Michael Cohen, a former attorney for and fixer for Donald Trump, is scheduled to appear before a Manhattan grand jury investigating hush money payments he orchestrated and conducted on Trump’s behalf on Monday.
Cohen and his attorney arrived at the courthouse not long before the scheduled time for his closed-door testimony, which comes at a pivotal time as the Manhattan district attorney’s office nears a decision on whether to pursue charges against Trump.
Once a supporter and now an antagonist, Cohen is poised to give crucial information regarding Trump’s possible involvement in the payments made to two women during the 2016 campaign who alleged affairs or sexual encounters with him. Outside the courthouse, Cohen told reporters, “My goal is to tell the truth.” He was responding to a suggestion that he wanted to see Trump in jail.
“This is not revenge,” he said. “This is all about accountability. He needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds.”
Trump has denied having an affair with both Stormy Daniels (a porn actress) and Karen McDougal (a model). Cohen has provided the prosecution with evidence, including audio recordings of talks he had with a lawyer for one of the women, as well as emails and text messages between Cohen and the lawyer.
The other woman was to be paid through the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, and he has tapes of a call in which he and Trump discussed the plan. The Trump Organization’s internal accounting practices and the manner in which payments were made appear to be the focus of the investigation by federal prosecutors.
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Unless the government can prove that the documents were altered to cover up another crime, the most that might be charged would be misdemeanor falsification of company records. None of the former presidents of the United States have ever been accused of wrongdoing.
Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday and indicated the former president is unlikely to accept prosecutors’ request to testify before a grand jury.
“We have no plans on participating in this proceeding,” Tacopina said. “It’s a decision that needs to be made still. There’s been no deadline set, so we’ll wait and see.”
He painted Trump in the role of a victim, saying the president gave up to pressure and paid Daniels.
“This was plain extortion and I don’t know since when we’ve decided to start prosecuting extortion victims,” Tacopina said. “He’s denied — vehemently denied — this affair. But he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was going to be publicly embarrassing to him, regardless of the campaign.”
Both Daniels and her lawyer, Keith Davidson, who helped negotiate the payment, have denied any wrongdoing in this matter. In a letter to New York City’s inspector general, Tacopina alleges that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is engaging in prosecutorial misconduct by actively working to hurt Trump’s chances of being elected president in 2024.
Live update: Cohen to testify before grand jury in Trump hush money probe https://t.co/tbun6dAG8S
— TOI ALERTS (@TOIAlerts) March 13, 2023
Tacopina requested that a “patently political prosecution” be looked at by the city’s Department of Investigation. In response to our request for comment, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not provide any information.
There have been multiple attempts by Trump’s legal team to have New York and Florida judges intervene in or prevent investigations into Trump and the Trump Organization on the grounds that they are politically motivated. No amount of effort has been successful so far.
Following his guilty plea in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for orchestrating the payments to Daniels and McDougal to silence them, Cohen was sentenced to prison time. He was also removed from practicing law.
If Trump is ever charged and Cohen ends up testifying against him, Trump’s attorneys could use these points to cast doubt on Cohen’s credibility. In the weeks leading up to his grand jury appearance, Cohen has met with Manhattan prosecutors on a regular basis. On Friday, he spent the entire day in preparation.
Since January, the panel has been hearing testimony in what Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has described as the “next chapter” of his office’s multiyear investigation into Trump. Hush money payments, however, are old hat and among the most scandalous possible lines of inquiry into Trump.
Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr. also investigated the payments but decided not to press charges against Trump, as did federal prosecutors. As he left the meeting, Cohen said to reporters that he would “taking a little bit of time now to stay silent and allow the DA build their case.”
On Friday, Trump continued to attack the investigation on Twitter, calling it a “Scam, Injustice, Mockery, and Complete and Total Weaponization of Law Enforcement in order to affect a Presidential Election!” Cohen’s company paid Daniels $130,000, and Trump reimbursed Cohen for the payment, which was recorded as “legal expenses” in Trump’s company books.
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