Day 17: Cohen Goes Deeper and Survives Early Cross

Plus, Trump uses courthouse guests to trash the judicial system

Note: I’m posting this after Michael Cohen started getting hammered on cross-examination on Thursday morning, May 16, but it reflects my perceptions of the way things went on Tuesday, May 14. 

Early last week, Donald Trump was still trapped alone inside the decrepit courthouse, forced to use an ancient men’s room with no mirror lest a perp smash the glass into shards and cut someone. When Trump wasn’t shivering, as he claimed, he napped like a 95-year-old — or maybe he shivered and napped at the same time. Or, more likely, he just napped, because according to a legal reporter who brought a thermometer, it hadn’t been chilly in the courtroom in three weeks and was currently a comfortable 72 to 74 degrees. That left Trump’s much-repeated “ice box” line just another lie.

One day, I sat just behind the row for reserved guests of the defendant, and all the seats were empty except the one occupied by Boris Epshteyn, the barroom brawler indicted last month for his role in Arizona’s fake elector scheme. That was embarrassing, so Eric Trump and his vulgar wife Lara; obnoxious former Trump attorney Alina Habba; impeached-but-not-removed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and a few other supporters started coming to 100 Centre Street.

Then the GOP clown car pulled up and disgorged a pathetic and dangerous collection of flunky politicians assigned to keep “President Trump” (as if he’s the incumbent) company. 

Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan criminal court in New York, Tuesday, May 14, 2024

On Friday, Trump began to realize that if he wanted to avoid being jailed for contempt, he needed surrogates to violate his gag order for him. Senator J.D. Vance, the Ohio Republican, who, before he got high on his ambition, derided Trump as “cultural heroin,” figured that the oft-indicted 77-year-old was “a little bit lonely” and flew in to be “a friendly face in the courtroom.” So did Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) of Florida and, later, New York Representative Nicole Malliotakis, representing her pro-Trump Staten Island constituents, who, like other Trump fans, have failed to show up en masse at the courthouse. (On several days, Trump’s entourage easily outnumbered the pro-Trump protesters). Alabama’s political class was especially well-represented, with dopey obstructionist Senator Tommy Tuberville and Attorney General Steve Marshall in the house.

Vance is on Trump’s vice-presidential short-list, and his visit kicked off a scramble to audition for the role that nearly got Mike Pence hung. By Tuesday, I spotted North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Florida Representative Byron Donalds, and an over-caffeinated entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy sporting his patented lean-and-hungry look. Vivek, who unfortunately will be a darling of the GOP for the next half century, seemed to be looking down and taking notes as if he and he alone could crack the case and mount a plausible defense for Trump. But when I sat directly behind him in the afternoon, I could see that he, like others in Trump’s entourage, was peering at his phone, as they —but not the defendant or we reporters — are allowed to do. 

These toadies were also auditioning for an additional role: the one originally played by Michael Cohen. Like Cohen, they want “credit” for prostrating themselves before the would-be dictator. Chris Hayes, the MSNBC journalist, Harry Litman, the law professor and legal commentator, and I had a great conversation in line before the courthouse opened about this crowd and power. Chris pointed out that high-level Trumpsters enjoy denouncing Democrats as communists, but they are the real latter-day Marxists. Those lefties argued that liberal democratic institutions are just a cover for elites to use their power to exploit the people. It made me think that this worldview has now infected the right; J.D. Vance and his ilk have no ideology but power. They’re Bolsheviks in the vanguard of the MAGAteriat, preparing, with the help of former KGB officer Vladimir Putin, to subvert the “Deep State” (i.e., Congress, the judiciary, the bureaucracy) once Trump is reelected.

The presence of House Speaker Mike Johnson outside the grimy courthouse today has drawn criticism, but most of it involves his almost comical hypocrisy — a guy who says a literal interpretation of the Bible guides his every decision staunchly defending a con man (Tenth Commandment) who covets not just his neighbor’s wife but a porn star and Playboy Playmate (Ninth Commandment).

This is garden-variety GOP behavior. What’s much scarier is seeing Johnson, third in line to the presidency, traveling to New York and using his office to attack the integrity of the courts. That’s straight from the playbook used by authoritarians all over the world: Trash impartial judges, then replace them with Aileen Cannon-types, who only answer, as Cohen once did, to Dear Leader. For all its faults, the American judicial system has been the jewel in our constitutional crown for 235 years. Now, even the pretense of honoring the rule of law is gone at 100 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan.

