Michael Cohen admits he stole from Trump Org. during heated cross-examination
By: Adam Reiss, Jillian Frankel and Dareh Gregorian (NBC News)
So, after all the salacious and sordid tidbits the unbiased liberal press thrives on, Michael Cohen makes the most stunning revelation of all. Michael Cohen admits he was given a seat at the grifter trough and handed a YUGE spoon. But Cohen couldn't control his own ego. Does Michael Avenatti need a roommate?
The one thing we have all learned from Alvin Bragg's lawfare spectacular is Stormy Daniels would (literally) sleep with anyone to get what she wanted. Man, if you can make it New York, you can make it anywhere.
Editorial Update to address flag (Yeah, it's kinda meta):
The seed title and text are correct. NBC News has redirected the link to a completely different story after this article was seeded.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen returned to the witness stand Monday for a third day of cross-examination, admitting he conned Trump and his company out of money while also maintaining his former boss signed off the hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels that's at the heart of the former president's criminal trial.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche began his questioning of Cohen by focusing on the period around when Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to buy her silence on Trump's behalf. Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and self-described "fixer," spoke to Trump twice on Oct. 26, 2016, the day Cohen moved money to the account he was using to pay Daniels.
Blanche suggested there were other issues going on at the time that consumed Cohen's attention. Cohen acknowledged he was also busy trying to close a $7 million deal involving taxi medallions and an extortion threat involving Trump's daughter Tiffany. He said he spoke to Tiffany Trump twice on Oct. 25.
Asked if he discussed the situation with Tiffany Trump with her father in the Oct. 26 calls, Cohen said he did not, and the calls were focused on Daniels. Asked on redirect examination by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger whether he'd been "too busy in October 2016 to get Trump's approval on the Stormy Daniels payment," Cohen replied, "No, ma'am."
Blanche had continued questioning Cohen for about two hours in the morning, including about another matter he said Trump repaid him for in addition to the Daniels' sum — $50,000 Cohen said he'd paid to end a dispute with a technology company called Red Finch. The reimbursements were "grossed up" — doubled — in order to spare Cohen from taking a tax hit.
Cohen said the bill related to efforts to fix a CNBC poll on the most famous businessmen of the past century. Cohen said Trump didn't want to pay because despite the company's efforts, he only placed ninth on the list. NBC News has reached out to CNBC for comment.
Blanche asked Cohen if he actually paid Red Finch $50,000, and he acknowledged he'd only paid the company about $20,000. Asked if that meant he "stole from the Trump Organization," Cohen said, "Yes, sir."
Hoffinger asked him why he'd done so, and Cohen said it was because he was "angry" that Trump had slashed his annual bonus in 2016, despite his work getting salacious stories about the then-president-elect killed. "It was almost like self help," Cohen said.
Cohen acknowledged doing some legal work for Trump in his family in 2017 and also went into detail about the roughly $4 million he made doing legal and consulting work for others that same year, while often doing little actual work. Cohen has acknowledged he was able to pull in the lucrative contracts thanks to his position at the time as the president's personal attorney. Cohen told Blanche the money was the most he'd ever made in his life.
At the start of court Monday, the judge announced that closing arguments, which he had tentatively scheduled to begin on Tuesday, would be pushed back one week because of the holiday weekend. They're now tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 28.
Trump looked noticeably upbeat and animated Monday morning as two rows of prominent allies were seated behind him in court.
Cohen, 57, is a key witness in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump and the only one to directly tie Trump to the alleged falsifying business records scheme.
Cohen paid Daniels the $130,000 in return for a nondisclosure agreement barring her from talking about her claim of having had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier after they met at a celebrity golf tournament. Trump denies her claim.
Cohen said Trump authorized the deal and assured him he'd pay him back.
Prosecutors say Trump did so in a series of payments falsely recorded as legal expenses in a bid to conceal the real reason for them. He was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records and has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors had made it clear to jurors in his direct examination that Cohen had a track record of lying publicly, and they elicited testimony about his 2018 guilty pleas to various criminal charges, including some related to the Daniels payment and another of lying to Congress. Cohen said he'd lied to protect his then-boss Trump.
Cohen began testifying last week, and by the end of the day Thursday he had been on the witness stand for over 14 hours.
Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche questioned Cohen all day Thursday and part of Tuesday, pressing him about inconsistencies in some of his past claims about Trump and his admitted falsehoods on Trump's behalf over the years.
Prosecutors have Cohen said is their final witness. It's unclear how many witnesses Trump's lawyers would call, if any.
One possibility that could lengthen the trial would be Trump's taking the stand in his own defense. Trump said before the trial began that he would "absolutely" testify. He has softened that position since then.
Blanche had also suggested he might call former Federal Election Commission chair Bradley A. Smith to testify about election laws but also said he might not. He also said he might call other witnesses, whom he didn't identify in open court. He said the witnesses' testimony would be brief if they do testify.
