"That was incredible, I've never seen anything like it in my life," President Trump said after leaving the courtroom. He spoke for longer than usually.
He criticized Justice Merchan, calling him a "tyrant."
"Hopefully the motion to dismiss this trial will go through because this trial is a disaster for our country," he said. "This is a witch hunt."
Mr. Blanche reiterated his points, and the judge did not issue an immediate ruling.
"I'm going to reserve a decision," Justice Merchan said.
Prosecuting attorney Matthew Colangelo said the "trial record overwhelmingly rebuts that there is no evidence of falsity."
He pointed to records entered into evidence, tracking the wire payment Mr. Cohen made to Mr. Davidson, and testimony from Ms. Clifford acknowledging the payment.
"Mr. Blanche made a couple of arguments regarding intent to defraud," Mr. Colangelo said. "As a matter of law, your honor, it is more than sufficient if the defendant set in motion the sequence of events that led to the false entries being made."
"There is no way that the court should let this case go to the jury relying on Mr. Cohen's testimony. Without his testimony, there is no case," Mr. Blanche said. "He has repeatedly lied, and he lied this morning. We put on irrefutable proof, when he testified on direct about a phone call."
"So you're asking me to find Mr. Cohen not credible as a matter of law," Justice Merchan said.
"Yes," Mr. Blanche said. "It shouldn't move the court that he continues to lie."
The parties conferred to discuss scheduling for the remainder of the trial. Ms. Hoffinger said she has about 30 to 45 minutes of cross-examination for Mr. Costello, which would continue tomorrow.
Mr. Blanche asked for dismissal.
Ms. Hoffinger asked about that first meeting between Mr. Costello and Mr. Cohen, and how the raid affected Mr. Cohen.
"Mr. Cohen was visibly shaken up that day, wasn't he?" Ms. Hoffinger asked.
"He was suicidal that day," Mr. Costello said.
Mr. Costello said his law partner Mr. Citron had known Mr. Cohen for 10 years, and Mr. Costello took the meeting because Mr. Citron had arranged it.
"Because Jeff was a real estate attorney, and this was obviously a criminal matter," Mr. Costello said.
"And if you could land him, personal attorney to Donald Trump, as a client, this would be big news for your firm, and it would be what you call a high-profile case?" Ms. Hoffinger asked. She also asked it it would solidify connections with Rudy Giuliani.
"Mr. Costello, did you ever put pressure on Michael Cohen to do anything?" Mr. Bove asked.
"No," Mr. Costello said.
"During your interactions with Michael Cohen, did you consider him to be a client?" Mr. Bove asked.
Justice Merchan motioned for the jury to return to the courtroom.
Mr. Bove showed an email from Mr. Costello to Mr. Cohen on May 16, 2018.
"You wrote at the bottom of this message, 'I will not pester you. If you want to talk, you know how to reach Jeff or myself,'" Mr. Bove said.
Prosecutors continued to object, and the judge sustained the objections, before warning Mr. Costello about decorum.
"As a witness on the stand, if you don't like my ruling, you don't say 'geez,' and if a question is overruled, you don't say 'strike it,' because I'm the only one who can strike an answer," Justice Merchan said. "And if you don't like my ruling, you don't look at me side-eyed, and you don't roll your eyes. Do you understand that?"
"Are you staring me down?" the judge asked.
Mr. Costello said Mr. Cohen had been working with a law firm in Washington. Mr. Bove asked about conversations about retention. Prosecutors objected again, prompting an exclamation from Mr. Costello.
"What had Michael Cohen said to you about how to communicate with Rudy Giuliani?" Mr. Bove asked.
"He told me he wasn't going to announce it publicly, so although I could tell Giuliani, he wasn't suppposed to tell anybody in the media," Mr. Costello said. "He wanted to know how the investigation of Michael Cohen began, whether it was a referral from Washington, how did it get to the Southern District of New York, which is right down the street from here."
Mr. Bove asked about what was said about President Trump knowing about the Stormy Daniels deal.
"Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about payments to Stormy Daniels, and that he did this on his own," Mr. Costello said.
Mr. Costello said he was formerly an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and deputy chief of the criminal division. He met Mr. Cohen in person on April 17, 2018, at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan, accompanied by his law partner Mr. Citron, who knew Mr. Cohen.
