Former President Donald Trump walks to make comments to members of the media after a jury convicted him of felony crimes for falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election, at Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool); Michael Cohen appears on Good Morning America on May 31, 2024, the morning after the guilty verdicts (ABC News/screengrab)
As of Friday morning, Donald Trump is a convicted felon, 34 times over, placing him in a category all by himself among former presidents of the United States. Even if the prosecution’s star witness, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, says he had little doubt that jurors would have reached any decision other than guilty, one truth shines through: to reach this verdict, the jury had to believe Cohen — and they did.
Though he wasn’t the only witness to be concerned about, Trump lawyers and allies went all out, both ahead of the trial and during it, to emphasize that Cohen’s adjudicated history of lying should make him more of a liability to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s (D) falsification of business records case than an asset.
In short, they claimed that Cohen went rogue, acted entirely “on his own” to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels and then lied about Trump’s knowledge of the scheme to conveniently save his own skin at the former president’s expense while under pressure from prosecutors to flip.
The defense went so far as to argue pretrial that Cohen shouldn’t be allowed to testify at all since prosecutors would be “suborn[ing] perjury” by doing so. They noted that Cohen went to federal prison for his admitted role in trying to cover up the Daniels affair with a $130,000 hush-money payment weeks before the 2016 election and that he admittedly lied to Congress about a Moscow Trump Tower negotiations timeline.
The DA pushed back by saying the defense was essentially arguing that Cohen couldn’t testify because Trump “anticipates that he will disbelieve the witness’s expected testimony.”
Needling the defense further, Bragg commented that Trump’s civil fraud trial judge “expressly found” that Cohen “told the truth” and gave “credible” testimony in that proceeding, and the DA noted that the issue of Cohen’s credibility was something to be “resolved by the jury” following cross-examination.
The result shows that jury did resolve the issue.
At trial, jurors heard defense attorney Todd Blanche grill Cohen about his motivations for pleading guilty in the first place to campaign finance violations that he said were committed at the direction of and to the benefit of “Individual-1,” Trump.
Blanche, remarking on a federal judge’s scathing refusal to end Cohen’s supervised release in early March, pressed Cohen on whether he perjured himself when he pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility before his sentencing judge, since Cohen now says he shouldn’t have been prosecuted.
“I was provided with 48 hours within which to accept the plea or the Southern District of New York was going to file an 80-page indictment that included my wife,” Cohen answered. “I elected to protect my family.”
“You know what perjury means?” Blanche shot back, before pressing further. “Again, when you got the credit at sentencing for accepting responsibility you got credit even though you lied to the judge when you plead guilty?”
In other questioning at trial, Blanche got Cohen to admit that he stole from his former employer’s company.
“So, you stole from the Trump Organization, right?” the defense lawyer asked.
“Yes, sir,” Cohen replied.
And in defense closing arguments, Blanche argued Cohen is up there with the most prolific and effective liars of all time.
“He’s literally like the MVP of liars,” Blanche said. “He lies constantly.”
When it was the prosecution’s turn for closings, they described Cohen as the “ultimate insider” of Trumpworld who would “help” them connect the dots against the defendant.
“You don’t need Michael Cohen to connect these dots, but as the ultimate insider, he can help you do just that,” said Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass.
In the end, the jury connected the dots, concluding that Trump was guilty of all charges.
During a Friday interview on Good Morning America, Cohen acknowledged that he himself went to prison, in part, for lying — but he said the Trump team has ignored an important fact about who the lie was intended to benefit.
“This has been a long time coming for accountability.”
Former fixer and key witness Michael Cohen reacts to former Pres. Trump’s guilty verdict. pic.twitter.com/PpfEdGobq0
— Good Morning America (@GMA) May 31, 2024
“You have to be perfect. I knew that any mistake that I made would just — it would become the topic of conversation that would just explode. And so, I really just needed to stay focused, and it wasn’t easy with Todd Blanche, he’s a meanderer as it goes to questioning,” Cohen said.
“He called you the greatest liar of all time, you’ve been convicted for lying. Are you done lying?” asked ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
“I take responsibility for what I did, but remember that the lie — we have to remember what it was. It was the number of times that I claimed to have spoken to Donald about the failed Trump Tower Moscow project,” Cohen said. “I stated three versus 10. I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it in coordination and the direction of Donald, Jay Sekulow, Ivanka, Jared […]”.
Cohen claimed he’s “absolutely done” lying now.
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