He was seen wearing a pale yellow tie and dark suit.

Donald Trump could be in danger of another breach of the gag order imposed on him by the judge, according to some legal experts.

The suggestion came amid reports that Trump wrote notes to instruct allies what to say when they delivered speeches outside court earlier this week.

David R. Lurie, an attorney in New York, wrote on X:

Those notes are not privileged documents…the notes could evidence violations of the court’s order.

The much awaited cross-examination of Michael Cohen began with a shock-and awe opening meant to shatter the composure of the witness, but ended with the usual courtroom tedium and Cohen correcting Donald Trump’s lawyer on real estate.

There were swear words, insults – ‘Cheeto-dusted villain’ is one – and questions about Cohen’s move from Trump loyalist to resistance crusader, and whether it was an awakening or self-serving scheme.

Many of Blanche’s early punches didn’t land, and had the effect of bringing Cohen’s wealth of character attacks on Trump, like calling him a con man he was ashamed to work for, into the record.

Emails introduced into evidence in the Donald Trump trial reveal a move to set up a ‘back channel’ to President Trump that would run through Rudy Giuliani at a time Michael Cohen was lawyering up after an FBI raid on his apartment and office.

It was designed ‘sort of to be covert. It’s all back-channel. Sort of I Spyish,’ is how Cohen put it during his second day of testimony in the Trump hush money trial Tuesday.

Lawyer Bob Costello tore into Michael Cohen during a House hearing Wednesday – hours after the former Trump fixer called him ‘shifty’ and accused him of trying to set up a ‘back channel’ to then-President Donald Trump.

‘I read Michael Cohen’s testimony from yesterday’s trial in New York on the way down on the train, and virtually every statement he made about me is another lie,’ Costello told a House committee on ‘weaponization’ of government.

The comments came along with a blistering statement Costello released, where he blasted ‘lawfare’ he said was being deployed against Trump, and wrote about meetings with prosecutors along with Cohen.

Cohen ‘took a foolish step by lying that he had evidence that Rudy Giuliani and I had conspired to obstruct justice by dangling a pardon for him to keep his mouth shut about Donald Trump. That was totally false and utter nonsense,’ Costello said.

And he went after Cohen’s motive – in a possible teaser to what Trump’s legal team has in store for him in a second day of cross-examination set for Thursday in Manhattan criminal court.