I’m sure the prosecution have verified this, not just taken his word for it. I’m sure they have gone over his testimony (which they have rehearsed and know every one of the questions and what he’s going to answer by wrote) with a tooth comb and made sure everything he’s saying is verifiably true.
Part of the reimbursement was for services provided by Red Finch.
Cohen also had a company rig online polls, who he paid at his own expense to be reimbursed later.
That reimbursement was rolled together with the reimbursement for the Daniels payoff (plus the extra bonus and more for the tax consequences).
from cnn updates:
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger is now walking Michael Cohen through text messages he exchanged with Keith Davidson in January 2018 around the Wall Street Journal story about the hush money payment he made to Daniels.
Davidson, who was Daniels’ former attorney, texted Cohen on January 10, 2018, saying, “WSJ called stormy. She didn’t answer. They say they are running story & have a deadline of tonight for her to comment”
“Write a strong denial comment for her like you did before,” Cohen responded via text.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger is returning to the joint defense agreement to ask Michael Cohen whether Trump was also part of it.
Cohen confirms he was. When Hoffinger asks who benefited from the agreement, the defense objects, and the objection is sustained.
Hoffinger re-asks the question to ask who would benefit from the joint defense agreement.
Cohen says, “I believe several people would benefit, but certainly President Trump.”
Hoffinger then asks, “Did you understand that you would benefit?”
“Yes ma’am,” Cohen says.
Michael Cohen says he knew Stormy Daniels’ statement denying the sexual encounter was false.
He says he told Trump he was getting the denial.
Cohen explains his actions, “One to get credit for expressing that I was continuing to ensure that he was protected and stayed loyal. And the other so we could have this matter taken care of.”
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger is now showing Michael Cohen the January 30 Stormy Daniels statement, which was issued before she was on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
“There were still persistent reporters that were looking into this, and I felt an official statement from her, another one, would be helpful to putting an end to it,” Cohen says of why he wanted the second statement.
Cohen says he knew the statement was false, because he was the one who crafted it.
Hoffinger asks whether he knew the statement falsely said that she did not receive hush money.
Cohen says he knew it was false, “Because I’m the one who paid it.”
Michael Cohen is testifying that he spoke with Trump about the false statement he was giving to the media.
Cohen says he told Trump “that I had paid the money on his behalf without his knowledge because just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you and that I did it.”
Trump responded, “That’s good, good,” according to Cohen.
rc: they are walking cohen through the lying part of the cover up. his lies to press, fec, congress, etc.
Red Finch is a IT company that they used to provide rigged polling.
new york appeals court denies trump gag order appeal.
denied!
cnn update:
Donald Trump’s latest attempt to end the gag order against him in the hush money criminal trial was denied by a New York appeals court on Tuesday.
“We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” according to the order.
Prosecutors enter into evidence a February 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission about the payment to Stormy Daniels.
In response to an FEC complaint, Cohen’s lawyer wrote in the letter: “In a private transaction in 2016, before the U.S. presidential election, Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford. Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.”
Michael Cohen said on the stand that the 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) about the Stormy Daniels hush money payment is “a true statement but it’s misleading … because neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was Mr. Trump himself.”
Cohen testified that he meant it to be misleading, “in order to protect Mr Trump, stay on message, demonstrate my continued loyalty.”
In 2018, Cohen received a complaint letter from the FEC regarding the $130,000 payment to Daniels, he said.
Michael Cohen is now being shown a text messages he sent to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who is sitting in court today, in February 2018.
“Big boss just approved me responding to complaint and statement. Please start writing and I will call you soon,” Cohen wrote. Cohen confirms that “big boss” was a reference to Trump.
Cohen recalls, “I was going to give it to her first so she had the scoop.”
Trump is sitting with his eyes closed as Cohen recalls texting Haberman.
The jury just saw Michael Cohen’s response to the Federal Election Commission investigation into the payment to Stormy Daniels.
Judge Juan Merchan then read the jury an instruction cautioning jurors that the statement was permitted to assist them in assessing Cohen’s credibility and to provide context. They were instructed not to consider it for the fact that there was an FEC investigation. The judge also told the jury not to give it weight when considering Trump’s guilt.
