Former prosecutors and other legal analysts said that former President Donald Trump had a good day in court on Thursday as his lawyers attempted to undermine the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
Mr. Cohen was called to testify in the case that accuses the former president of falsifying business records regarding a repayment plan to Mr. Cohen, who paid adult film performer Stormy Daniels to remain quiet about an alleged affair that President Trump has denied. Earlier this week, Mr. Cohen alleged that it was President Trump who directed him to pay Ms. Daniels and that he was primarily concerned with the 2016 campaign.
But the former president’s attorney, Todd Blanche, on Thursday pressed Mr. Cohen with text messages indicating that what was on his mind, at least initially, during the phone call were harassing calls he was getting from an apparent 14-year-old prankster. Mr. Cohen said that he believed he also spoke to President Trump about the Daniels deal at that time, which Mr. Blanche denied.
“We are not asking for your belief. This jury does not want to hear what you think happened,” Mr. Blanche said.
Whether the defense is successful in undermining Mr. Cohen’s testimony could determine President Trump’s fate in the case. Over the course of the trial’s fourth week of testimony, the former Trump lawyer described for jurors meetings and conversations he said he had with President Trump about the alleged scheme to stifle negative stories that threatened to harm his 2016 campaign.
Going a step further, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who had testified in the House in favor of President Trump as an expert witness during his first impeachment inquiry in 2019, wrote Friday that Mr. Cohen suffered a “dramatic implosion” on the witness stand Thursday, suggesting that he told “another alleged lie told under oath” with the phone call claims.
Mr. Cohen is by far the prosecutors’ most important witness as they have alleged President Trump is directly at the center of the alleged scheme. He also matters because the reimbursements he received form the basis of 34 felony counts charging President Trump with falsifying business records.
Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose. President Trump, who asserts the prosecution is an effort to damage his campaign to reclaim the White House, had said the payments to Mr. Cohen were properly categorized as legal expenses because Mr. Cohen was a lawyer.
The defense has suggested that he was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false, scurrilous claims. “The crime is that they’re doing this case,” Trump told reporters Thursday before entering the courtroom.
Earlier this week, prosecutors said that they are not going to call any other witnesses after Mr. Cohen. Last week, Mr. Blanche, the Trump attorney, announced in court that Karen McDougal, another woman who made claims against President Trump, will not be testifying in the trial.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors said in court they will rest their case after Mr. Cohen is done on the stand. However, it could call more witnesses if President Trump’s attorneys call their own witnesses to testify.
The defense isn’t required to call witnesses, and they have not indicated whether they would do so. In court, his lawyers have said they may call Bradley Smith, a Republican who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the Federal Election Commission, to push back on claims from prosecutors that the payments to Mr. Cohen were campaign finance violations.
The trial is expected to last another one to two weeks. Friday was a day off because President Trump was scheduled to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida.
