Donald J. Trump has all the time surrounded himself with legal professionals — all varieties of legal professionals. There are the television-friendly speaking heads. The polished prison practitioners. The pit-bull litigators, the company fits and the authorized advisers with their very own authorized troubles.
After which there was the singular Michael D. Cohen, lawyer by commerce and enforcer by nature. With the loyalty of a surrogate son, he saved Mr. Trump’s secrets and techniques and cleaned up his messes. He was the fixer.
This week, nonetheless, Mr. Cohen is poised to unfix Mr. Trump’s life. When he takes the stand as a significant witness at Mr. Trump’s prison trial in Manhattan, Mr. Cohen will unearth a number of the secrets and techniques he buried, revealing a multitude that prosecutors say his former boss was determined to cover.
It is going to characterize a pivotal second of the trial, and the climax of a decades-long relationship between two New York loudmouths who used one another, betrayed one another and can now face off on the largest stage: The primary prison trial of an American president.
Interviews with 10 of Mr. Cohen’s allies and adversaries, in addition to a evaluate of court docket information and Mr. Cohen’s books, paint a portrait of a once-obscure operator who got here to play an outsized position in American politics, a person whose relationship with the previous president traced an arc from asset to risk.
From the stand, Mr. Cohen will inform of his best coup in Mr. Trump’s make use of, the time when he paid $130,000 to suppress a porn star’s story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. He did so, he’ll say, at his boss’s path. And, illuminating what prosecutors say is the cover-up on the coronary heart of the case, he’s anticipated to supply his firsthand account of how, after the 2016 election, the brand new president reimbursed him for the hush cash, however falsified information to disguise these funds as authorized bills.
Mr. Trump denies any position in falsifying the information, and says he by no means had intercourse with the porn star, Stormy Daniels. His legal professionals dispute that any crime occurred.
Regardless of months of preparation, Mr. Cohen, 57, will probably be unpredictable on the stand, susceptible as he’s to each tirades and allure.
Prosecutors acknowledged on Friday having little management over Mr. Cohen, who, regardless of their admonitions, has taunted Mr. Trump all through the trial. In a current TikTok video, Mr. Trump’s legal professionals complained, he wore a shirt with an image of the previous president behind bars, prompting the choose to request that he hold quiet.
However prosecutors, who’re providing Mr. Cohen nothing in return, have little leverage to rein him in. In contrast to a standard cooperating witness who trades testimony for leniency, he has already spent greater than a yr in federal jail for paying the hush cash and committing different crimes.
That have, contrasted with that of different Trump aides who averted indictment or obtained pardons, has catalyzed his anger. Mr. Cohen, whose self-image stays inextricably tied to Mr. Trump, has reworked himself from lackey to antagonist, adopting a brand new id, however with the identical character.
Craving public redemption, Mr. Cohen has usual himself as a standard-bearer of the anti-Trump resistance, looking for what he as soon as referred to as a “solution to proper a number of the many wrongs I dedicated at his behest.” And since his jail stint, he has made cash from their feud. There have been books bluntly titled “Disloyal” and “Revenge,” and a podcast referred to as “Mea Culpa.”
Beneath questioning from prosecutors, his testimony might play out like a cinematic thriller, as he casts himself as a consigliere turned state’s proof. That is the story Mr. Cohen instructed when he testified earlier than Congress, the place he estimated he had made 500 threats at Mr. Trump’s behest, and at a New York civil trial, the place he accused the previous president of fraud.
At that trial, the protection accused Mr. Cohen of perjury. Now, Mr. Trump’s workforce within the prison case is predicted to escalate these assaults, portray Mr. Cohen as a rogue actor whose fixes prompted extra issues than they solved. They’ve promised to grab on Mr. Cohen’s credibility and prison file — Mr. Trump is keen on noting that he’s a “convicted liar” — and painting him as a scorned underling looking for revenge in opposition to the previous president.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace have already anticipated these traces of assault — and leaned into them. Whereas the prosecutors launched witnesses to corroborate a lot of Mr. Cohen’s account, they’ve invited those self same witnesses to solid him as a bully, a nervous wreck and, as one particular person put it, a “jerk.”
The intent is to suck the air out of the protection’s assaults and desensitize the jury to Mr. Cohen’s baggage, turning him into an object of amusement. Already, his identify has drawn smiles from a number of the jurors, who will now consider his credibility for themselves.
“He was all the pieces Trump needed,” mentioned Donny Deutsch, a tv character and promoting govt who’s shut with Mr. Cohen and was as soon as pleasant with Mr. Trump. “He’s aggressive, he’s tenacious, he’s a bulldozer, and so what you’re listening to in court docket, a variety of the perceived negatives, is what made him a optimistic for Trump.”
Mr. Deutsch recalled that, years in the past, after he had implied on tv that Mr. Trump was racist, Mr. Cohen referred to as to complain. “Donald is absolutely upset,” Mr. Cohen mentioned. “Are you able to discuss to him, inform him you don’t suppose he’s a racist?”
Mr. Cohen, who realized from and parroted his boss, acknowledged in his memoir that he had been Mr. Trump’s “designated thug.”