"First, Michael Cohen explained the situation, because I had never met Cohen before so I had no idea what was going on, that his home and office had been searched with a search warrant," Mr. Costello said.
"He as absolutely manic at that meeting. We were in a conference room on the second floor of the Regency Hotel, and he kept pacing, and he said my life is shattered, I want you to show me what my escape routes are," Mr. Costello said.
"So Mr. Bove, you can definitely cross-examine as to two prior inconsistent statements, obviously, and I will give you some latitude to explore the pressure campaign. But I'm not going to allow this to become a trial within a trial, as to whether there was this pressure campaign to affect Mr. Cohen," Justice Merchan said. "This is not what this trial is and I'm not going to allow it to become that."
The defense next called Mr. Costello, and attorneys conferred with the judge over the admissibility of his testimony.
Defense attorney Emil Bove argued that Mr. Cohen testified that Mr. Costello was pestering him when the records reflect it being the other way around and "now we're seeking an opportunity to respond."
Mr. Cohen had testified he omitted things when he spoke with Mr. Costello, fearing they would go back to President Trump.
The defense called as their first witness Daniel Sitko, an analyst who works in defense attorney Todd Blanche's law firm.
Mr. Sitko had been tasked to create a summary chart of phone calls from records shared, and identified calls between Mr. Cohen's phone number ending in 0114 and three numbers associated with Mr. Costello.
Counting unanswered calls as well, there were 75 calls total.
Mr. Cohen maintained that he believed the call he made to Mr. Schiller included a conversation with Mr. Trump about the Stormy Daniels contract.
"So your testimony is still that in the 90 seconds you were on the phone with him, you talked to him about being harassed by a 14-year-old, everything that was going on, and then you asked him to pass the phone to President Trump and you spoke to him?" Mr. Blanche asked.
"That's correct," Mr. Cohen said.
"Now, defense counsel has asked you a lot of questions about how you've profited. Putting aside financial matters, how has telling the truth about Mr. Trump affected you personally?" Ms. Hoffinger asked.
"My whole life has been turned upside down. I lost my law license, my businesses," he said.
Mr. Blanche then asked Mr. Cohen whether he was blaming President Trump.
Prosecutor played an audio recording of Mr. Cohen on a call with Keith Davidson.
"What would you do if you were me?" he asked in the recording. "I mean, would you write a book? Would you break away from the entire Trump, you know, we'll call it doctrine? Would you go completely rogue? Would you join with Bannon? Any thoughts? It's not just me that's being affected. it's my entire family. It's, you know, and them there's no, nobody is thinking about Michael."
"I wasn't going to play penny wise, pound foolish. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, what about me? What about me? And I can't tell you how many times he said to me, you know, 'I hate the fact that we did it," Mr. Cohen said in the recording.
Mr. Cohen returned to the witness stand and testified about the photograph showing Mr. Trump and Mr. Schiller together.
He confirmed that during this time period, he recalled having conversations with Mr. Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter, with some being in person and some by phone.
Mr. Cohen also affirmed he had reviewed materials like phone records and messages before he testified.
Mr. Steinglass said the exhibit would come in without calling a paralegal to testify, on the stipulation that the exhibit is a still photograph and they have to ask a foundational question about whether it is a fair and accurate representation. Mr. Blanche agreed.
Over the lunch break, the judge reviewed cases prosecutors cited to submit into evidence photos of President Trump together with his bodyguard Mr. Schiller, pulled from C-SPAN archives.
Justice Merchan sustained the defense's hearsay objection and did not allow the images into evidence. He ruled that Mr. Browning, executive director of the C-SPAN, did not lay the foundation prosecutors needed to then admit these videos.
"To suggest that a paralegal or anyone else can now take the stand, and they are now qualified to testify on C-SPAN videos, would be to suggest that anybody here could now testify as a business records expert," Justice Merchan said. "So that objection is sustained and those videos cannot come into evidence."
Prosecutors showed Mr. Cohen a photo, and he identified President Trump and bodyguard Keith Schiller.
They sought to enter the photo into evidence and defense attorneys objected.
Ms. Hoffinger also asked about the three fake cases that Mr. Cohen submitted to his attorneys to apply for early release. Mr. Cohen had testified they were AI-generated cases, and clarified after questioning from prosecutors that he had not known they were fake.