Prosecutors have said that if the defense does end up calling Smith, they might put on a witness to rebut his testimony. Their expert would be brief, as well, they said.
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Hmmm ... a thief stealing from thieves. I'll resist the overused adage.
A clown with his pants falling down
Or the dance that's a dream of romance
Or the scene where the villain is mean
That's politics!
The lights on the lady in tights
Or the bride with the guy by her side
Or the ball where she gives it her all
That's politics!
The plot can be hot, simply teeming with sex
A gay divorcee who is after her ex
It could be Oedipus Rex
Where a chap kills his father and causes lots of bother
The clerk who is thrown out of work
By the boss who is thrown for a loss
By the skirt who is doing him dirt
The world is a stage; the stage is a world of politics!
Apologies to Judy and George. (That's Garland and Gershwin, BTW. Not The Jam.)
Is there a FrontDoor app to fix politics? They can get the flusher working, so maybe.
A more serious crime than the misdemeanor New York is prosecuting Trump for.
Trump's company need to press charges and sue Cohen.
Cohen, being the dumb fuck he is, just doesn't know when to shut up.
Thank you to the prosecution for putting this asshole on the bench to testify.
Merchan needs to show some balls and hold Cohen in contempt of court for perjury as well- which he committed several times.
This was the prosecution's star witness?
What a fucking bad joke; this like this kangaroo court trial.
I don’t think most of this is going to be very important. At the end of the day, these payments were still made, and they were still recorded in a certain way. I have my doubts about whether this will result in felony convictions, but I expect he will at least be convicted of misdemeanors.
He can't the statute of limitations ran out a while back.
Oh yeah, that's right.
Trump is his own worst enemy.
I was just reading some things about the former 'president's' obvious cognitive decline - he froze for a good 30 seconds during that NRA speech - was nodding his head - then just started talking again.
Something else mentioned about the moron while describing his plans for the American missile defense system, and I can't believe I missed this gem, and I quote, as follows:
"Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.........Boom. OK. Missile launch .....Whoosh. Boom."
I mean the guy's a genius right?
Sharp as a tack?
A brilliant speaker!
Trump is actually innocent of "freezing" . The 30 second silence was intentional. The Q Anon song was playing in the background and Trump was being silent in respect.
This is not a joke by the way.
A very stable genius at that...
Cohen's lawyer testified that Cohen repeatedly told him Trump knew nothing about the payments. Cohen, the serial perjurer and embezzler is the only witness the prosecution has who can possibly establish that Trump had the required felonious intent necessary for a conviction and his own lawyer is calling him a liar. .
Lol..
This trial is an embarrassment. It's a kangaroo court that wouldn't pass the laugh test in a banana republic.
Its a zoo. You say the court is kangaroo. I say the defendant , his witnesses and his in court lackeys and toads are jackasses.
The only jackasses are the Democrats bringing these faux charges and the judge that allowed the trial to proceed.
Why....the jury wasn't even in the room when the judge admonished him.
they were in the room when he was visibly disrespecting the court
Fuck Merchan.
He needs to be disbarred and investigated himself.
Kangaroo judge for a kangaroo court.
Telling that leftists are defending a convicted perjurer- that just committed perjury on the stand again several times. And admitting to stealing money from Trump companies.
Great witness./S
Robert Costello was Michael Cohen's attorney. Costello turned on Cohen the same way Cohen turned on Trump. Costello acted as the go-between for Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani. The name that's absent in that backstory is Donald Trump.
Alvin Bragg is trying to make a case on something the sister in-law's hairdresser's 2nd cousin heard at Bingo night. Even Joe Biden couldn't botch this up any more than Bragg has.
Hillary testified under oath for 11 straight hours on live TV, trump won't testify under oath behind closed doors for even 1 minute. Kinda says a lot, doesn't it.
Yeah, it means Bragg and Pelosi screwed up. Bragg cannot compel a defendant to testify. You see if Bragg had brought charges against Michael Cohen then Bragg could have compelled testimony from Trump. But, no, Bragg wanted the glitz and glamor of a show trial.
Congress can compel witnesses to testify. Pelosi could have compelled Trump to testify following the Jan. 6th riot at the Capitol after Trump had left office. But, no, Pelosi had go for the political theater of impeaching a President who had lost reelection. Pelosi ain't the tightest spoke on the wheel.
No it means trump is a liar and his lawyers know it. If trump testified under oath he would commit perjury in less than 5 minutes.
Your logic isn't even close to being sound.
Cohen was put on the stand and committed perjury multiple times; and admitting to stealing money from Trump companies.
What a great star witness./S
I am sure you have a direct quote of him saying that....we'll wait.
Hillary mine response for 90 percent of the questions.
"I can't recall" and "I can't remember".
Along with her most famous line.
Typical Democrat. Take no responsibility for anything.
It's alway a wonder when this is supposed to be some win for Hillary. Benghazi cost her the election.
That was a part of it. Right along with her inability to accept responsibility. Reality is there is a very long list of reasons she lost the election.
What was she charged with?