Michael Cohen to testify in Trump trial on Monday
Fox News
Michael Cohen, ex-lawyer for former President Donald Trump, is expected to testify on Monday, Fox News has learned.
Cohen is expected to be the star witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his team for his role in arranging a $130,000 payment in 2016 to adult actress Stormy Daniels to reportedly keep her story that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in the early 2000s.
Trump, later, made several payments of $35,000 to Cohen, who was his personal attorney at the time. Trump has denied the encounter happened.
Those payments served as the basis for Bragg’s indictment of Trump on charges of falsifying business records. Bragg is trying to prove those payments were reimbursements for the payment to Daniels.
But Trump defense attorneys say that the $35,000 payments were “not a payback,” but instead, legal payments.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations, making false statements to Congress and tax evasion. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
The former president has previously called Cohen a “proven liar.”
HOPE HICKS: COHEN CALLED HIMSELF ‘MR. FIX IT’ ONLY BECAUSE HE ‘BROKE IT’
Earlier this week, press secretary for the 2016 Trump campaign and White House communications director, Hope Hicks, testified that Cohen would call himself “Mr. Fix It,” but only because “he first broke it.”
She testified that he would often frustrate campaign staff and do things that were not helpful.
The unprecedented trail of the former president and presumptive GOP nominee for the 2024 election resumed Friday for day 15 of witness testimony.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/michael-cohen-testify-trump-trial-monday