Michael Cohen, previously the personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump, will testify in a civil fraud case against his former boss on Oct. 24, and the former president is expected to be present.
“I look forward to the reunion,” Mr. Cohen had told media earlier, before he was delayed by a week in taking the witness stand because of what his lawyer stated were health reasons. President Trump had been in court last week, when Mr. Cohen was originally slated to testify, and Mr. Cohen later told media outlets that he hadn’t been intimidated into delaying his testimony.
“I’m not bowing out. I’m not nervous to testify. I’m not being paid off,“ he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. ”I have a medical issue that I need to attend to. It’s as simple as that.”
Mr. Cohen had a falling out with President Trump in 2018 and became a very vocal critic of his former client. Two high-profile cases in New York—the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James and a criminal case prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—rose out of claims that Mr. Cohen made about President Trump.
In the fraud case, where the trial is underway, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has already ruled that President Trump is liable for fraud. The prosecutors have to prove the rest of their case in the trial, which will determine how much President Trump owes in damages. Ms. James is seeking $250 million in damages to be paid to the state of New York and the barring of President Trump and his adult sons, who are co-defendants in the case, from holding executive business positions in New York.
In Justice Engoron’s pretrial summary judgment, he also canceled President Trump’s business certificates and ordered the dissolution of the Trump Organization and its related limited liability companies (LLC). However, an appeals court has paused that process for now, and President Trump has said he will appeal the judgment.
Congressional Testimony
In 2019, Mr. Cohen testified before the U.S. House Oversight Committee and made several claims while providing documents to Congress related to them.He produced a check that President Trump wrote him, which he alleged was reimbursement for “hush money payments” that he made on his behalf. That claim is now the center of the criminal case against President Trump in New York. Mr. Cohen was convicted in 2018 after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations in relation to those payments.
He also produced Trump Organization financial statements from 2011 to 2013 and claimed that President Trump “inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes [magazine], and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”
Mr. Cohen had also testified before Congress in 2018 and 2017 for an investigation into supposed ties between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign. Afterward, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to lying in his testimony, saying he'd changed the timing of Trump Organization negotiations in his recounting.
Attorneys for President Trump have pointed to that fact as evidence that Mr. Cohen isn’t a trustworthy witness.
Lawsuits
Mr. Cohen had also sued the Trump Organization himself in 2019, but the case was settled just before it was set to go to trial in July. He had brought the lawsuit over $1.9 million in fees that he said he wasn’t paid, and another $1.9 million that he said he was ordered to give up in another criminal case.This month, President Trump dropped a countersuit against Mr. Cohen that sought $500 million in damages over an alleged breach of attorney-client duties, revealing “confidences,” and “spreading falsehoods. He had raised more than $230,000 through crowdfunding for legal fees before the lawsuit was dropped.
The filing indicated that President Trump may still sue Mr. Cohen, who criticizes him regularly on social media, podcasts, and media appearances, at a later date.
Danya Perry, attorney for Mr. Cohen, revealed that the suit was withdrawn right before President Trump was scheduled for a deposition in the case, suggesting that was the reason for dropping the case. A spokesperson for President Trump cited his busy legal schedule and “witch hunts” against him as the reason for dropping the suit, saying he would pick it up again later.
