Senator #JDVance, Eric Trump, Boris Ephsteyn, his legal adviser; Alina Habba, one of the lawyers from his civil fraud trial; US House Rep #NicoleMalliotakis; Senator #TommyTuberville; & the #Iowa & #Alabama attorneys general.
This is the biggest entourage we’ve seen him with so far.
He must be scared.
#MichaelCohen says #Trump had an open-door policy, & took visitors one at a time.
"Boss, do you have a second?" he'd ask, & then walk right in, he says. He says Trump typically directed employees to always keep him in the loop. So, Cohen said, when a mission was ongoing, he would inform Trump every step of the way.
All of this relates to the case, as Cohen will soon describe that this general practice was in effect when he paid #StormyDaniels $130k in #HushMoney.
#MichaelCohen lays out the first #CatchAndKill story that he worked on w/ The #NationalEnquirer. It was about an allegation by a #doorman at a #Trump building that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock. Cohen describes telling Trump about it.
This is the first of the 3 #HushMoney deals that jurors have heard about. The last of them is Cohen's own $130k payment to #StormyDaniels.
Cohen says that when he insisted that David #Pecker be paid, he made reference to Pecker's dossier on #Trump. And he says that while he said "financing," he meant "funding," meaning he was asking how Pecker would be repaid for silencing #KarenMcDougal's story.
Michael Cohen testifies that he - & everybody - at the #TrumpOrganization spoke to #AllenWeisselberg about financial transactions. Weisselberg, currently in #jail, was involved in coordinating the repayments to Cohen after Cohen paid #HushMoney to #StormyDaniels.
Cohen is emphatic that Weisselberg was involved in every deal no matter the size.
#MichaelCohen's testimony about #AllenWeisselberg's financial advice on the #KarenMcDougal deal explains why Cohen would go on to pay #StormyDaniels, borrowing against his home. He says Weisselberg told him not to go through the #TrumpOrganization -linking the payment to #Trump's company would defeat the purpose- but to come up w/other more creative ways to pay.
This will help prosecutors explain why Cohen made the #HushMoney payment in such a roundabout way.
#Trump seems to have paid attention to very little of #MichaelCohen's testimony so far. He spent the first hour or so sitting still at the defense table with his eyes closed. After the morning break he's been awake but reading through printouts as he often does - likely news clippings printed by his staff.
An incredible number of hours went into covering up #Trump's alleged affairs in 2016. #MicgaelCohen & the team at The #NationalEnquirer went to elaborate lengths & constantly communicated about how to keep #women quiet. Accounting departments were engaged. Front companies were created. Misleading invoices were produced.
The texts show the #AccessHollywood tape was seen as a big deal to #Trump's electoral viability.
Prosecutors say this is the heart of the Trump campaign's motive to pay off #StormyDaniels. The tape had put the campaign on its heels, which is why Cohen personally purchased Daniels’s story for $130k.
#MichaelCohen testifies he believed the AccessHollywood tape was "was going to be significantly impactful, especially w/women voters."
A fmr White House aide who worked closely w/ #Trump returned to the stand to testify about a significant meeting between Trump & #MichaelCohen his personal lawyer that is at the center of Trump’s #criminal trial.
Trump atty #Necheles turned to the subject of #StormyDaniels. #Westerhout testifies that the “whole situation” w/Daniels was “very unpleasant.”
But she does not seem to go where Necheles was hoping she would. Necheles asked if #Trump brought up his family in relation to Daniels's claims, but Westerhout said that he did not.
This is important because defense is seeking to suggest that Trump was motivated to pay #HushMoney because of concerns about his family, not the election.
The texts show that reps for The Enquirer & Rodriguez were in conversation for months about Daniels’s story. This suggests that The Enquirer was monitoring the story, as its publisher, David #Pecker, said he had promised #Trump he’d do.
In these texts, Gina Rodriguez tells Dylan Howard that #StormyDaniels had sex w/ #Trump/ It is another piece of #evidence presented by the prosecutors that matches Daniels's story — a story that Trump denies.
2016 texts between Daniels' manager & the #NationalEnquirer's Howard:
"Stormy Daniels was his mistress"
"She doesn't want to go on record... will tell the story through a source..."
"I'm trying to get Keith here on Monday on something so standby. Will know tomorrow. Keep that between us."
Longstreet spoke about the long negotiations between Daniels’s reps & The Enquirer over the #HushMoney deal. Eventually, The Enquirer's editor, Dylan Howard, alerted #MichaelCohen.
The texts delved into the amounts that Daniels’s reps were asking for, originally $250k but it was haggled down.