At the end of the 2018 statement, Cohen wrote, “Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage. I will always protect Mr. Trump.”
Cohen explains that the line validated what he had said about providing his own personal funds for the transaction.
Michael Cohen is now being shown a message then-Trump attorney Jay Sekulow sent him on February 19, 2018, through the Signal app. The message came after Cohen sent him his public statement.
“Client says thanks for what you do,” Sekulow wrote, according to the message.
Cohen testifies that “client” means Trump and that the “thanks” was for denying in the statement.
Michael Cohen says that Stormy Daniels’ former attorney Michael Avenatti filed a lawsuit against Trump, Cohen and Essential Consultants LLC to lift the non-disclosure agreement.
Cohen says he with Trump eventually agreed not to enforce the non-disclosure agreement against Daniels.
Said no other attorney ever.
On msnbc last night they were discussing Cohen’s testimony about when the Access Hollywood tape came out, and he said Melania was part of the “how do we fix this” brainstorming session and she suggested they just call it “locker room talk”. So she was in the loop, which to me kind of shoots holes in any Trump defense that he was trying to protect her.
One of the talking heads on MSNBC just said the prosecution is asking Cohen some leading questions (such as “did you alter the recording?”) and the defense is forgetting to object, which I think is hilarious. This is what $100 million on lawyers gets you, Trump.
Edit: regarding Melania, I would not be at all surprised if Trump has made it clear to her that he doesn’t have an ounce of fidelity anywhere in his body and he’s going to sleep around as he pleases.
I’m cynical enough to wonder if their lack of involvement in defending their client is some bizarre scheme for Trump to appeal on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.
They’re there because trump is under a gag order and needs lackeys to say all of the lies he isn’t allowed to utter in public, as well as needing a show of support that has been lacking in previous weeks, humiliatingly detailed in the press. Of course there’s the side benefit of said
lackeys bowing and scraping for their puppeteer so the base knows that they are True Believers.
Is ineffective assistance of client grounds for appeal?
I think the explanations, in order of most to least likely, would be:
- The talking head is incorrect, and that this isn’t really an objectionable question.
- The objection, in the defense’s mind, would be worth making.
- Trump has said he wants to be in charge of objections, and they have to wait for his go-ahead, and that’s torpedoing their chance of objecting effectively.
- Trump has told them to let the prosecution hang itself so that he can demand a mistrial–and while that’s not how it works, he’s the client, so they’re not objecting out loud even though they’re grinding their teeth to nubbins.
- An “ineffective assistance of counsel” seems really unlikely. It’s got no chance of working, but it could destroy the reputations of the attorneys involved. I can’t see any percentage for them going along with such a scheme.
As a layperson, can I ask the legal eagles in the thread what exactly is “leading” about this question that would warrant an objection? Seems like a simple factual yes-or-no to me.
Not a lawyer myself but the talking head described it as the prosecutor doing the testifying and the witness rubber-stamping it with his answer.
per cnn update:
Attorneys were at a sidebar as prosecutor Susan Hoffinger began asking Michael Cohen about a Wall Street Journal story from 2018 on American Media Inc., the payments and Cohen’s conversation with ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker.
“David was very concerned because it was going to affect AMI, it was going to affect him,” Cohen said. “And so I had told him I would assist with this matter, and I ultimately told him after conversations with the president, do not worry, we have this thing under control, it’s going to be taken care of.”
Merchan instructs the jury that, as he previously told them, the evidence is permitted to let them assess Pecker’s credibility and they can consider it for those reasons.
Cohen says he told Pecker: “I told him that matter was going to be taken care of, and the person of course who was going to be able to do it was Jeff Sessions,” who was attorney general at the time.
Cohen testifies that he told Pecker that because “that was post my conversation with the president.”
Hoffinger confirmed with Cohen that he had already had a conversation with Trump about it at that point.
Michael Cohen confirmed that in 2018 he learned Stormy Daniels was going to appear on shows like “60 Minutes.” At that time he heard from Eric Trump and he started to move on the temporary restraining order against Daniels to stop her from going public.