"I went over to Google Bard, which is an AI search engine, and I typed in 'early termination of supervised release' based on certain factors," Mr. Cohen said. "It gave me a plethora of cases that appeared to me to be legitimate. They certainly looked legitimate, and there were facts behind it that supported what we were going to put into this motion."
Mr. Cohen said he copy and pasted the first three to send to his lawyers.
Prosecutors then asked about the defense's question about whether the case affected Mr. Cohen personally.
"I know it may feel like you're on trial here after cross-examination, but are you on trial?" Ms. Hoffinger asked. "Is your liberty at stake in this case? Is your wife's liberty at stake in this case?"
Mr. Cohen answered no to each of the questions.
Ms. Hoffinger showed the denial statement Mr. Cohen issued about the $130,000 payment he made.
"The misleading and deceptive line is, 'Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither the Trump Organization nor Mr. Trump directly benefitted," Mr. Cohen said.
Ms. Hoffinger read the line, "The payment in question does not constitute a campaign contribution or expenditure" and asked Mr. Cohen if this was a truthful sentence.
Ms. Hoffinger also asked about the $30,000 Mr. Cohen said he stole from the Trump Organization.
He said that Red Finch had been commissioned to assist in a CNBC poll on the most famous businessmen in the last century. Mr. Trump polled near the bottom at the beginning of the poll and Mr. Cohen reached out to Red Finch, who "assured me that he was able to do the acquisitions of IP addresses, to create an algorithm to ensure that Mr. Trump would rise significantly in this poll."
Mr. Cohen said he had Mr. Trump's permission to work with Red Finch to acquire the IP addresses, but CNBC ended up not continuing the poll, so Mr. Trump felt he didn't receive the benefits of Red Finch's services and did not want to pay.
Ms. Hoffinger followed up with Mr. Cohen, asking him to clarify when he testified about lying to Congress.
Mr. Cohen said he testified falsely in 2017 and truthfully in 2019.
"You testified that you didn't have a specific recollection of talk about other matters," Ms. Hoffinger asked about Mr. Cohen's October phone call with Mr. Trump. "But you did have a specific recollection of talking about Stormy Daniels?"
Mr. Cohen confirmed he made more in 2017 working for President Trump than in previous years when he was paid $500,000 annually, because of taxes.
"Do you have a financial interest in the outcome of this case?" Mr. Blanche asked.
"Yes sir," Mr. Cohen said. "When you said do I have a financial interest in this case, I talk about it on my podcast, I talk about it ok TikTok, and they make money. And that's how I was viewing your question. Whether Mr. Trump is ultimately determined innocent or guilty is not going to affect whether I speak about it or not."
Mr. Cohen said he has been working with someone on the "Fixer" podcast for about three months and is considering writing a third book. He confirmed he has talked about considering a run for Congress.
"Your work, and what you've been going over the past several years going after President Trump, that's the name recognition?" Mr. Blanche asked.
"I wouldn't say that. The name recognition is the journey that I've been on," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen said from 2017 through summer of 2018 he made $4.5 million, and that between the time he pled guilty and published his book had no income, and many bills to pay.
He started his podcast fall 2020 during home confinement and published his book, and has made about $4 million, or about $1 million per year, since then.
Mr. Cohen said he also has a podcast in the works with the title "Fixer."
![Mr. Blanche asked about 2018, when the story about Ms. Clifford's NDA was published. Mr. Cohen said he could not recall several of the communications Mr. Blanche asked about, and confirmed he recalled recording several calls with reporters at the time.
On April 9, 2018, the FBI raided Mr. Cohen's residence, and then he received a message from Jeffrey Citron to set up a meeting with Mr. Costello to discuss representation.
"I believe they brought some sort of retainer agreement, yes," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen said he had 10 or more phone conversations with Mr. Costello over the following months.
On April 23, Mr. Costello sent a message to Mr. Cohen: "Michael, I spoke with the person you asked me to, and he said he would find out exactly how the matter ended up in the SDNY."
Mr. Cohen confirmed that person was Mr. Giuliani.
"Part of their [FBI] probably cause for the search warrant was Mr. Friedman?" Mr. Blanche asked.
"Correct," Mr. Cohen said. "I had leased taxi medallions to him."