***

On Tuesday morning, Susan Hoffinger, a member of the prosecution team, continued her direct examination of Michael Cohen. She began by eliciting testimony from the former Trump attorney of what happened after he got angry over his reduced bonus.

Three weeks after the Inauguration, Cohen visited Trump in the Oval Office and discussed his reimbursement. “He said, ‘I can get a check.’ I said, “No, I’m OK,” Cohen recounted. “He said all right, just make sure you deal with Allen [Weisselberg, Trump’s CFO].”

Around this time, Boris Epshteyn turned around and glared at me from the row ahead. He didn’t like me making a little noise when I took out a couple of breath mints for me and Chris Hayes. I wasn’t surprised Boris was angry; he was sentenced to anger management classes after one of his barroom rampages. But I couldn’t figure out why opening my disc of Wintergreen Ice Breakers bothered him at this particular moment when the trial was in a dull patch. Cohen was authenticating all of the falsified documents, which regulars like me (and the jury) had seen authenticated several times before. We knew the boilerplate Cohen had used in the invoices, falsely claiming that he was asking for payment for legal services rendered. 

Mercifully, the trial moved on to pre-butting the Trump team’s argument that Cohen was indeed doing legal work for Trump. He testified that he had worked with another attorney, Marc Kasowitz, on the case of Summer Zervos, the Celebrity Apprentice contestant who had sued Trump for defamation, and had reviewed a document from Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum, which was planning to include a likeness of Melania Trump in their collection. Cohen acknowledged that Alan Garten of the Trump Organization had asked him to look into “particular matters” (that we will almost certainly hear about on cross-examination) but that this work was “also minimal.” All told, Cohen testified, he did “less than 10” hours of legal work for Trump in all of 2017. “Did the $420,000 have anything to do with that minimal work?” Hoffinger asked. “No,” Cohen replied. 

As for legal work in 2018, Cohen recounted how he worked with another attorney, Larry Rosen, on Trump’s push for arbitration after Daniels broke her NDA. I watched Eric Trump in the courtroom as Cohen identified him as the one who first contacted him about the arbitration. 

Hoffinger turned to an important point. Cohen’s claim that he took no money for being a “Personal Lawyer for Donald Trump” had stuck in my craw, and maybe the jury’s. Why hadn’t he? It turned out that five corporate clients wanting access to or favors from President Trump paid him $4 million in consulting fees. Plus, he snagged another half a million just for allowing his name to be on the letterhead of Patton, Boggs, a powerful law firm specializing in lobbying. 

Cohen recounted the false statements he made to congressional committees investigating Russian connections to the Trump campaign and the abortive real estate deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow.

He said he misrepresented the time period of his conversations with Trump about Russia, which numbered ten instead of the three he mentioned. I imagined the jury thinking, That’s it? He went down on perjury for that?

When asked why he had lied about Stormy Daniels and encouraged Keith Davidson, the attorney who was representing Daniels and McDougal, to do so, too, he replied, “In order to protect Mr. Trump.”

When the story of Cohen making hush money payments to Daniels broke in The Wall Street Journal in January 2018, Cohen went into damage control mode, demanding denials from both Daniels and Davidson and denying Trump knew a thing. The sycophantic fixer told Trump that his line with the press was, “I had paid the money on his behalf without his knowledge” and denied any sexual encounter, arguing, “Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.”

Trump said, “Good. Good.”

Cohen told the president of the United States about orchestrating Davidson’s denial statement “to get credit for expressing [support]” and to show that “I would stay loyal.”

Other legal challenges growing out of the hush-money payments popped up in 2018, including the filing of a temporary restraining order against Daniels in her NDA case in California and a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint filed against David Pecker and American Media International, the parent company of the National Enquirer. Cohen told Pecker that the president said the publishing executive had nothing to fear from FEC, which might have ruled Pecker’s publications made an illegal donation to Trump’s campaign. “Thanks to [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions,” Cohen recalled. This was untrue, of course. The AG has no power over the FEC. But the campaign finance connection will help the prosecution with the “other crimes” mentioned in the New York statute barring falsification of business records, though there are evidentiary issues involved in bringing campaign finance law into this case.

Cohen then testified about what he described as “the worst day of my life’ — when, in 2018, the FBI knocked on his door at 7:00 a.m. and seized from multiple residences his cell phones, computers, tax books, and other documents.

With a small catch in his throat, Cohen testified that he was frightened. 

Trump called to say, “Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Stay tough. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re going to be ok.” 

That was the last time Donald Trump and Michael Cohen ever spoke. In court, when he’s awake, Trump often glares at Cohen, who never seems to glance in his direction.