Cohen says he and Larry Rosen successfully obtained a temporary restraining order against Stormy Daniels.
He tried to serve the order on Daniels via her then-attorney Keith Davidson because he didn’t have an address for Daniels.
“We weren’t able to do that. Keith Davidson responded to me that he’s no longer representing her,” Cohen said.
Eventually, Cohen says he figured out “Michael Avenatti was going to be representing her going forward.”
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked whether for much of 2018, while acting as then-President Trump’s personal attorney, Michel Cohen continued to lie about his role in the payoff of Stormy Daniels.
“Yes ma’am,” Cohen said.
Michael Cohen says he was raided by the FBI in April 2018.
Cohen says he was staying at the Loews Regency hotel at the time because his apartment had flooded.
“At 7 a.m. in the morning, there’s a knock on the door. I look through the peep hole. I saw a ton of people out in the hallway. I saw the badge so I opened the door. They identified themselves as the FBI, asked me to step into the hallway,” he says.
Cohen explains that “the search warrant gave them the right to take my two cell phones, any electronic devices as well as records.”
Cohen confirms the cell phones that were seized as the same that have been referenced at this trial, including the phone that contained the audio recording of Cohen and Trump on it.
Trump has looked in the direction of the witness stand twice as Cohen testifies about the FBI raid of his hotel room, apartment and office.
Michael Cohen was asked to describe his feeling following the FBI raid.
Here’s what he said:
“How to describe your life being turned upside down: concerned, despondent, angry,” Cohen said.
Asked if he was frightened, he says, “Yes, ma’am.”
Michael Cohen says he spoke to Trump after the FBI raid. It was the last time they spoke, he testifies.
Cohen says Trump called him back after he left a message to the president.
“I wanted, obviously, him to know what was taking place. And he said to me, ‘Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK,’” Cohen says.
Cohen adds: “I was scared … I wanted some reassurance that Mr. Trump had my back, especially as this dealt with issues that related to him.”
Michael Cohen says he was reassured after his conversation with Donald Trump following the FBI raid.
“I felt reassured and I remained in the camp,” Cohen said.
“His Justice Department, should go nowhere. And so I felt reassured and I remained in the camp,” Cohen continued.
Cohen said he heard from other people in Trump’s circle that “You’re loved, don’t worry, he’s got your back. Most powerful guy in the country if not the world. You’re going to be okay.”
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked what he meant by in the camp, Cohen said: “In the fold, in the Trump camp.”
Michael Cohen is now being shown Donald Trump’s tweets from 2018 about him.
Cohen is reading the three tweets, including one from April 21 where he slammed the New York Times and their journalist Maggie Haberman, saying that they were trying to destroy his relationship with Cohen.
Cohen said he believed Trump was communicating to him, “Stay in the fold, stay loyal. I have you. You’re a fine person. Don’t’ flip.”
Court is taking a morning break. Trump and his entourage are leaving the courtroom for the break.
Michael Cohen, who has been testifying this morning, audibly exhaled as he left the courtroom.
Trump gave a thumbs up outside of the courtroom when asked by reporters about how things were going inside.
His relationship with her began while he was still married to his previous wife. She knew about that aspect of his personality.
I don’t think so, but the fact that these leading statements were allowed to stand might be? That is my best guess for what’s going on, we know they are going to appeal and this gives a reason to. However it happened, they can argue that the fact these statements were said in the presence of the jury prejudices them.
Up thread someone mentioned that the judge has detracted from that by calling out the fact they should have objected to the Daniels testimony, but I don’t know how big a difference that will make?
There is another consideration that the decision on whether or not Trump needs to go to prison while the appeals happen is heavily based on the likelihood of the appeal succeeding. IMO that’s a consideration here, his lawyers will say “of course this appeal will succeed, look at these horribly prejudicial statements the trial witnesses were allowed to say in front of the jury!”
It is, but I know of no attorney who would deliberately engineer such an outcome, as pointed out by @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness. But then, I’ve seen many things in legal proceedings I’ve never seen before in the Time of Trump.
ETA: It wasn’t meant as a really serious observation.