More emails between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Costello were entered into evidence.
Mr. Cohen wrote, "Bob, as I have stated in the past, when the right time comes, and now is not the right time, we will advance our conversations regarding this issue. There are too many hands right now all with varying view points and ideas."
Mr. Costello wrote on May 16, "Michael, I realize you are under a tremendous strain and every day this Avenatti guy brings you more stuff to try to paint you in a negative way, even though it has nothing to do with his alleged client Stormy Daniels. As I said before, this is psychological warfare."
Mr. Cohen confirmed they had long calls that weekend, but not if he called or received the calls.
"How many times, if you can recall, did you meet with Mr. Costello in person?" Mr. Blanche asked.
"I believe it was once or twice," he said.
Other emails previously shown in court were referenced again.
"You were also talking to him at that time about who was going to pay for Mr. Costello, correct?" Mr. Blanche asked. "And the reason why I ask that question, Mr. Cohen, is that it looks like in the earlier email you write to Mr. Costello, "I'm not sure what concerns you have, sir ...' in the time that you started speaking with Mr. Costello and now, there had been a change in whether the Trump Organization was paying their lawyers?"
"Correct," Mr. Cohen said. "There was significant invoices that were being sent by McDermott Will & Emery to the Trump Organization for payment, and the payment was not being made in accordance with the invoices. I expressed to him that the nonpayment was becoming an issue, and to let Mr. Giuliani to pass that along to President Trump, that it was becoming an issue."
[caption id="attachment_5650850" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Robert Costello speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the weaponization of the federal government in Washington on May 15, 2024, in a still from video. (House Judiciary Committee/Screenshot via NTD)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F05%2F15%2Fid5650850-former-Cohen-lawyer-Robert-Costello-600x335.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
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Mr. Blanche asked about the hiring of Marc Kasowitz as President Trump's personal attorney when special counsel Robert Mueller began his investigation.
Mr. Cohen confirmed this had not changed his role or relationship with President Trump. He said the two attorneys were in touch, with Mr. Cohen actively reviewing subpoenaed documents in January and February, and that he had no part in selecting Mr. Kasowitz.
Mr. Cohen also confirmed working with First Lady Melania Trump on multiple occasions in February, March, and April 2017.
Mr. Cohen confirmed that Mr. Weisselberg had called the $420,000 a retainer, and asked him to send in invoices, but that he was not going to have a retainer going forward.
Mr. Cohen said those were the only two conversations he had with Mr. Weisselberg about his role as Mr. Trump's attorney.
Mr. Blanche showed Mr. Cohen an email from Mr. Weisselberg to Mr. Cohen on Jan. 31, 2017, asking him to "please prepare the agreement we discussed."
Mr. Blanche asked Mr. Cohen about the $50,000 reimbursement for Red Finch polling, when Mr. Cohen and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg came to a $420,000 agreement.
Mr. Cohen confirmed he had originally paid his Red Finch connection $20,000 in cash, and he had it in a brown paper bag.
"He still wanted the $30,000, this placated him for the time being. I still needed his services. So I gave him the amount he needed for his out of pocket expenses," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Cohen previously testified he had two phone calls with then-candidate Trump the morning of Oct. 26, 2016.
"Now you testified on direct that the reason you spoke with President Trump on that day was you needed his approval for what you were doing," Mr. Blanche said. "You did not want Ms. Daniels to sell her story to the Daily Mail, and you wanted his approval?"
"That's correct," Mr. Cohen said.
Mr. Blanche followed up with questions confirming Mr. Cohen's earlier answers in testimony. Then he asked about Mr. Cohen's taxi medallion business.
Mr. Cohen confirmed several messages exchanged around Oct. 13, 2016, including with his medallion agent Mr. Friedman.
"You were having issues with Mr. Friedman paying you during that time period," Mr. Blanche asked.
Mr. Cohen said he met with Rep. Dan Goldman twice.
Mr. Goldman, a critic of President Trump, has been commenting on the trial in the media.
Mr. Cohen continued his testimony under cross-examination. He said he did not speak with reporters about the case.
Mr. Cohen said he since the beginning of the year, he has spoken to prosecutors close to 20 times. He last met with them about 10 days ago.
"When you met with the prosecutors again, they asked you questions similar to what they asked you Monday and Tuesday?" defense attorney Todd Blanche asked.
