Trump on trial, the previous lawyer accuses him: he lied for him out of loyalty | EUROtoday

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Donald Trump's former lawyer and “fixer”, Michael Cohen, is again on the witness stand within the ongoing trial in New York towards the previous president. A brand new spherical of questions from the prosecution was scheduled for at present, which will likely be adopted by cross-examination from the protection. In his testimony yesterday, Cohen linked Trump to all features of the scheme designed to cowl up damaging tales concerning the 2016 marketing campaign, together with the under-the-table cost of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, for which Cohen was rewarded $420,000. . Daniels, on the eve of the 2016 election, was about to make public by the media an alleged sexual relationship with Trump, which had occurred a decade earlier than her.

According to the indictment, Trump disguised the cost to Cohen by illicitly getting into it as “legal expenses” in his firm's accounting information. The former president has pleaded not responsible to all 34 costs.

Cohen testified in court docket that it was the tycoon who signed the checks with which he was reimbursed for the Stormy Daniels affair and that the receipts had been falsified as a result of it was not a contract for authorized companies. Cohen continued his testimony by reconstructing how he was reimbursed by the tycoon for the 130 thousand {dollars} paid out of his personal pocket to the porn star to bury the story of him along with his “boss” and never injury his presidential race in 2016, particularly with the feminine voters. Cohen recalled assembly with Trump in February 2017 within the Oval Office to substantiate the refund, which he obtained within the type of 11 checks totaling $420,000, as agreed with Allen Weisselberg, then the Trump Organization's chief monetary officer. . Cohen additionally testified in court docket that after the affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels was disclosed within the media in 2018, he continued to lie, first to Congress after which additionally to the FBI which had searched his residence and studio, “out of loyalty and to protect” his boss. After the Bureau's raid, he said, the tycoon told him not to worry and felt reassured. And when Trump tweeted “stay loyal,” Cohen thought he was communicating with him.

Before entering the courtroom, Trump once again attacked Judge Juan Merchan and justified the payment to his former lawyer Michael Cohen as “authorized bills”: “I didn't write them down as the development of a wall, of a constructing, or as an electrical invoice ”. “There is no crime,” he added, complaining about having been in a “cold room” (as a result of temperature of the courtroom) for nearly 4 weeks listening to a very corrupt decide filled with conflicts of curiosity. A New York appeals court docket has rejected one more Trump problem to the gag order that limits feedback on the case trial. “We believe that Judge Juan Merchan appropriately weighed the appellant's First Amendment rights against the court's historic commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases and the rights of persons connected – even indirectly – to the criminal proceedings to be free from threats, intimidation, harassment and harm”, reads the provision.

The Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was also in the room amidst controversy. Who arrives in court to attend Donald Trump's trial and arrives there traveling in the tycoon's motorcade. He also decides to speak: “It is impossible for anyone observing all this to objectively deny that the justice system in our country was used against Trump,” Johnson said during a brief speech in front of the court. “The system is using every tool at its disposal right now to punish one president and protect another,” added Johnson, who additionally evoked “election interference” and a “political trial,” terminology utilized by Trump. He additionally added: «Michael Cohen is clearly on a mission of private revenge», he mentioned, referring to the tycoon's former lawyer-fixer. «The crime they accuse Trump of is the falsification of firm paperwork. But I believe everybody is aware of that he’s not the accountant of his firm,” he added