Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer on Thursday came up with accusations that star witness Michael Cohen lied to the former U.S. president’s trial regarding a phone conversation he claimed to have had with Trump about a hush-money payment to a adult star shortly before the 2016 presidential election via Reuters.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche stated that the phone conversation was about harassment from a prank caller and not, as Cohen had asserted in previous testimony, about a $130,000 payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels at the center of the month-long trial.
“That is a lie,” Blanche said. “You can admit it!”
“No sir I can’t, because I am not certain that is accurate,” Cohen responded. He said he believed that he spoke with Trump’s then-bodyguard Keith Schiller about the harassment and also spoke briefly with Trump about the payment.
“We are not asking for your belief,” Blanche said, raising his voice.
The conversation followed several hours of questioning by Blanche which was designed to cast Trump’s former fixer as a spiteful turncoat eager to see his former boss behind bars.
Blanche has played jurors audio clips of Cohen saying that the case “fills me with delight” and that he felt “giddy with hope and laughter” imagining Trump and his family, including Ivanka, in prison.
It has been noted that he told them that Cohen had previously lied to Congress and the U.S. Justice Department and had lied in court as well. He pointed out that Cohen had privately sought a pardon from Trump while publicly saying he would not accept one. Cohen has agreed that he had blamed others, including Trump, in the wake of his own criminal convictions on tax and campaign finance charges.
