Michael Cohen, the former lawyer to Donald Trump whose $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels is at the heart of the criminal case against the former president, provided the first testimony on Monday that ensnared Trump in an alleged illicit repayment scheme.
“Just do it,” Cohen recalled Trump told him in pressing him to pay Daniels, before later approving the plan to reimburse him. Trump was intimately involved in the hush-money deal and was concerned the Daniels story would hurt his approval among women voters.
Here are the takeaways from day 16 of Trump’s criminal trial:
Trump knew about the sham repayment scheme
Trump was in his office in Trump Tower in January 2017 when he and Allen Weisselberg discussed how to structure the plan to repay the $130,000 hush money wired to Stormy Daniels, Cohen testified – adding that Trump personally gave his approval then and there. “Good, good” Cohen recalled Trump as saying.
Trump was also present in the meeting when Weisselberg turned to Cohen and told him the reimbursement would come in 12 monthly checks, and be described as legal fees as part of a retainer agreement for Cohen supposedly working as personal attorney to Trump.
But, Cohen testified, everyone in the meeting knew that the money had nothing to do with legal fees. After all, Weisselberg had developed the repayment plan himself, using numbers that he wrote out on a bank statement for the shell company Cohen had used to wire the hush money to Daniels.
Under New York state law, a person is guilty of falsifying business records – the underlying charges against Trump – if he “makes or causes a false entry” to be made into business records.
The testimony from Cohen was important because it was evidence that Trump knew the payments to Cohen were hush-money reimbursements and Trump approved the plan’s details and logistics suggested by Weisselberg, sign-off that Cohen testified Weisselberg needed.
In that sense, Cohen’s testimony appeared to go some way to implicate Trump for the misdemeanor charges for falsifying business records. Prosecutors need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified records to conceal an election law violation to get convictions for felonies.
Trump’s lawyers now face an uphill struggle to undercut Cohen’s testimony, despite his track record of perjury, since both Cohen and former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney have testified it was Weisselberg’s handwriting on the bank statement outlining the repayment schedule.
Trump had real-time updates about Daniels
Trump was apprised of every development with the Daniels catch-and-kill scheme in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, Cohen repeatedly testified, in large part because Cohen was desperate to get “credit” for dealing with the matter.
The testimony about Cohen acknowledging he wanted to get recognition for resolving the Daniels situation further undercut the Trump defense argument that he was detached from the situation because he was busy with the 2016 campaign and later, being the president-elect.
Cohen reinforced his testimony by adding he told Trump “immediately” once he had resolved the Stormy Daniels hush-money deal.
Trump knew deadline was the election
To get to a felony, prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified records with an intent to violate election law, either to conceal he exceeded campaign contributions or ran afoul of a New York state law barring the use of unlawful means to promote a campaign.
Cohen did not testify on Monday that Trump intended to commit a second crime. But he laid the groundwork, saying he slow-walked paying Daniels with Trump’s permission in the hope that they could delay it until after the election.
Cohen says Trump told him to “push it out as long as you can, past the election, because if I win, I’ll be president, and if I lose, I wont really care.” Either way, Cohen suggested Trump knew the 2016 election was his deadline.
