Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has testified against the former president in his fraud trial in a court in the United States.
Cohen, on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, testified that he worked to boost the supposed value of Trump’s assets to “whatever number Trump told us to”.
Trump’s lawyers – and outside court, Trump himself – by turn sought to portray Cohen as a serial deceiver who pleaded guilty to crimes that include tax evasion and telling falsehoods to Congress and a bank.
During a fractious cross-examination, Cohen, a disbarred attorney, floated his own lawyerly objections, responding to some queries with “asked and answered”.
It was a fraught face-to-face encounter between Trump and a man who once pledged to “take a bullet” for him.
Cohen eventually ended up in prison and became a prominent witness against his former boss in venues from courthouses to Congress.
Now, Cohen is a key figure in New York Attorney General, Letitia James’ lawsuit alleging that Trump and his company duped banks, insurers, and others by giving them financial statements that inflated his wealth.
“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets, based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” Cohen testified, saying he and former Trump finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, laboured “to reverse-engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets, in order to achieve a number that Mr. Trump had tasked us”.
Asked what that number was, Cohen replied: “Whatever number Trump told us to.”
Trump denies James’ allegations. Outside court, Trump dismissed Cohen’s account as the words of “a proven liar.”
READ ALSO: U.S. lawyer to court: How Trump made $100m via fraud
“The witness is totally discredited. He’s a disgraced felon, and that’s the way it’s coming out,” he said
The former president and Republican 2024 front-runner voluntarily came to court for a sixth day this month. Cohen has said he hadn’t seen Trump for five years until now.
“Heck of a reunion,” Cohen said outside court.
He insisted that “this is not about Donald Trump vs. Michael Cohen or Michael Cohen vs. Donald Trump. This is about accountability, plain and simple.”
As Cohen testified, Trump at times whispered to his lawyers or shook his head.
According to AFP, at other points, the former president hunched forward in his seat, watching intently, or leaned back with crossed arms.
He took a keen interest in Cohen’s cross-examination, gesturing to his attorneys, and craning his neck to get a better view.
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, hammered at Cohen’s 2018 federal guilty pleas and his effort now to distance himself from some of them.
Although he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and to making false statements to a bank on a loan application, he said on Tuesday he’d lied when he made those admissions.
He suggested he’d only engaged in “tax omission” and failed to correct inaccuracies on the loan paperwork.
“You’re not going to lie to me, as well?” Habba asked pointedly.
And when Cohen objected to certain questions and rattled off cases he said allowed him to do so, Habba snapped back that he was mistaken.
“If you still had your law license, you’d understand that,” she said.
Another Trump’s lawyer, Christopher Kise, complained that Cohen was a “serial liar” who was “out of control” and seeking to “play judge”.
The actual judge, Arthur Engoron, told Cohen to answer most of the questions.
Engoron already has ruled that Trump and his company committed fraud.
The trial involves remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.
Trump said his assets were actually undervalued, and he maintained that disclaimers on his financial statements essentially told recipients to check the numbers out for themselves.
He has derided the case as a “sham,” a “scam” and part of an effort by James and other Democrats to drag down his campaign.
Earlier this month, Trump dropped a $500 million lawsuit that accused Cohen of “spreading falsehoods” and breaking a confidentiality agreement.
A Trump spokesperson said the former president was only pausing the lawsuit, while campaigning and fighting four criminal cases.
In one of those criminal cases, co-defendant Jenna Ellis, an attorney, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a felony charge over efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
She’s the fourth defendant to take a plea deal in the case.
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