NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s criminal trial finally progressed Tuesday to a confrontation that has been brewing for weeks: the face-off between the former president’s defense team and his former fixer, Michael Cohen.
But after a few initial crackles, it lacked the pop that many had expected.
Cohen is the prosecution’s star witness, and during a day-and-a-half of direct examination, he provided critical details about Trump’s knowledge of the cover-up at the heart of the case. So when Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, stood up after lunch to begin cross-examining him, everyone was waiting to see the Trump team’s strategy for depicting Cohen as a liar with a vendetta.
Blanche’s first question — in which he quoted an off-color insult from Cohen — got the courtroom’s attention. But over several hours, Cohen largely maintained his cool while Blanche attempted to provoke him. And in questions ranging from Cohen’s book profits to what Cohen said during the Robert Mueller investigation, it wasn’t clear if Blanche managed to dent Cohen’s credibility in the hush money case.
Even Trump himself appeared to doze off while his own lawyer was questioning his nemesis.
The cross-examination will continue Thursday (after a scheduled day off on Wednesday), but for now, Cohen seems mostly unscathed.
Here’s what happened on Day 17 of the Trump trial:
Another day of the Cohen show
During the morning session, as prosecutors completed their direct questioning that began Monday, Cohen delivered new details about the fallout from the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Cohen described Trump’s efforts to maintain his loyalty after the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018, and he described his decision to break with Trump after serving for years as his footsoldier.
Cohen told the jury that he regretted what he had done for Trump.
“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 said.
After a lunch break, it was Blanche’s turn to interrogate Cohen about his moral compass.
He began by making it personal: “On April 23, you went on TikTok and called me a ‘crying little shit,’ didn’t you?” Blanche asked Cohen, raising his voice to deliver “shit.”
Prosecutors objected — but not before Cohen blurted out: “That sounds like something I would say.”
Blanche wasn’t done. Moments later, he confronted Cohen with more of his expletive-laden TikTok commentary, including calling Trump a “dictator douchebag” and saying Trump leaves the courtroom to go to “right into that little cage, which is where he belongs, in a fucking cage, like an animal.”
“I recall saying that,” Cohen replied.
But if Blanche’s strategy was to rankle Cohen into displaying some of the ire and petulance he has broadcast on social media and on his podcast, it didn’t work. Cohen maintained a largely placid demeanor, calling Blanche “sir,” and declining to offer colorful descriptions of the events Blanche questioned him about.
When Blanche tried to depict Cohen as a blabbermouth who has frustrated the Manhattan district attorney’s office by repeatedly going on TV to talk about the case against Trump, Cohen said he didn’t recall many requests by prosecutors to keep quiet and insisted they had only occasionally asked him, “please don’t talk about the case.”
“That’s it? They just call you and say that?” Blanche said incredulously.
“Actually, they call my attorney,” Cohen replied.
Last week, after Trump’s team complained about Cohen’s out-of-court commentary, Justice Juan Merchan directed prosecutors to ask Cohen to cool it — but the judge declined the Trump team’s request to extend the gag order in the case to Cohen.
Cohen also quietly dodged Blanche’s efforts to goad him into saying how much he’d relish seeing Trump behind bars.
“Have you regularly commented on your podcast that you want President Trump convicted in this case?” Blanche asked.
“I don’t specifically know if I used those words. But yes, I would like to see that,” Cohen responded.
Blanche, trying to pin Cohen down, said: “I’m just asking you to say, ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Do you want to see President Trump convicted in this case?”
“Sure,” Cohen responded.
Trump’s intense — and failed — campaign to prevent Cohen’s flip
In testimony that at times sounded like it could’ve been delivered at a mob trial, Cohen described a pressure campaign by figures in Trump’s inner circle — and Trump himself — to convince him to remain loyal after he was raided by the FBI. (That raid, incidentally, was part of a campaign-finance investigation tied to the same hush money payment that is now at the center of Trump’s case.)
Cohen’s most surprising evidence on the subject came when he described a backchannel that attorney Robert Costello tried to create between Cohen, Rudy Giuliani and ultimately Trump himself.
Costello had longtime ties to Giuliani, who was a close adviser to Trump.
Costello, Cohen said, pledged to use the secret line of communication to Trump — who was by then in the White House — to protect Cohen and ensure that he was “still good” and “still secure.”
Cohen walked jurors through a series of emails in which Costello described the backchannel.
“I told you my relationship with Rudy was going to be very, very useful for you,” Costello wrote in an email to Cohen that was displayed in court.
“You are loved,” he said in another. “You have friends in high places.”
The former fixer also read a series of tweets Trump sent soon after the FBI raid.
“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble,” Trump wrote in the tweets. “Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”
Cohen told jurors the message was clear: “Don’t flip.”
Cohen, however, did flip. He told jurors that he decided to cooperate with authorities after realizing his loyalty was to his family, not to Trump. He ultimately pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other federal crimes and was sentenced to three years in prison.
The battle outside the courthouse
Trump has always craved leverage and control over the legal and political threats he faces, but he doesn’t have that option inside Merchan’s courtroom. So instead Trump has trained his energy on the small cordoned-off park just outside the Manhattan criminal courthouse.
There, he’s been assembling a daily team of surrogates to pummel Merchan and prosecutors — and make the very arguments Trump himself is prohibited from making under Merchan’s gag order. They’ve been hammering Merchan’s adult daughter, accusing the judge of a conflict of interest because of the daughter’s political work for some Democratic candidates. And they’ve been assailing by name one of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s subordinates, a former Justice Department attorney.
On Tuesday, the surrogate role was played most prominently by Speaker Mike Johnson.
Trump acknowledged these surrogates and their “beautiful” comments in remarks to reporters Tuesday, but declined to say if they were making those statements at his behest. There’s probably a reason for that: The gag order doesn’t just restrict Trump’s own comments; it also forbids him from “directing others” to attack people whom the gag places off-limits.
But Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who visited the courthouse on Monday as part of Trump’s entourage, suggested that circumventing the gag order was precisely why he and his allies assembled.
He said lawmakers were joining Trump at court to help “overcome this gag order” and to be able to “speak our piece for President Trump.”