Their relationship, outlined by abuse and subservience, imploded quickly after the hush-money deal got here to mild in 2018. Mr. Trump washed his fingers of Mr. Cohen, who in flip vowed to flip.
Ever since, they’ve waged public fight with each other. Mr. Trump sued Mr. Cohen and referred to as him a “rat.” Mr. Cohen sued Mr. Trump and referred to as him a “mob boss.”
However, because the trial approached, folks near him say, Mr. Cohen’s notoriety as a Trump nemesis took a private toll that left him anguished. He privately conveyed a worry for his security, although he in the end concluded he had no alternative however to testify.
After the trial began, Mr. Cohen pledged to “sit my ass in that witness stand,” and “simply inform the reality.”
‘He mentioned he was a lawyer.’
Mr. Cohen, the son of a Holocaust survivor, had idolized Mr. Trump since his youth on Lengthy Island. And after shopping for flats in two of Mr. Trump’s New York buildings within the early 2000s, he caught Mr. Trump’s eye throughout a dispute with the apartment board at Trump World Tower in New York.
Mr. Trump noticed his potential as an enforcer, and shortly Mr. Cohen obtained an workplace on the twenty sixth ground of Trump Tower.
However Mr. Cohen’s colleagues on the Trump household actual property enterprise noticed his job as one thing of a thriller. They noticed him inside Mr. Trump’s workplace, overheard him yelling from his personal and watched him stroll the hallways with a pistol strapped to his ankle.
A prosecutor final week requested a former co-worker about Mr. Cohen’s exact place on the firm, the Trump Group.
“He mentioned he was a lawyer,” Jeffrey McConney, Mr. Trump’s former company controller, replied dryly, eliciting laughter from the courtroom.
Mr. Cohen was certainly a lawyer, within the sense that he had graduated from legislation faculty, labored as a private harm lawyer and sometimes carried out duties that approximated authorized work underneath the amorphous title of govt vp of the Trump Group and “particular counsel” to Mr. Trump.
However as a rule, Mr. Cohen’s duties have been unrelated to the legislation — and typically, at odds with it.
There was the time, Mr. Cohen recounted in “Disloyal,” that he threatened to tank a paint firm with dangerous publicity to get 1000’s of gallons of free paint for Mr. Trump’s golf resort outdoors Miami.
And the time Mr. Cohen employed a pc programmer to rig an internet CNBC ballot to make sure that Mr. Trump would rank among the many most influential enterprise folks alive.
And the time he threatened to wreck the faculty admission prospects of a kid whose household was a tenant in a Trump constructing, in order that they’d not hinder a renovation.
Mr. Cohen by no means a lot appreciated the time period fixer. However the position had particular which means to Mr. Trump, who was all the time looking out for somebody to emulate his earliest lawyer, Roy M. Cohn, an unscrupulous defender recognized for scorched-earth techniques honed whereas working for Mafia bosses and the Communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Mr. Cohen up to date the half for the digital period, serving to Mr. Trump draft a few of his nastiest social media snipes, not at political enemies, however as an alternative at fellow celebrities such because the actress Rosie O’Donnell.
He additionally scouted the occasional deal, together with overseas initiatives that by no means materialized, like a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow that caught the curiosity of federal investigators and in the end led to certainly one of Mr. Cohen’s responsible pleas. (He admitted to mendacity to Congress concerning the deal out of loyalty to Mr. Trump.)
Mr. Cohen additionally protected the Trump household, emails and different information present. He helped Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron, discover a personal faculty. He helped his oldest, Donald Trump Jr., dig out of an ill-fated enterprise enterprise. And, every so often, Mr. Cohen has mentioned, Mr. Trump put Mr. Cohen on the cellphone together with his spouse, Melania, to reassure her that he hadn’t been untrue.
In return, Mr. Trump subjected Mr. Cohen to ridicule. Over their decade collectively, Mr. Trump stiffed him on bonuses and threatened to fireplace him at the very least twice.
However Mr. Cohen saved looking for new methods to win the dollops of approbation he craved, together with by nurturing his nascent political hopes.
Mr. Cohen, who indulged his personal political aspirations as a failed Metropolis Council candidate, was one of many strongest believers in Mr. Trump as a doable president when he flirted with working in 2012. Mr. Cohen arrange an internet site, ShouldTrumpRun.org, and went on a scouting journey to Iowa.
Though he had no formal position on the 2016 marketing campaign, Mr. Cohen nonetheless raised tens of millions of {dollars}, recruited Black supporters and was an enthusiastic booster of Mr. Trump on tv.
However his best service got here behind the scenes, arranging payoffs to 2 ladies who had threatened to go public with tales about having intercourse with a married Mr. Trump. One, Karen McDougal, struck a $150,000 take care of Mr. Trump’s allies at The Nationwide Enquirer, who purchased and buried the previous Playboy mannequin’s story.
The second girl was the porn star, Ms. Daniels, who described her encounter with Mr. Trump in graphic element on the witness stand final week. When Mr. Trump was sluggish to pay the $130,000 hush cash, Mr. Cohen dug into his personal pocket.
