Trump hush-money trial | Michael Cohen says former U.S. president was intimately involved in scheme
The Hindu
Michael Cohen testifies that Donald Trump was intimately involved in hush money scheme to protect 2016 campaign.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was intimately involved with all aspects of a scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign, his former lawyer said Monday in matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial.
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” said Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump's fixer-turned-foe and the prosecution's star witness in a case now entering its final, pivotal stretch.
In hours of highly anticipated testimony, Mr. Cohen placed Mr. Trump at the centre of the hush money plot, saying the then-candidate had promised to reimburse the lawyer for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.
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“We need to stop this from getting out,” Mr. Cohen quoted Mr. Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels' account of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump a decade earlier. The then-candidate was especially anxious about how the story would affect his standing with female voters.
A similar episode occurred when Mr. Cohen alerted Mr. Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Mr. Trump had an extramarital affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” was Mr. Cohen's message to Mr. Trump, the lawyer said. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in an arrangement that was made after Mr. Trump received a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”
“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Mr. Cohen testified.
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