Justice Merchan ordered the parties to draft definitions to give to the other side and come to an agreement.
"The simpler the better," he said. "If the two sides can agree on the definitions of those terms, that's all the better. You decide who wants to draft it and who wants to do a redline, and you can send it to me."
Defense attorney Emil Bove argued that testimony limited to definitions of these terms would not help the jury much.
"The tough spot that we're in right now is that your honor has not indicated a firm intention to instruct the jury on FECA," Mr. Bove said. "If you're willing to give us any sense on whether you're going to instruct the jury on these issues, we would come to the pre-charge conference ... and we would resolve that at the charge conference."
Justice Merchan said that his position was that "I often think that less is better."
Last week, defense attorneys asked the court to allow expert testimony from Bradley Smith, a former FEC commissioner, on terms in the statutes prosecutors are using in the case.
The judge said the expert would not be allowed to offer interpretation of the law, such as what it means to violate a statute in "for the purpose of influencing the election." Justice Merchan said if the defense were allowed to offer an interpretation of the law, he would have to allow the prosecutors to do so as well, and "this would result in a battle of experts" that would confuse rather than enlighten the jury.
"Therefore, I again invite you to submit proposed jury instructions," he told the parties.
Defense attorney Todd Blanche sought to submit an email communication between an associate of Robert Costello's and Michael Cohen.
"That's direct impeachment to what Mr. Cohen testified no Tuedsay, he testified that he didn't really feel like he clicked with Mr. Costello," Mr. Blanche said. The associate expressed they were pleased with what was discussed with Mr. Cohen and requested a follow-up call.
Last week, prosecutors showed in court several emails between Mr. Costello and Mr. Cohen, and Mr. Cohen testified that he did not trust Mr. Costello, whom he viewed as a spy for Rudy Giuliani who would report anything Mr. Cohen said back to Mr. Costello.
Justice Merchan said that issues attorneys brought up over the weekend made it clear they weren't ready for summations on Tuedsay.
"It looks like we'll be finishing up evidence this week so we can have summations next week," he said.
The parties submitted and objected to exhibits shown to the judge.
President Trump said he had plans to make a campaign stop this morning before he was alerted that court would convene early today.
"I'm here instead of campaigning. As you know, I was supposed to be in a very different state this morning, when the judge actually decided to call it early and get it looks like we're gonna have a very big gap between days and it's going to be determined right now in court," he said.
"But we're here about an hour early today. I was supposed to be making the speech. for political purposes. I'm not allowed to have anything to do with politics because I'm sitting in a very freezing cold, dark room for the last four weeks. It's very unfair. They have no case to have no crime."
Flanking former President Donald Trump today are South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Rep. Eric Burlison, Rep. Andrew Clyde, Rep. Mary Miller, Rep. Keith Self, John Coale, Alan Dershowitz, Will Scharf, Steve Witkoff, Bernie Kerik, Kash Patel, Vernon Jones, Jerry Kassar, Chuck Zito, per the Trump campaign.
As the defense tries to keep prosecutors guessing about whether former President Donald Trump will take the witness stand to defend himself in his criminal trial in New York, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has instructed the parties to prepare for the upcoming week assuming the testimony may not happen.
“Please be prepared to begin summations on Tuesday,” the judge told attorneys last Friday.
On Friday, prosecutors confirmed they would call no more witnesses. Ex-lawyer Michael Cohen will return to the witness exam to wrap up questioning by defense and prosecuting attorneys, and defense lawyers said in court Friday they plan to call a handful of rebuttal witnesses, including experts, whose limited testimonies may be wrapped up within a day.
NEW YORK CITY—Government lawyers in the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump have taken a carefully calculated approach, seeking to balance lengthy testimony from an admitted perjurer with voluminous phone, email, text, and audio records that they are betting a jury in a deep blue city will find objectively reliable, according to legal experts.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors have punctuated their questioning of witnesses with frequent requests to move an item into evidence and show it to the jury, and the judge has rarely said no.
Their painstaking use of records to construct a documentary history of an alleged coverup of a nondisclosure agreement payment—what the prosecution alleges amounts to election fraud—tacitly acknowledges that former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen is not a witness that most lawyers would normally want make the focus of their case, the experts say.