Michael Cohen is torn to shreds by Trump’s attorneys in blistering cross-examination over Stormy Daniels’ ‘hush money’ payments

Donald Trump’s lawyer accused star witness Michael Cohen of lying about a crucial phone call that linked the former president to a cover-up surrounding hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in a dramatic exchange Thursday.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche delivered his blow just before the lunch break, providing evidence that the main conversation was actually about a prankster and not, as Cohen claimed three days earlier, a $130,000 payment for Daniels’ silence.

It created an ‘aha’ moment just as the case nears its conclusion; the kind of pinprick that’s common on TV courtroom dramas but rarely happens in real life.

And it undermined Cohen’s testimony that he had personally spoken with Trump about plans to hide the hush money, an allegation at the heart of the case.

After reminding the 12 jurors that Cohen had a history of lying to the court and laying the groundwork for the idea that he was an unreliable witness, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche steered the court in an unexpected direction.

He pulled out text messages and call logs to show that Cohen was plagued by nuisance phone calls in October 2016.

The prankster was exposed when they forgot to hide their caller ID

Cohen told them they had to report to the Secret Service. The caller responded by saying they were only 14 years old.

Cohen then messaged Trump’s bodyman, Keith Schiller, shortly before 8 p.m. on Oct. 24, asking who he could talk to about the prankster and how to handle the matter, according to a message read to the court.

Schiller was always at Trump’s side and was often the conduit for calls to the boss.

Call logs show that Cohen made a call at 8:02 p.m. that lasted just 96 seconds — meaning it couldn’t have been about Daniels, Blanche said.

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

Cohen, who has adopted a meek, hangdog appearance throughout, protested. He said the Daniels update was only brief.

“I’ve always had everything sorted out immediately by the boss, and in this case he would have said, ‘Everything’s sorted, it’s sorted,'” he said.

“That’s a lie,” Blanche said, raising his voice in front of the beaming-eyed jury, who had endured a morning of mounting claims and counterclaims about which White House jobs were or were not being offered to Cohen. would receive. “You can admit it.”

“No sir, I can’t, because I’m not sure this is right,” he said. He added that he believed he had spoken about both matters.

“We are not asking for your faith,” Blanche said, her voice rising again, before being interrupted by an objection from the defense.

It was a killer moment after weeks of grumbling from the Trump camp that Blanche had not been aggressive enough with witnesses.

This was the win they wanted.

Son Eric Trump, sitting in the front row of courtroom 1530, delivered a one-word assessment of X: “Wow” (followed by a series of fire emojis.)

His father walked obediently out of the court and winked at a reporter in the back row.

Trump denies 34 charges of falsifying business records, falsifying invoices, ledgers and checks indicating Cohen was paid for his legal services, rather than reimbursing him for silencing Daniels.

The court heard days of dry evidence about how payments were processed and checks cut by Trump Organization employees.

It also heard the salacious details of Daniels’ story, about how she met Trump in 2006 and slept with him.

But it wasn’t until Cohen took the stand that Trump drew a direct line to money paid to his former lawyer and fixer.

Cohen is a problematic witness, having served time in prison for crimes such as tax fraud and lying to Congress.

The defense tried to make the most of that Thursday morning, using Cohen’s own words against him to show that he intended to put Trump behind bars.

Trump had allies in the courtroom, including Freedom Caucus members Reps. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and Michael Waltz, to watch the fireworks.

They heard, among other things, his on-air persona, while the court heard an excerpt from one of his podcasts, including very offensive language.

“In a podcast statement, Cohen says, ‘I really hope this guy goes to jail,’” he said at one point about Trump.

In another clip, he made it clear that he would enjoy Trump’s downfall.

“It won’t bring back the year I lost or the damage to my family. But revenge is a dish best served cold,” Cohen was heard saying. “You better believe I want this man to go down.”

The defense offered a motive for Cohen: He was bitter after being passed over for one of the top White House jobs when Trump took power.

“The truth is, Mr. Cohen, you really wanted to work in the White House, right?” Blanche asked.

Not true, Cohen said, before being confronted with a series of messages in which he spoke to friends and relatives about the possibility of being named chief of staff.

One copy read in court even suggested he would tap a friend to become his assistant if he secured the post.

Cohen said he just wanted to be considered for “ego purposes.”

But there were even more embarrassing questions for Trump’s former lawyer, including how he secretly recorded hundreds of phone calls and used non-existent AI-generated lawsuits to support a request last year for his post-prison surveillance to be terminated early to end.

Cohen responded as he has throughout his testimony: calmly, patiently and with the legal air of a professional hairsplitter.

Trump is barred from discussing witnesses by court order. But not his allies.

During the morning recess, eight members of Congress crossed the street to deliver their verdicts in front of waiting TV cameras.

Rep. Matt Gaetz called Cohen a liar who “perpetrated these lies for his own benefit” before calling the case the “Mr. Potato Head of crimes, where they had to stick together a lot of things that didn’t belong together.’

Cohen will return to the stand Monday when the case resumes, and the judge said Thursday he hopes to deliver closing arguments a day later.

According to his legal team, it has not yet been decided whether Trump himself will testify.