The hush-money trial hinges on the testimony of one man
Publicado en The Economist, el 15 de mayo de 2024
Jurors heard the voice before they saw the man. And what a voice: pushy, impolite, pure Long Island. A fuhgeddaboudit accent. Sometimes boastful, sometimes defensive, sometimes self-pitying, always mouthy. Days before he appeared in court to testify against his ex-boss and sworn enemy, prosecutors played a recording of a phone call during which Michael Cohen sounded terribly sorry for Michael Cohen. Or as he complained to the guy on the other end of the line: “Nobody is thinking about Michael. You understand?”
Now everybody is thinking about Michael. The man who once called himself Donald Trump’s “thug, pit bull and lawless lawyer” is the star witness in Manhattan prosecutors’ case against the former president. Only Mr Cohen can directly tie Mr Trump to the charged crimes. On the stand he was measured and doleful: less pit bull, more basset hound. He followed directions. And he told prosecutors exactly what they wanted to hear.
Mr Cohen started working for Mr Trump in 2006. Praise from The Boss, he wrote years later, was an aphrodisiac. He could think of “nothing better” than pleasing him. He especially liked it when Mr Trump encouraged him in negotiations to “be rough”.
He liked it less when it looked as though Mr Trump might stiff him. Right before the 2016 election Mr Cohen paid Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Mr Trump from many years before. Mr Trump was slow to pay him back. Mr Cohen says that eventually The Boss and another executive at the Trump Organisation agreed to reimburse him in 12 instalments, and record these payments as legal fees in the company books. Prosecutors accuse Mr Trump of falsifying business records to cover up the hush money, which they contend was an illicit campaign contribution. He denies all of it.
In court Mr Cohen told prosecutors that he had paid the hush money “at the direction and for the benefit of” the defendant, to protect him. In fact he said some variation of that 28 times, lest anyone miss it. Next came the cross-examination. Mr Trump’s lawyer opened it with a considered question: “You went on TikTok and called me a crying little shit, didn’t you?” Sounds about right, replied the witness. Mr Cohen does indeed maintain a prolific output of podcasts (four episodes a week) and TikTok livestreams (almost daily) devoted to denigrating his former boss. He pathologises Mr Trump with his guests, then he invites them over for lasagna.
This case, at once historic and embarrassingly small bore, comes down to Mr Cohen’s credibility. He clearly wants revenge. In fact he wrote a book called “Revenge”. He is a prodigious liar, in addition to being thoroughly unlikable and possessing an inflated sense of self. That last bit actually helps prosecutors. Consider a telling moment of testimony by Hope Hicks, a former aide to Mr Trump. Asked if it would have been like Mr Cohen to pay the hush money from the kindness of his own heart, she said that, no, it would not have been: “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person, um, or selfless person.” In other words, he was a thug in a suit. The Boss’s thug in a suit.