Mr. Trump repaid him month-to-month via the primary yr of the presidency. Mr. Cohen was not a Trump Group worker, and Mr. Trump had excluded him from a job in Washington. However Mr. Cohen’s e-mail signature now carried a loftier title: private lawyer to the president.
When certainly one of Mr. Trump’s mates requested Mr. Trump why he saved Mr. Cohen so shut, Mr. Trump replied, “He has his goal.”
The knock on the door
Within the early morning hours of April 9, 2018, as Mr. Cohen puttered round a New York resort room sipping espresso in a pair of Nike shorts, he heard a knock on the door.
Peering via the peephole, he noticed a row of badges. It was the F.B.I.
The swarm of brokers was on the resort, the place Mr. Cohen was staying whereas his residence was present process repairs, with a warrant to grab proof of varied crimes, together with that the hush cash had constituted an unlawful donation to Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign. By noon, they’d additionally searched his workplace, his residence and his secure deposit field.
Individuals who noticed Mr. Cohen afterward described a suicidal man who paced the room, refusing to spend a single day in jail.
Mr. Trump was enraged as properly. On the day of the search, he declared it “a disgraceful state of affairs.”
Initially, Mr. Trump got here to Mr. Cohen’s protection, publicly flattering Mr. Cohen as a “good man” and privately phoning him with a message: Keep robust. The help quickly light, the cellphone stopped ringing and the general public reward dried up.
Not even a month after the raid, Mr. Trump referred to as into certainly one of his favourite tv reveals, “Fox & Pals,” and distanced himself, saying Mr. Cohen had dealt with simply “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his authorized work. Mr. Trump added: “From what I perceive, they’re his companies,” nodding to the tax and financial institution crimes to which Mr. Cohen would in the end plead responsible.
By June, Mr. Trump’s firm used that very same logic to cease paying Mr. Cohen’s mounting authorized payments. It was the ultimate straw for Mr. Cohen, who employed Lanny J. Davis, a veteran Washington lawyer and public relations strategist with shut ties to Democratic politicians. He additionally instructed mates that he was prepared to cooperate with prosecutors.
When he pleaded responsible to federal costs that August, Mr. Cohen for the primary time stood up in a courtroom to accuse the person he had as soon as protected, saying he had paid the hush cash “on the path of” his former boss.
He instructed a choose, whereas being sentenced to jail, “I felt it was my obligation to cowl up his soiled deeds.”
In 2020, Mr. Cohen was launched on furlough in the course of the coronavirus pandemic. However the Federal Bureau of Prisons despatched him again behind bars in Otisville, N.Y., after he refused to signal paperwork barring him from publishing a ebook in the course of the the rest of his sentence. A choose later referred to as his second imprisonment “retaliatory.”
His mates say he stays tortured.
“He doesn’t experience any of this,” mentioned Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White Home aide. “If Michael had his means, he would nonetheless be working with Trump.”
‘You’re not in your podcast.’
At first, the efficiency was surprisingly clean.
Mr. Cohen took the stand at Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial in October 2023 and did what the New York legal professional common had requested: He testified that Mr. Trump had directed him years earlier to govern inner information to make the developer look richer than he was.
Then it was the protection’s flip.
Alina Habba, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, paced in entrance of the bench. She smiled as she reintroduced herself to Mr. Cohen and, minutes later, attacked him as a disgraced former lawyer and a serial liar who had perjured himself even whereas pleading responsible to a federal crime.
“You’ve gotten lied underneath oath quite a few instances, Mr. Cohen, isn’t that appropriate?” Ms. Habba requested. Mr. Cohen acknowledged that it was.
He fought again, noting that when he had lied in court docket, he had typically achieved so for Mr. Trump. He even lodged his personal objections, citing authorized precedents, although he had misplaced his legislation license after pleading responsible years earlier.
“You don’t get to object,” Ms. Habba instructed him, later reminding him, “You’re not in your podcast.”
Although the choose discovered that Mr. Cohen had been “credible,” his unpredictability on the witness stand stood as a cautionary story for prosecutors in Mr. Trump’s prison case.
Anticipating assaults on his credibility, the prosecutors have sought to corroborate his story in the course of the first three weeks of testimony, introducing proof in help of his assertion that Mr. Trump directed the hush-money deal.
Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, scoffed on the notion that Mr. Cohen would have made the $130,000 hush-money cost to Ms. Daniels out of the kindness of his coronary heart as a result of doing so “can be out of character for Michael,” an insulting remark that nonetheless supported Mr. Cohen’s story.
In addition they elicited testimony from one other former Trump aide who confirmed that Mr. Cohen was scheduled to satisfy with Mr. Trump within the White Home in early February 2017. At that assembly, Mr. Cohen has mentioned, he and Mr. Trump confirmed their plan to falsify the information.
And prosecutors made positive to enter into proof the voice of a person who had as soon as discovered Mr. Cohen important.
“Michael Cohen is a really proficient lawyer,” Mr. Trump mentioned, in a recording from a information convention in 2017 that was performed within the courtroom. “He’s an excellent lawyer at my agency.”
