At Donald Trump’s trial, his former lawyer Michael Cohen continues to overwhelm him

The man who was the former president’s confidant before swearing his loss continued on Tuesday to incriminate him.

Donald Trump’s lawyers launched hostilities on Tuesday, May 14 to try to shake his former confidant, Michael Cohen, a key witness for the prosecution who incriminated the former President of the United States at his trial for hidden payments to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.

A sign of the heavy political stakes of this historic trial, the President of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, came to denounce a trial in front of the doors of the Manhattan courthouse. “corrupt” and an “electoral interference”. He questioned the legitimacy of the court, less than six months before the November 5 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The cross-examination of Michael Cohen, 57, continued, without him really appearing in difficulty, and while Donald Trump had, most often, his eyes closed, slumped in his chair.

The latter was Donald Trump’s trusted man before swearing his doom. He continued to incriminate him, while admitting that he “had a true cult” when he worked alongside him.

During the prosecution’s interrogation, which lasted eight hours Monday and Tuesday, he said that Donald Trump had approved, at the very end of the 2016 presidential campaign, a payment of $130,000 to the actress. X-rated films Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford. In order to buy her silence on a sexual relationship that she claims to have had in 2006 with the businessman, already married to Melania Trump. Donald Trump denies this relationship.

Michael Cohen, who paid Stormy Daniels, also claimed that Donald Trump had validated his reimbursement in 2017, expenses disguised according to the accusation as “legal fees” in the accounts of the family real estate group, the Trump Organization.

This testimony is central for prosecutors, because it is this alleged concealment which earned him the appearance for 34 crimes of accounting falsification and put him at risk of the first criminal conviction of a former American head of state. And in theory up to a prison sentence, which would not, however, prevent him from remaining the Republican candidate in November.