The defense in Donald Trump’s hush money trial confronted former Trump attorney Michael Cohen over his previous profane statements about the former president and his legal team when Cohen’s cross-examination began on Tuesday.
Cohen’s testimony kicked off proceedings on Monday, with the former “fixer” claiming that Trump was directly involved in the efforts to cover up the more salacious stories that emerged when he was running for president in 2016.
Cohen alleged that Trump personally signed off on falsifying business documents to hide the reimbursements made to Cohen after he paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her affair with Trump under wraps.
In direct testimony Tuesday morning, Cohen said he had hoped that if he lied about making the hush money payment, Trump would reward his loyalty by shielding him from prosecution.
During Tuesday’s cross-examination, defense attorney Todd Blanche attempted to poke holes in Cohen’s credibility as a witness and questioned his motives for testifying.
When Blanche confronted Cohen over previous comments in which he referred to Trump as a “dictator d**chebag” and called Blanche a “crying little sh*t,” Cohen acknowledged that the comments sounded like things he would say.
When Blanche noted the multiple times Cohen was effusive in his praise of Trump in 2015, the former Trump lawyer claimed that he had been “knee-deep” in the Trump cult at the time.
Blanche accused Cohen of capitalizing on his anti-Trump rhetoric to secure media appearances and earn roughly $3.4 million in book sales.
As expected, the defense also highlighted Cohen’s history of lying under oath about his dealings with Donald Trump.
Cohen was expected to return to the stand Thursday to face further cross-examination followed by the prosecution’s redirect.
Prosecutors told the court that Cohen would be their final witness called. The defense told Judge Juan Merchan that it expected to call one expert witness but was not sure yet if Donald Trump would be testifying in his defense.
