Donald J. Trump watched anxiously from the White Home in April 2018 as information broke about federal brokers looking the house of Michael D. Cohen, the person entrusted to hide a few of the president’s deepest secrets and techniques. After initially coming to Mr. Cohen’s protection, Mr. Trump washed his arms of his fixer inside weeks, brushing apart Mr. Cohen’s feelers a couple of pardon and disavowing his authorized payments.
Mr. Trump took a distinct tack when prosecutors shifted their scrutiny to Allen H. Weisselberg, the Trump household’s longtime monetary gatekeeper. Mr. Trump’s firm paid Mr. Weisselberg’s authorized payments and awarded him a $2 million severance, with a situation: He couldn’t voluntarily cooperate with any legislation enforcement company.
After Mr. Weisselberg signed the deal final 12 months, Mr. Trump’s attorneys privately pressed him to testify in a civil fraud case filed in opposition to the previous president, hoping the finance chief’s testimony would support their protection, in line with individuals with information of the discussions, which haven’t beforehand been reported. However prosecutors say Mr. Weisselberg lied throughout his testimony, and this month he pleaded responsible to perjury.
The fixer and the moneyman each landed behind bars. However whereas Mr. Weisselberg remained loyal, refusing to implicate his boss, Mr. Cohen is poised to turn into a central witness for the Manhattan district legal professional at Mr. Trump’s felony trial subsequent month, the primary prosecution of a former U.S. president.
The contrasting instances of Mr. Cohen and Mr. Weisselberg — detailed in courtroom information and interviews with 18 individuals instantly concerned within the instances, a few of whom requested anonymity to debate confidential conversations — show the ability and peril of Mr. Trump’s techniques for avoiding a disaster just like the one he now faces. The trial is the belief of Mr. Trump’s long-held concern that prosecutors would flip trusted aides into harmful witnesses.
The previous president, dealing with 4 indictments and several other lawsuits whereas in search of to reclaim the White Home, careens from one case to the subsequent, in search of to exert management over witnesses. In screeds posted on his social media web site, he mixes enticements with threats, reward with scorn, and when all else fails, he makes life depressing for anybody audacious sufficient to cross him.
Mr. Trump’s firm praised Mr. Weisselberg as a “high-quality and honorable man,” however Mr. Cohen felt the brunt of the previous president’s assaults. Mr. Trump has sued him, referred to as him a “rat” and referred to him as “loss of life.”
That aggressive strategy — stick, relatively than carrot — can be examined on the Manhattan felony trial, and at others which will comply with in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Regardless of Mr. Trump’s public lashing of Mr. Cohen and others, they’re nonetheless set to testify in opposition to him.
The previous president’s assaults now may put him in even larger authorized jeopardy. On Tuesday, the decide within the Manhattan case issued a gag order that bars Mr. Trump from assailing potential witnesses and labeled his invective “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign, didn’t reply to requests for remark, however he criticized the gag order beforehand as unconstitutional as a result of, he mentioned, it prevented Mr. Trump “from partaking in core political speech, which is entitled to the best degree of safety beneath the First Modification.”
The prosecution’s potential witness listing for the Manhattan trial is anticipated to resemble a 2016-era roster of Mr. Trump’s workers, marketing campaign aides and associates.
Mr. Cohen will testify that Mr. Trump helped orchestrate the hush-money cope with Stormy Daniels, the porn star on the middle of the case. Ms. Daniels might testify as nicely. David Pecker, the previous Nationwide Enquirer writer who was as soon as associates with Mr. Trump, is anticipated to inform the jury that he helped provoke that deal and buried different damaging tales for Mr. Trump. And Hope Hicks, a former marketing campaign and White Home aide to Mr. Trump, could also be referred to as to make clear the tumultuous interval.
Mr. Weisselberg just isn’t anticipated to testify for both aspect. Though prosecutors have sought his assist for years, he has repeatedly rebuffed them, disputing Mr. Cohen’s account of the hush-money deal and contending that he has no decisive info to supply. Given his responsible plea to perjury, and his monetary dependence on the Trumps, he wouldn’t make a very credible protection witness both.
Mr. Trump’s attorneys have portrayed Mr. Weisselberg as a sufferer of prosecutorial overreach, and Mr. Cohen as an opportunistic liar who has admitted to perjury. They observe that Mr. Cohen, whose memoir is titled “Disloyal,” pleaded responsible to federal fees involving the hush-money deal in addition to private monetary crimes unrelated to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump has by no means mentioned that refusing to pay greater than $1 million of Mr. Cohen’s authorized payments was shortsighted, however Mr. Cohen has advised individuals it was “the largest mistake” the previous president ever made. Mr. Trump has, nonetheless, puzzled aloud whether or not it might need been attainable to deal with Mr. Cohen otherwise to maintain him loyal.
