Prosecutors’ star witness in the hush money case against Donald Trump was back in the hot seat on Thursday as defence lawyers tried to chip away at Michael Cohenâs crucial testimony implicating the former president.
The trial resumed in Manhattan with potentially explosive defence cross-examination of Cohen, whose credibility could determine the presumptive Republican presidential nomineeâs fate in the case.
Cohen is prosecutorsâ final witness â at least for now â as they try to prove Trump schemed to suppress a damaging story he feared would torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign, and then falsified business records to cover it up.
The trial is in its 18th day.
The defence is not expected to call many witnesses.
Over two days on the witness stand, Cohen placed Trump directly at the centre of the alleged scheme to stifle negative stories to fend off damage to his White House bid.
Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to reimburse him for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about efforts to silence women who alleged sexual encounters with him. Trump denies the womenâs claims.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts.
The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.
Donald Trump’s defence on Thursday brought up another embarrassing episode from Michael Cohenâs past â when he supplied his lawyer with non existent, AI-generated legal cases to back up an application last year to end his post-prison court supervision early.
As he has said previously, Cohen said he was doing research with an AI tool, and it served up a few cases that sounded useful but turned out to be inventions.
He has said he didnât realise such tools could make things up.
His attorney ended up citing the bogus legal rulings in papers that went to a judge.
âThose citations were inaccurate. Not the sum and substance, but essentially the citations themselves,â Cohen testified on Thursday, leading to an exchange that illustrated the disbarred attorneyâs careful, sometimes hair-splitting responses to cross-examination in Trump’s hush money trial.
âWhen you say the citations were inaccurate, you mean the cases didnât exist, right?â defence attorney Todd Blanche asked.
âUnder that citation, no.â
âThe three cases that you gave to your attorney were not real cases, correct?â
âThatâs correct,â Cohen acknowledged.
Court broke for lunch soon after.
