NEW YORK — Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump’s one-time fixer and lawyer, told jurors Tuesday he submitted false invoices to the Trump Organization and its revocable trust to conceal a hush payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Prosecutors led Mr. Cohen through invoices and $35,000 monthly checks that said the lawyer sought payment for services under a retainer agreement.
In reality, Mr. Cohen testified, he was being repaid for payments to Ms. Daniels under an alleged scheme to suppress her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in 2006.
“Is that a false record?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked him while the courtroom saw an invoice from 2017.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Trump, wearing a navy suit and gold tie, sat quietly during the dry, yet potentially pivotal, presentation of monthly invoices and Trump-signed checks that were processed during Mr. Trump’s first year as president.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. While Ms. Daniels’ claim of a sexual encounter got a lot of attention, the business records in the case form the basis of evidence upon which Mr. Trump may or may not be convicted.
Defense lawyers are expected to grill Mr. Cohen on cross-examination by pointing to his criminal record, history of lying and personal animus for Mr. Trump. It will likely be the nastiest, most intense part of the trial.
They will cast him as a rogue actor who paid Ms. Daniels on his own and demanded fees while Mr. Trump was busy running the country from the White House in 2017.
Mr. Trump says he paid legal fees to Mr. Cohen and marked them as such, so there is no crime.
Mr. Trump had named Mr. Cohen as personal counsel to the president in 2017. Mr. Cohen testified he did “minimal” work in that role and the invoices were expressly part of a deal to reimburse him for the Daniels payment and beef up his yearly bonus.
Mr. Cohen estimated he performed less than 10 hours of work as personal presidential counsel in 2017.
The star witness said he continued to lie on Mr. Trump’s behalf, including to Congress, in 2018 “out of loyalty and in order to protect him.”
Mr. Cohen said he lied to lawmakers by downplaying the number of times he spoke to Mr. Trump about a proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.
“I was staying on Trump’s message that there was no Russia, Russia, Russia,” he said, referring to unsubstantiated claims the Trump campaign colluded with Russian meddlers in 2016.
Mr. Cohen said he helped to procure a statement from Ms. Daniels in which she appeared to deny having sex with Mr. Trump, though he said the statement was false.
Also, Mr. Cohen told the Federal Elections Commission he paid Ms. Daniels himself without contributions from the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign. He testified that it was a sleight of hand.
“It’s deceptive, it’s misleading,” Mr. Cohen said. “It was the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust or Donald Trump himself.”
Prosecutors wanted to blunt the expected attacks by getting Mr. Cohen to admit that he lied and bullied people while serving as Mr. Trump’s personal “fixer.”
They’ve also spent weeks entering emails and phone records in evidence and gathering testimony about the Daniels payment from a variety of Trump Organization employees and former Trump administration aides, hoping to convince the jury that Mr. Cohen’s narrative checks out.
Mr. Cohen’s narration around the checks echoed testimony from a controller at the Trump Organization and junior aides who described a system in which checks were sent to the White House for Mr. Trump to sign.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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