Trump team wears down Michael Cohen’s credibility in front of jury

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump, using cross-examination to portray Michael Cohen on Thursday as a man who lies about anything and everything, sought to eviscerate the credibility of the prosecution’s main witness to a 2016 hush payment and alleged crimes to cover it up.

For hours, defense attorney Todd Blanche jabbed Mr. Cohen over his history of falsehoods and conflicting statements, including misleading Congress about his efforts to seek a pardon and claims that he felt pressured to plead guilty to tax crimes in 2018 despite taking responsibility in front of a judge.

Mr. Blanche also attacked Mr. Cohen’s claim that he told Mr. Trump that he was finalizing a payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and wiring $130,000 to her attorney.

Oddly, the call included Mr. Cohen’s complaints to Mr. Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, that a prankster identifying himself as a 14-year-old was calling him too much.

“You had enough time in that one minute and 36 seconds to update Mr. Schiller about all the problems you were having with this harassing phone call and also update President Trump on the status of the Stormy Daniels situation?” Mr. Blanche asked Mr. Cohen, who served as Mr. Trump’s loyal attorney and “fixer” before turning against him.

Mr. Cohen said that was his belief, based on records he could review that refreshed his memory.

“Yes, I believe I was telling the truth,” Mr. Cohen said.

“We are not asking for your belief. This jury does not want to hear what you think happened,” Mr. Blanche said even louder, prompting an objection from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.

The dramatic exchange seemed to catch Mr. Cohen off guard. Defense attorneys will probably make the phone call revelation a major part of their closing argument, and the clash likely pleased Mr. Blanche’s demanding client.

Mr. Blanche said Mr. Cohen was bitter after Mr. Trump went to Washington in 2017 without giving him a plum White House position. He used Mr. Cohen’s love of the limelight against him by pulling up old media interviews and clips from his “Mea Culpa” podcast in which the star witness took glee at Mr. Trump’s legal problems.

Mr. Blanche is chasing one goal in the cross-examination: instilling enough doubt about Mr. Cohen to make at least some jurors unwilling to convict Mr. Trump, resulting in a hung jury or acquittal.

The cross-examination, which will continue Monday, is critical because Mr. Cohen is the linchpin of prosecutors’ case against Mr. Trump.

On direct examination, Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump told him to pay hush money to Ms. Daniels to suppress a story about a 2006 sexual encounter at Lake Tahoe. Mr. Trump denies the encounter. The state says the scheme showed an intent to commit election and financial crimes.

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. The defense is trying to distance Mr. Trump from the accounting tactics used to reimburse Mr. Cohen after he used a home equity credit line to pay Ms. Daniels.

Mr. Trump signed a series of $35,000 checks to Mr. Cohen, though he says he believed the payments were for legal services and he was busy with presidential duties when he signed them.

Mr. Blanche stressed that the nondisclosure agreement is perfectly legal.

“In your mind, then and now, this is a perfectly legal contract, correct?” Mr. Blanche asked.

“Yes sir,” Mr. Cohen said.

The former president, dressed in a navy suit and red tie, looked directly at Mr. Cohen while his attorneys confronted the witness with past comments to undermine his credibility. Mr. Trump tapped his attorneys’ arms at times or passed notes to them and seemed to be in good spirits because his side put points on the board after listening to days of unflattering testimony.

A battery of House Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, attended the trial Thursday to support Mr. Trump. Mr. Gaetz and Ms. Boebert are known for being outspoken thorns in the side of Republican leadership.

Mr. Gaetz said prosecutors put together the “Mr. Potato Head of crimes, where they had to stick together a bunch of things that did not belong together.”

Prosecutors complained that Mr. Trump’s political entourage sometimes walked in during testimony.

“It’s — with their security detail for the jury and the witnesses to see,” Ms. Hoffinger said.

State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan agreed that it was inadvisable, but Mr. Blanche said it was out of his control.

“I have less than zero control over what is happening on anything or anyone that’s behind me when I am crossing a witness,” he said.

During the cross-examination, Mr. Blanche said Mr. Cohen makes a living by attacking Mr. Trump through ads on his podcast. The jurors heard a clip in which Mr. Cohen revealed his animus for Mr. Trump.

“It won’t bring back the year that I lost or the damage done to my family. But revenge is a dish best served cold,” Mr. Cohen, who went to prison after pleading guilty to election offenses, says in the clip played for the jury. “You’d better believe that I want this man to go down.”

Mr. Cohen sounded more animated in the clip than he did in the witness box, where he was mostly calm and measured.

The defense says Mr. Cohen is pursuing Mr. Trump in part to sell books and raise money through advertising on his podcasts.

“You called him ‘Dumbass Donald,’ is that right?” Mr. Blanche said.

“Sounds correct,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Blanche said Mr. Cohen explored ways to shorten his supervised release from prison by helping prosecutors pursue Mr. Trump. The defense pointed to an embarrassing moment when Mr. Cohen gave his attorney nonexistent, AI-generated legal cases to back up an application last year to end his post-prison court supervision early.

“The three cases that you gave to your attorney were not real cases, correct?” Mr. Blanche said.

“That’s correct,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Blanche cast Mr. Cohen as an unethical person who tended to record conversations with people without their knowledge. More relevant to the case, the defense pointed to instances in which Mr. Cohen seemed to manipulate news coverage of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen insisted he updated Mr. Trump on his efforts because “one, [not doing so would] cause him to blow up at me, and two, it would probably mean the end of my job.”

Jurors also saw texts between Mr. Cohen and the young phone prankster, which led to the Schiller call.

The call, in which Mr. Cohen said he lumped into the Daniels matter with complaints about the prankster, could create a new headache for prosecutors.

They haven’t called Mr. Schiller as a witness, making him another notable absentee alongside Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at the Trump Organization whose name came up often when discussing the reimbursement scheme for Mr. Cohen. Weisselberg is in jail on a perjury conviction, and both men are likely seen as unhelpful to the state because of their loyalty to Mr. Trump.

The court will not convene on Friday because Mr. Trump is attending his son Barron’s high school graduation.

Mr. Cohen will be one of the last witnesses for the prosecution before Mr. Trump mounts his defense.

Attorneys could deliver closing arguments as early as next week before the judge gives the jury instructions on the law and sends them into the deliberation room.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.