And Mr. Cohen’s break from Mr. Trump helped inform how Mr. Trump has dealt with different witnesses, an individual with information of the previous president’s pondering mentioned. His political motion committee has paid greater than $50 million in authorized charges, principally for aides and workers who are actually witnesses within the instances in opposition to Mr. Trump.
Whereas Mr. Trump’s authorized destiny remains to be undecided, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Weisselberg had their lives upended and their freedom revoked.
“I used to be the primary lamb led to the slaughterhouse,” Mr. Cohen mentioned in an interview.
The Fixer
It was Mr. Cohen’s loyalty that first caught Mr. Trump’s eye almost 20 years in the past.
Mr. Trump was embroiled in a dispute over management of the apartment board at his tower throughout from the United Nations when Mr. Cohen, a former private damage lawyer who had purchased a number of Trump flats, helped him win.
The feat earned him a job on the Trump Group, and the subsequent decade of Mr. Cohen’s skilled life was an act of devotion to the true property mogul turned actuality tv star turned presidential candidate.
However Mr. Cohen finally concluded that his loyalty was not being reciprocated, setting in movement the occasions that led to the Manhattan felony trial, which is scheduled to start on April 15.
The case stems from the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, when, behind the scenes, Mr. Cohen was cleansing up his candidate’s messes.
Mr. Pecker, the Nationwide Enquirer writer, alerted Mr. Cohen to 1 such mess that October: Ms. Daniels was eager about promoting her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. The menace got here because the marketing campaign reeled from the discharge of the notorious “Entry Hollywood” recording that captured Mr. Trump boasting about groping girls.
Quickly after, Mr. Cohen negotiated a $130,000 hush-money deal.
Mr. Cohen put up the cash, and Mr. Trump reimbursed him. However Mr. Trump’s firm falsely recorded the reimbursements in its books as “authorized bills.”
The hush cash caught the eye of the federal authorities, main them in April 2018 to search Mr. Cohen’s residence and workplace; a lodge room the place he was staying; and a protected deposit field.
Initially sympathetic, Mr. Trump referred to as Mr. Cohen a “good man” and the search “a disgraceful scenario.” He additionally referred to as Mr. Cohen with a message — keep robust — and the Trump Group paid for Mr. Cohen’s foremost lawyer.
Their relationship quickly soured.
When Mr. Trump referred to as into one in every of his favourite tv exhibits, “Fox & Associates,” a number of weeks after the search, he distanced himself from Mr. Cohen, who he mentioned had dealt with simply “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his authorized work, including: “From what I perceive, they’re taking a look at his companies.”
“I’m not concerned,” Mr. Trump added thrice.
On the time, individuals near Mr. Trump had been dangling attainable presidential pardons to advisers who had been caught up in felony investigations. Mr. Cohen dispatched attorneys to ask whether or not Mr. Trump was open to giving him one, however the response from Mr. Trump’s then-personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was that dialogue of a pardon was untimely.
The ultimate straw, Mr. Cohen mentioned, got here when the Trump Group stopped paying his foremost lawyer in June 2018. The corporate reasoned that it already had spent greater than $1 million on the lawyer, and that Mr. Cohen was dealing with prosecution for his personal enterprise dealings along with the hush-money deal.
Mr. Cohen quickly employed Lanny J. Davis, a veteran Washington lawyer with shut ties to Democratic politicians and was telling associates that he was keen to cooperate with prosecutors.
When he pleaded responsible to federal fees that August, Mr. Cohen pointed the finger at Mr. Trump, saying he had paid the hush cash “on the path of” his former boss — an accusation he’s anticipated to repeat on the witness stand within the Manhattan trial. A spokeswoman for Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district legal professional, declined to remark.
Earlier than going to jail, Mr. Cohen additionally appeared earlier than Congress, the place he was requested who else had labored on the hush-money deal. His reply: Mr. Weisselberg.
The Moneyman
After spending many years in relative anonymity as Mr. Trump’s finance chief, Mr. Weisselberg now had a goal on his again.
The Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace had come to view Mr. Weisselberg, whose relationship with the Trump household had begun beneath Mr. Trump’s father almost a half-century earlier than, as a linchpin in its investigation of the previous president. When he rebuffed the prosecutors, he was indicted on tax fraud fees. He pleaded responsible in 2022.
Whereas Mr. Weisselberg was serving time on the Rikers Island jail complicated early final 12 months, prosecutors supplied him a path to freedom: Activate Mr. Trump.
