Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen to take the stand in testimony that could make or break the case against the former president

Michael Cohen has left his home in New York to go to court in Lower Manhattan.

He will take the stage just after 9:30 am.

Cohen once described himself as Trump’s “spokesperson, thug, pit bull and lawless lawyer.”

The fixer could now be a problem for his old boss.

Even before he entered courtroom 1530, Michael Cohen’s role as a key witness in Donald Trump’s hush money case put the former president’s lawyer-turned-fixer at the center of the proceedings.

For example, famed attorney Keith Davidson was asked about a message he received asking him to “call that jerk back.”

“Who was that jerk?” he was asked by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass during the second week of the trial.

“Michael Cohen,” he replied to laughter in the public gallery.

It’s one thing for Trump’s defense to cast doubt on the testimony of a disbarred lawyer who changed his story about paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000; It’s quite another for the prosecutor, who will rely on Cohen’s testimony to draw a direct link from Trump to the payment, to highlight his shortcomings.

Cohen walked into the courthouse in downtown Manhattan just after 8 a.m.

Donald Trump has yet to leave Trump Tower for his routine motorcade tour.

Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017, serving as Trump’s fixer. He once proudly proclaimed that he would “take a bullet” for his boss.

Cohen took the lead in arranging the payment to Daniels and passed it on to a company he created for this purpose. He says he was subsequently reimbursed by Trump, whose company recorded the payment and associated bonuses as “legal fees.”

A few months earlier, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer to make a similar $150.00 payment to McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump.

Cohen recorded a conversation in which he and Trump discussed the arrangement to pay McDougal through the tabloid publisher. At one point Trump said, “What do we have to pay for this? Fifty one?’ Trump denies the affair.

After Trump became president, Cohen positioned himself as someone who could potentially advise corporate clients on the new administration, collecting large fees from companies seeking influence in the new White House.

Federal prosecutors charged Cohen in 2018 with evading taxes related to his investments in the taxi industry, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments.

Cohen, who blamed Trump for his legal troubles, pleaded guilty and served about a year in prison before being released to house arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He is now a key prosecution witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation.

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan has already heard three weeks of testimony.

They have listened to a series of witnesses from Stormy Daniels – who went into lurid detail about her alleged tryst with the former president – ​​and paralegals and cell phone company employees who presented evidence.

In the next two weeks, they are likely to be dispatched to deliberate on guilt in the first trial of a former president.

Some leading Republicans in the House of Representatives are demanding to know why the Justice Department has not yet investigated Michael Cohen, despite the former Trump fixer admitting he lied to Congress.

Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik wrote the Justice Department six months ago with a criminal referral for Cohen. The DOJ acknowledged receipt of the letter, but never followed up.

Cohen admitted in October that he lied to Congress in 2019 when he falsely told the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors that Trump had not been ordered to inflate his net worth.

Cohen may have undermined his own credibility as a witness, as he has done go to TikTok to talk about the cause and ask for donations.

‘Trump 2024?’ Cohen said on the video sharing platform. “More like Trump 20-24 years.”

The fees Cohen received form the basis of the indictment – ​​34 felonies for falsifying company records – against Trump.

Prosecutors say the refunds were recorded as legal fees to conceal the true purpose of the payments.

Defense attorneys conducted a nail-biting cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that the fixer-turned-enemy is an “admitted liar” with an “obsession with getting after President Trump.”

His troubled past is central to the case. The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could increase the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s legal exposure if jurors find him sufficiently credible.

But prosecutors relying on someone in prison for pleading guilty to federal charges related to the payments and lying to Congress is a risky strategy.

Donald Trump left his criminal trial with a smile on Friday after a judge ordered the prosecutor to keep their star witness Michael Cohen under control.

The former president nodded as Judge Juan Merchan urged the Manhattan district attorney to order the lawyer at the center of the case to stop talking about it.

The good news for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee came at the end of a grueling week in court, where he had to hear six hours of testimony from Stormy Daniels.

The porn star went into detail about her salacious and sometimes lurid claims about the night they allegedly had sex in a hotel room in 2006 — a story Trump has denied.

She wrapped up her appearance on the stand on Thursday afternoon, with a much more subdued affair on Friday with witnesses providing less dramatic but still crucial evidence.

They witnessed some of the most extraordinary moments of Trump’s presidency: the decision to take out Abu Abkr al-Baghdadi. The first statements from the White House about a strange new virus. A ridiculous storm path reaching Alabama redrawn with a Sharpie pen. And the president worries about injecting bleach.

Some Cabinet members, longtime aides and top White House staff remained loyal to the bitter end and still support him. Others were rescued in the final days of his reign, both before and after January 6.

A little landed book deals that they used to lambast the government they once served or write op-eds denouncing Trump. Others followed him to Mar-a-Lago and helped the former president regroup as he charted a path forward that took him to the cusp of becoming the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.