Michael Cohen, Key to Trump Case, Tells Jurors of Seedy Hush-Money Plot
Michael D. Cohen, the do-anything fixer who once boasted of burying Donald J. Trump’s secrets and spreading his lies, took the stand at the former president’s criminal trial on Monday and exposed those machinations to the jury and the world.
Narrating the prosecution’s case in tell-all detail, Mr. Cohen painted a damning portrait of his and Mr. Trump’s dealings. He decoded their shady vernacular and spotlighted the conduct at the center of the first criminal trial of an American president: the silencing of women who had stories of sex with Mr. Trump to tell and to sell.
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Mr. Cohen recalled playing an intimate role in concealing or spinning away scandals that could have torpedoed Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. None was bigger than when a porn star, Stormy Daniels, shopped her story of a sexual liaison with Mr. Trump. That account posed a “catastrophic” threat, Mr. Cohen explained, threatening to compound Mr. Trump’s struggle to attract women voters.
“Total disaster,” Mr. Cohen quoted Mr. Trump saying. “Women will hate me.”
As jurors jotted copious notes, Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump did not confirm whether Ms. Daniels’s story was true, but acknowledged knowing her and called her “a beautiful woman.” And when Mr. Cohen was unable to quash the story promptly, Mr. Trump blamed him.
“I thought you had this under control,” Mr. Cohen recalled Mr. Trump’s saying, drawing a scoff and a laugh from the defendant, who had been shaking his head through much of the testimony.
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