Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen to face more grilling in Donlad Trump's hush money trial

Donald Trump's hush money trial is heading into the final stretch, with prosecutors' last and star witness back on the stand Monday for more grilling before the former president's lawyers get their chance to put on a case. The landmark trial will kick back off in Manhattan with more defence cross-examination of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, whose pivotal testimony last week directly tied Trump to the alleged hush money scheme. He's the last prosecution witness and it's not yet clear whether Trump's attorneys will call any witnesses, let alone the presumptive Republican presidential nominee himself. Defence lawyers already have questioned Cohen for hours about his criminal history and past lies to paint him as a serial fabulist who is on a revenge campaign aimed at taking down Trump. After more than four weeks of testimony about sex, money, tabloid machinations and the details of Trump's company recordkeeping, jurors could begin deliberating as soon as this week to decide ...

Updated On : 20 May 2024 | 11:01 AM IST

Michael Cohen pressed on his crimes, lies in Trump hush money trial

Donald Trump's lawyers accused the prosecution's star witness in his hush money trial of lying to jurors, portraying Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen on Thursday as a serial fabulist who is bent on seeing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee behind bars. As Trump looked on, defence attorney Todd Blanche pressed Cohen for hours with questions that focused as much on his misdeeds as on the case's specific allegations and tried to sow doubt in jurors' minds about Cohen's crucial testimony implicating the former president. Blanche's voice rose as he interrogated Cohen with phone records and text messages over Cohen's claim that he spoke by phone to Trump about the hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels that is at the heart of the case, days before wiring her lawyer $130,000. Blanche said that was a lie, confronting Cohen with texts indicating that what was on his mind, at least initially, during the phone call were harassing calls he was getting from an apparent

Updated On : 17 May 2024 | 9:21 AM IST

Trump asks NY court to intervene in fight on gag order in hush money trial

Donald Trump is seeking to have New York's highest court intervene in his fight over a gag order that has seen him fined USD 10,000 and threatened with jail for violating a ban on commenting about witnesses, jurors and others connected to his hush money criminal trial. The former president's lawyers filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, a day after the state's mid-level appellate court refused his request to lift or modify the restrictions. The filing was listed on a court docket, but the document itself was sealed and not available. Trump presidential campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said it's a request for the state's Court of Appeals to take up the matter. President Trump has filed a notice to appeal the unconstitutional and un-American gag order imposed by conflicted Judge Juan Merchan in the lawless Manhattan DA case," Cheung said in a statement. "The threat to throw the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election in jail

Updated On : 16 May 2024 | 10:20 AM IST

Cohen gives insider details at trial as Trump's attorney accuses him

It wasn't until after a decade in the fold, after his family pleaded with him, after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room, Michael Cohen testified Tuesday, that he finally decided to turn on Donald Trump. The complicated break led to a 2018 guilty plea to federal charges involving a payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump and to other, unrelated crimes. And it's that insider knowledge of shady deals that pushed Manhattan prosecutors to make Cohen the star witness in their case against Trump about that same payment, which they say was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family, Cohen testified Tuesday. But defence attorneys sought to portray Cohen as motivated by vengeance on his former boss, confronting him on the witness stand with his own profan

Updated On : 15 May 2024 | 12:15 PM IST

Michael Cohen to face tough round of cross-examination by Trump's lawyers

Donald Trump 's fixer-turned-foe awaits a bruising round of questioning from the former president's lawyers on Tuesday after testimony that linked the celebrity client to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign. Michael Cohen returns to the stand on Tuesday as the prosecution's star witness, where a day earlier he delivered matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president's trial. Everything required Mr. Trump's sign-off, Cohen said. He placed Trump at the centre of the hush money scheme, saying he had promised to reimburse money the lawyer had fronted for the payments and was constantly apprised of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign. We need to stop this from getting out, Cohen quoted Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels' account of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. The then-candidate was ...

Updated On : 14 May 2024 | 12:05 PM IST

Trump trial at pivotal moment: Michael Cohen poised to give testimony

The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president. Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney's most important witness in the case and his expected appearance signals that the trial is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they may wrap up their presentation of evidence by the end of the week. Cohen is expected to testify about his role in arranging hush money payments on Trump's behalf during his first presidential campaign, including to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who told jurors last week that the USD 130,000 that she received in 2016 was meant to prevent her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite a decade earlier. He also matters because the reimbursements he received form the basis of the charges 34 felony counts of ...