Donald Trump’s former fixer and lawyer is expected to take the stand Monday as the key witness in the Manhattan district attorney’s case against the former president, prepared to give testimony connecting to Trump the $130,000 hush money payment Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
Through three weeks of testimony, jurors have already heard plenty about Cohen through numerous witnesses, who have painted an unflattering portrait of an aggressive, impulsive and unlikeable attorney.
David Pecker, former head of National Enquirer parent company American Media Inc., said Cohen was “prone to exaggeration.” Former Trump aide Hope Hicks said Cohen liked to call himself a “fixer” – a role she said was possible only because “he first broke it.” And Daniels’ former attorney Keith Davidson said he only worked with Cohen because he was a “jerk” whom Daniels’ then-manager Gina Rodriguez – along with everyone else – didn’t want to deal with.
Now Cohen is the witness whom prosecutors are relying on to deliver testimony that can help them prove Trump falsified business records when he allegedly reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 to Daniels to keep her from going public about a past encounter ahead of the 2016 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied the affair.
Cohen is the only witness who will testify about Trump’s alleged involvement in both the decision to pay Daniels and the plan to reimburse Cohen for advancing the money. Cohen will likely serve as the narrator for the prosecution and take the jury from the initial meeting in which Pecker, Cohen and Trump allegedly agreed to buy negative stories that could hurt Trump’s presidential run to the payment made to Daniels just days before Election Day to an Oval Office meeting in February 2017, just weeks after Trump was sworn in.
Read more about Cohen’s expected testimony.