“This was an extremely important call. I was scared and wanted some reassurance that Mr. Trump had my back,” especially because the raid was connected to him, though Cohen didn’t yet know exactly how.

“I felt reassured, and I remained in the [Trump] camp, in the fold,” he testified. Others told him, “You’re loved. Don’t worry. He’s the most powerful guy in the country, maybe the world. You’re going to be ok.”

When court recessed for a break, I was close enough to glimpse Cohen just after he walked through a side door. When he thought no one could see him, he heaved a huge sigh as if badly wrung out.

After the break, we heard the story of Robert Costello, a sleazy lawyer enlisted by his close friend, Rudy Giuliani, to keep Cohen from flipping. Trump had his eyes closed, but mine were wide open for this cloak-and-dagger testimony.

Those of us with scorecards at home knew that Costello had trashed Cohen to the grand jury, which Trump’s lawyers tried to use to squelch Trump’s indictment. It meant that nothing he might say in this case would be a surprise. Going back further, Costello advised Steve Bannon to use executive privilege to avoid testifying before Congress in another case. Bannon had long since left the White House, which made the claim doubly dubious. Both Bannon and another client, Rudy Giuliani, had been stiffing Costello on legal bills but the prosecution didn’t mention that. It didn’t want to introduce any evidence that would weaken the tie between Costello and Giuliani.

Cohen testified that there was something “sketchy and wrong” about Costello, who wasn’t any good at pressuring a potential witness against the president. He was dumb enough to tell Cohen in an email that he wanted to develop “a back channel,” which is hardly undecipherable code.

Costello was presumptuous in assuming that Cohen would hire him as his lawyer and partial to platitudes aimed at keeping Cohen in the fold: “You are loved…They [Trump and Giuliani] are in our corner…Sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.” Hoffinger wanted to know why Costello didn’t just say, for anyone monitoring the chat, that the “friends” were Trump and Giuliani? “To be covert, back channel, I Spy-ish,” Cohen replied.

“My concern was that all of these conversations would be relayed back to Mr. Giuliani and his client, President Trump,” Cohen testified.

Costello told Cohen that federal prosecutors want to “wear you down” and journalists “want you to cave and want you to fail.”

Hoffinger asked what the message was. “It was part of the pressure campaign. ‘Everyone is lying to you. Please still support us. ..Stay in the fold, don’t speak, don’t cooperate.”

Cohen described his decision to flip as personal and connected to his family. “I decided it was about time to listen to them—to my wife, my daughter, my son, and my country.” He added, “I made a decision not to lie anymore.”

 In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to several crimes, including five counts of tax evasion, false statements to a financial institution, and one count of violating campaign finance laws. The details of his crimes were vague on Tuesday but will not remain so.

Cohen owed $1.4 million in back taxes and paid two $50,000 fines — one for crimes related to paying off Stormy Daniels and one for campaign finance violations. 

We saw Trump’s tweet on the video screen: “Anyone looking for a good lawyer I would strongly recommend you not to retain Michael Cohen.” All of his later tweets about Cohen, now 57, would be much harsher. The father of two served 13 months in 2019 and 2020 in federal prison in Otisville, New York, before being released early thanks to COVID-19 and other factors we will learn more about on cross.

The cross-examination of Michael Cohen is being billed as the central moment in this trial — and it will be. If Trump’s defense attorneys are going to destroy Cohen’s credibility so he looks like a liar set on revenge, they must do it. 

Todd Blanche, the former federal prosecutor who left his venerable New York corporate law firm to move to Palm Beach, is now Trump’s top attorney. He seems from afar to be a nice, smart guy. But he has argued only two cases as a defense attorney and his inexperience shows in his meandering cross.

Trump assigning Cohen’s cross to Blanche is akin to asking an outfielder with only two starts as a pitcher — no Shohei Ohtani — to pitch Game Seven of the World Series. 

Cross by a prosecutor in federal court is a different sport than cross by a defense attorney in state court — or at least a different position. As a prosecutor, you usually have a lot of facts on your side, making cross of defense witnesses easier. As a defense attorney, you usually have to not just ding the key witnesses but blow them up. It isn’t easy. Inside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse — and in courtrooms across the country — defendants are convicted every day based on the testimony of low-life liars and sometimes killers who have turned state’s evidence. 

Right from the top, Blanche’s inexperience showed. After clarifying that he and Cohen had never met, Blanche said, “On April 23, you went on TikTok and called me a lying little shit, didn’t you?”

This was a bold opening but an unwise one.

