Former President Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who has since turned into one of his chief antagonists, took the stand today in the former president’s hush money trial via Deadline.
It has been noted that the prosecutors view Cohen as a critical link in their case against the former and possibly future president: the co-conspirator who connects Trump directly to hush money for adult entertainer Stormy Daniels. Cohen made multiple appearances before the Manhattan grand jury that indicted Trump in 2023.
The major news networks all focused on Cohen’s testimony, including an ongoing scroll of text and headlines from reporters in the courthouse. TV and audio coverage is banned from the proceedings.
Trump‘s attorney and so-called “fixer,” Michael Cohen told a jury today about efforts to conceal unflattering stories about his boss, including an arrangement with the National Enquirer to “catch and kill” women’s claims to have had affairs with the Celebrity Apprentice host.
On the witness stand, Cohen reckoned that the claims were not a surprise. He stated that Trump told him that once he announced he was a candidate in 2015, “There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward.”
Cohen soon learned about one of the woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, from David Pecker, the CEO of National Enquirer parent company American Media. Cohen, on the stand stated that he also found out that potentially unflattering information about candidate Trump didn’t stop with McDougal’s claim of an extramarital affair.
Pecker kept “a file drawer or a locked drawer” containing information that he and his employees at American Media had collected about Trump over many years for safekeeping, Cohen said. Cohen said he later told his boss, “There’s a series of papers there that relate to you,” and they would have to arrange to buy the rights to those documents. From testimony so far, it is not clear what was in the other papers.
