Michael Cohen recalled the moment he decided to turn on his longtime boss Donald Trump as he continued testifying against the former president Tuesday in Manhattan court.
Cohen — who was Trump’s “fixer” and lawyer for about a decade — told jurors in the hush money case against the 45th president that a conversation with his family around the time he pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 changed his mind about staying loyal.
“I made a decision, based again on a conversation with my family, that I would not lie for President Trump any longer,” Cohen said, shifting in his chair to face the jurors.
Cohen copped to tax evasion, campaign finance violation and making false statements to a bank in August 2018 in connection to the $130,000 payment he made to porn star Stormy Daniels allegedly on Trump’s behalf to keep her quiet about claims she once slept with the married pol.
The day he admitted to the crimes in Manhattan federal court was “the worse day of my life,” Cohen testified on Tuesday.
He took another guilty plea months later in November 2018 for lying to Congress about seeking financing and approvals from the Russian government for a Trump development project in Moscow.
“I regret doing things for him that I should not have — lying, bullying people in order to effectuate the goal,” Cohen testified, during his second day on the witness stand.
The now-disbarred attorney said he had repeatedly lied to cover for Trump “out of loyalty and to protect him.”
He said he didn’t regret working for the Trump Organization, “But to keep the loyalty and to do things that he asked me to do, it violated my moral compass and I suffered a penalty, as did my family.”
Cohen was sentenced to three years behind bars in December 2018. He served over a year in prison and then additional time in home confinement starting in 2020 when prisons sought to limit the spread of COVID. Cohen walked free in November 2021.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger repeatedly questioned Cohen about why he lied — likely in a bid to get ahead of Trump’s lawyers expected efforts to tear apart his credibility on cross examination.
Cohen told the jury that he’d lied to Congress to cover up Trump’s alleged development efforts in Russia and that he fibbed to the Federal Election Commission by having his lawyers write a “misleading” letter to the agency in 2019 about the Daniels payment — all to protect his boss of 10 years.
And he instructed others to lie for Trump as well, such as to keep hidden the Daniels hush money payment, as well as the $150,000 that Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal got for the rights to her story that she had a month-long affair with Trump.
For instance, Cohen tried to pressure Daniels’s lawyer Keith Davidson to keep quiet, “in order to protect Mr. Trump,” he testified.
Cohen also described being “concerned, despondent, [and] angry” on April 9, 2018 when federal agents raided his home, law offices and a safety deposit box at a bank, turning his “life upside down.”
He said Trump called him on his cellphone after the raid telling him to “stay tough.”
“Don’t worry, I’m the president of the United States… you are going to be OK,” Cohen recalled Trump telling him.
But Cohen also alleged Trump pressured him not to turn on him and not to cooperate with the feds.
“Stay in fold. Stay loyal. I have you, you’re a fine person. Don’t flip,” Cohen said Trump told him.
After the raid, Cohen also received an email from Rudy Giuliani’s then-lawyer Bob Costello telling him “you are loved” and to “sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.”
Prosecutors finished questioning Cohen before the lunch break following about eight hours of direct testimony.
Cohen — who is considered the prosecutions’ star witness — also testified against Trump last year in a civil fraud trial that ended with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee being hit with a $454 million judgment for exaggerating his assets for a decade to get better loan and insurance terms.
Trump’s lawyers at that trial sought to highlight Cohen’s criminal past and history of lying — a strategy they will likely employ when they grill him in the ongoing criminal case.