After quibbling a bit, Cohen replied: 

“Sounds like something I would say.” 

A talented courtroom artist in the next seat, Isabelle Brourman, kept score of the three other times Cohen would use this effective line. I know my kids will want to give me the T-shirt. 

Judge Juan Merchan immediately called for a sidebar conference. It was out of earshot of the jury, but we later found the details in the transcript. “Why are you making this about yourself?” Merchan asked before striking the exchange from the record.

When Blanche resumed his meandering cross, he did what Trump had wanted all along for the political dimension of the case — he aired Cohen’s juvenile attacks on him so Trump would give him Cohen-style credit for helping him justify breaking the gag order and responding in kind. 

So Blanche brandished an April 23 Cohen tweet: “He [Trump] goes right into that little cage where he belongs, like a fucking animal.”

Cohen was squirrelly about whether the prosecution wanted him to shut up before testifying. Blanche seemed to score a bit on Cohen remembering more about conversations with Trump eight years ago than about pressure from the prosecution to zip it just a few days ago. 

But where was this going? How did establishing that Cohen wanted to see Trump in jail help the defense? Daniels and Cohen hated Trump, and he hated them. So what? Cohen believed in vengeance just as much as Trump. Big Whoop. Cohen was leaking things about the prosecution’s strategy when he went on Don Lemon and other cable shows and trashed Trump on more than 200 episodes of his podcast. Stop the presses. “I do have a First Amendment right to speak,” Cohen said, echoing Trump. 

Blanche’s line of questioning was a waste of the jury’s time. These two, Trump and Cohen, deserved each other. In fact, while some old insults were accurate but arguably over-the-top (“You referred to President Trump as a dictator douche bag,” Blanche noted), recent ones uttered during the trial were slightly muted. Cohen’s newer tweets featured Trump in an orange jumpsuit and hawked anti-Trump merch (e.g., a coffee mug reading “Send him to the big house, not the White House”). Those were plenty childish but seemed mild next to Trump’s toilet humor or the Truth Social post — shown yet again this morning — of Trump calling Stormy Daniels “HORSE FACE.”

Blanche asked when Cohen was “in the fold” and if he was “obsessed” with Trump. Cohen said, “I admired him tremendously” and admitted, “At that time, I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump.”

After quoting some of Cohen’s slobbering lines about Trump, Blanche said, “And you were telling the truth, right?” Cohen said yes. It was as if Blanche wanted his client, Trump, to see how he got Cohen to admit that he was telling the truth about the greatness of his old boss. 

And Blanche reminded the sycophants on tap to testify how far their loyalty should go. You said you “would take a bullet for the president?” Blanche asked. “I did say that, yes,” Cohen replied.

To prove it, Cohen turned down $10 million to pen a tell-all. He was sorry the Russia probe made it impossible for him to get face-time: “I was advised I could not speak to President Trump.

By this time, more than an hour had passed, and Blanche had barely scratched the witness. 

Finally, Blanche got to Cohen’s lying. After the FBI raid, Cohen met with federal prosecutors. Did he lie about the Trump Tower Moscow project? 

“The information I gave to them was inaccurate. I don’t know if I’d characterize it as a lie.” Moments later, he testified, “Sure, I’ll say it’s a lie.” 

After the break, Cohen testified about a meeting with prosecutors in Otisville prison after he’d been there three months to talk about early release in exchange for cooperation. 

This seemed promising for the defense until Blanche admitted in a preface to a question that Cohen hadn’t signed a cooperation agreement, and he received no reduction in his sentence. 

Nine months later, Cohen was released to home confinement because of the pandemic and began what Blanche dismissed as his “redemption tour.” 

Blanche elicited that Cohen had made $3.4 million from two books, one titled Revenge. This scuffed Cohen, but only a bit. Blanche lost the thread when he returned to the insults.

On his first Mea Culpa podcast — the name was chosen in part because of the initials “MC” — Cohen called Trump a “boorish cartoon misogynist.” He kept the animation theme with one of my personal favorites: “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain.”

I glanced at Trump; no orange crumbs on his blue suit.

Blanche kept going with the Mea Culpa trash talk: “President Trump needs to wear handcuffs and to do the perp walk.” Then: “I truly fucking hope this man ends up in prison.” I found myself relieved that Blanche spared us “Baron von Shitzinpants.” 

It was Blanche’s only smart move on Tuesday, but he will have all day Thursday and beyond to bring up his game and improve Trump’s defense.

Tomorrow: More cross of Cohen, plus maybe re-direct by the prosecution and re-cross.