There was a lot to cover in a full day of testimony. Here's a non- exhaustive summary:
Donald Trump approved the repayment plan for a $130,000 payoff to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, including that it be classified as a legal cost, while standing in a room with Michael Cohen and Trump’s finance chief, Cohen testified Monday.
Cohen said longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg told Trump that Cohen would get $420,000 in monthly installments over a year to compensate him for the hush money payment, any taxes that he might incur from the reimbursement income, to adjust his annual bonus and to cover another expense Cohen had fronted.
Trump “approved it and turned around and said this is going to be one heck of a ride in D.C.,” Cohen told jurors, recalling a January 2017 discussion at Trump Tower before Trump was inaugurated.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Cohen if it was in front of Trump that Weisselberg said they would call the hush money reimbursement a “retainer for legal services.”
Cohen confirmed that Trump was there and said he had the impression that Trump and Weisselberg had worked out the repayment details in advance, before he was called into the room.
His testimony is key to the prosecution’s case because they must prove Trump was directly involved in a scheme to hide the hush money from campaign finance regulators.
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Michael Cohen said he was worried about how Melania Trump would react to her husband’s alleged involvement with an adult-film actress, but Donald Trump did not appear concerned, according to Cohen's testimony Monday.
Cohen shook his head in disbelief when he explained to the jury that his boss did not seem concerned about how his wife would react to a story about Trump having sex with Stormy Daniels being reported.
“How are things going to go upstairs?” Cohen asked Trump, according to his testimony. Trump’s penthouse apartment is above his offices at Trump Tower.
“Don’t worry,” Trump said before diverting the subject back to the hush money deal.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign,” Cohen told the jury.
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Michael Cohen testified about how he set up a company through which he intended to repay David Pecker — publisher of the National Enquirer — for the money Pecker paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep quiet an affair she allegedly had with Donald Trump.
Earlier in the morning, Cohen testified that Pecker was pushing Cohen to get Trump to repay him for the hush money payment.
Cohen later explained that Pecker eventually said to forget about the payment. As part of the hush money deal, Pecker had promised McDougal that she would be featured in articles and the covers of magazines that Pecker runs. Cohen said Pecker informed him that one of the covers with McDougal sold so well that the repayment was no longer necessary.
Pecker, however, testified earlier in the trial that the real reason he did not want to be repaid was because his lawyers told him it would not be a good idea. Pecker also testified that he was aware that the secretive payment could violate campaign finance laws, so he presumably thought that Trump repaying him could result in legal trouble.
The payment to McDougal does not figure in the criminal charges against Trump.
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Michael Cohen summed up the theme of his whole testimony in one line when explaining money he paid to a former Playboy model for her story: “What I was doing, I was doing for the benefit of Mr. Trump.” Personally, he said, “I had no reason to own, no need to own” a story about an alleged Trump affair.
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Michael Cohen said it was the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who said company funds should not be used to pay for the story of a former Playboy model alleging an affair with Donald Trump.
“If we do it from a Trump entity, that kind of defeats the purpose, because the point is not to have the Trump name affiliated to this at all,” Cohen recalled Weisselberg saying. They talked about the issue 10 or 12 times, Cohen said, and agreed to set up a company under Cohen’s name to pay the $150,000.
Cohen testified that any financial matter involving Trump, big or small, went through Weisselberg, and that Trump himself had “directed” Cohen to speak to Weisselberg about the Karen McDougal payment.
Weisselberg is incarcerated after admitting that he lied to investigators probing Trump’s business practices. Prosecutors asked Friday whether they could show jurors a separation agreement between Weisselberg and the Trump Organization in which he pledged not to speak publicly about his work at the company. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied that request Monday. He suggested instead that prosecutors could subpoena Weisselberg to testify, even if the witness would probably invoke his right against self-incrimination.
The prosecution continues its questioning of Cohen tomorrow, to be followed by cross by the Malignant Loser's consiglieres.
(Photo: Michael Cohen today / Julia Nikhinson, AP)