However that path was closed. The day earlier than he arrived at Rikers, Mr. Weisselberg had signed the $2 million severance cope with its provision in opposition to cooperation.
The cash is paid in installments. And whereas the Trump Group agreed to pay Mr. Weisselberg’s attorneys, there was a caveat: “The corporate should approve the collection of worker’s counsel.”
If that weren’t incentive sufficient to stay loyal, one in every of Mr. Weisselberg’s sons works for the corporate.
Nonetheless, when Mr. Weisselberg returned residence from Rikers final April, prosecutors tried a ultimate squeeze. Until he talked, they warned, he would face a brand new spherical of fees for deceptive investigators over time.
The menace couldn’t have come at a worse second for Mr. Weisselberg. The New York legal professional normal’s workplace, which had sued Mr. Trump and Mr. Weisselberg for fraudulently inflating the previous president’s internet price, was set to query the onetime finance chief beneath oath in a deposition quickly after his launch from jail.
Mr. Weisselberg’s felony attorneys expressed concern about his testifying. Doing so may expose Mr. Weisselberg to perjury fees.
Mr. Trump’s attorneys had been adamant that he testify, noting that if he invoked his Fifth Modification proper in opposition to self-incrimination, the decide deciding the case may maintain it in opposition to the protection and doom their case. The Trump attorneys argued that prosecutors may cost Mr. Weisselberg whether or not or not he testified on the deposition.
It was Mr. Weisselberg’s choice to make, and he selected to testify. However as his felony attorneys had feared, the district legal professional’s workplace concluded that he had lied, and Mr. Weisselberg pleaded responsible to perjury on March 4.
He’ll quickly return to Rikers.
The property supervisor and the vp
Mr. Trump’s divergent approaches to Mr. Cohen and Mr. Weisselberg have been replicated in his strategy to witnesses within the two federal instances in opposition to him.
The instances, introduced by a particular counsel, Jack Smith, embrace one in Florida, the place Mr. Trump is accused of mishandling categorised paperwork, and one in Washington, the place the previous president has been charged with plotting to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
As Mr. Smith was investigating, Mr. Trump used a part of his political fund-raising operation to pay the authorized payments for a number of former aides and allies who had been referred to as earlier than grand juries to testify about him. Mr. Trump additionally paid for attorneys for his two co-defendants within the categorised paperwork case: Walt Nauta, a private aide who works for the previous president at his Mar-a-Lago property, and Carlos De Oliveira, the property supervisor there.
Like Mr. Weisselberg, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira remained loyal, and they’re now paying the value: Mr. Smith charged each males not solely with obstruction of justice, but in addition with mendacity to investigators.
And like Mr. Cohen, the previous Trump aides who had been attainable witnesses in opposition to him have felt his wrath on his social media web site, Fact Social.
Mr. Trump has attacked his vp, Mike Pence, claiming that Mr. Pence has gone to the “Darkish Aspect.” He has taken goal at his onetime chief of workers, Mark Meadows, whom Mr. Trump likened to “weaklings and cowards” after fearing that he is perhaps cooperating with federal prosecutors. And after Alyssa Farah, a former White Home communications aide who talked to investigators about Mr. Trump’s actions following the 2020 election, criticized him publicly, he referred to as her a “loser.”
Late final 12 months, Mr. Smith, tiring of the outbursts, advised a federal appeals courtroom that the hostility “was a part of a sample, stretching again years, through which individuals publicly focused by” Mr. Trump had been “topic to harassment, threats, and intimidation” because of this.
Mr. Smith cited lots of the assaults to acquire a gag order in opposition to Mr. Trump within the election-interference case in Washington.
“Mr. Trump’s documented sample of speech and its demonstrated real-time, real-world penalties pose a major and imminent menace,” an appeals courtroom in Washington wrote in affirming the order.
Extra lately, prosecutors have additionally sought to guard witnesses within the Florida case. Mr. Smith’s workforce has even opened a separate felony investigation into threats made on social media in opposition to a witness.
When the previous president’s attorneys tried to place the witnesses’ names in public courtroom filings, prosecutors complained to the decide overseeing the case. Releasing the names, they mentioned, would danger “exposing them to important and speedy dangers of threats, intimidation, and harassment.”
And when aides turn into witnesses, Mr. Trump generally seeks to make clear their allegiances.
In the course of the paperwork investigation, his workforce questioned whether or not Mr. De Oliveira was loyal. One in all Mr. De Oliveira’s associates, Brian Butler, responded affirmatively: He wouldn’t do something to jeopardize his relationship with Mr. Trump.
Inside quarter-hour, Mr. Butler mentioned, Mr. Trump referred to as Mr. De Oliveira and supplied to get him a lawyer.
