If Michael Cohen is misled by any of the receipts presented by defense attorneys in court, it would be a cruel twist if it happened with intimidating text messages he sent to a teenager.
It’s the kind of “bullying” Cohen testified for years on behalf of his former client, Donald Trump, before saying he turned the page.
But on Thursday, he was forced to confront his own text messages threatening to criticize the Secret Service over someone who was making repeated harassing phone calls to him.
That was not Trump lawyer Todd Blanche’s reason for bringing up the issue. Blanche wanted to establish that Cohen’s testimony on Tuesday about a phone call on October 24, 2016 at 8:02 p.m. might not be as Cohen remembered it. He had testified Tuesday that that was when he spoke to Donald Trump to tell him that the Stormy Daniels situation was resolved, shortly before Election Day.
But Blanche unearthed simultaneous text messages with Schiller about running over the boy who repeatedly called him. “The Dope forgot to block his call,” Cohen wrote to Schiller at 7:48, minutes earlier.
Michael Cohen had to answer for a text message exchange with a teenager who made repeated harassing phone calls. He mentioned the Secret Service and asked to speak to the teen’s parents.
Blanche barged into Cohen, raising her voice, about how she could be settling the porn star’s payment while also tracking down the teen.
‘You closed the deal with Stormy Daniels. You said we were going to move on and you said yes,” Blanche intoned. ‘That was a lie. “Because you were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about him receiving harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old boy,” she intoned.
Here are some other key takeaways from the test:
Cohen’s lies are piling up
Michael Cohen has lied. A lot. And attorney Todd Blanche has been getting him to admit it himself. He lied to Robert Mueller. He lied to a congressional committee about a Moscow tower he was exploring while he worked for Trump.
He even lied when pleading guilty to his crimes. Blanche was able to argue that because Cohen consistently denies one part of her guilty plea: the tax evasion charge. He says he acted under 48 hours of pressure to reach a deal with his wife who was facing possible indictment.
As part of that plea, Cohen had to tell the judge that he was not being pressured to enter his plea.
—Do you feel that you were induced to plead guilty? -Blanche asked him.
‘I never denied the underlying facts. I just didn’t believe he should have been criminally charged,” Cohen responded.
But it wasn’t long before he let down part of his defense. Judge William H. Pauley III had asked Cohen in court “did anyone offer you any inducement or threaten you or force you to plead guilty?”
—And you said no? —Blanche asked him.
“I accepted responsibility,” Cohen tried again. —Was that a lie? -Blanca asked.
“Correct,” he acknowledged.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche finally attacked Cohen on Thursday
Cohen faces his own denials of a Trump Organization payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Text messages between Cohen and daughter Samantha Blake Cohen reveal disappointment over trouble even getting tickets to Trump’s inauguration
Text messages with daughter point to trace of resentment
Anyone who has traveled to the political circles of New York and DC knows what it’s like to land an important invitation or be left on the sidewalk feeling like a throwaway.
Text messages with his daughter reveal the personal toll of Cohen being sidelined by the president he had helped put into the White House.
Blanche asked Cohen about a text message from his daughter Samantha Blake Cohen in which he said new White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump’s new people were “walking all over him.”
Cohen was even having “difficulty getting tickets to the inauguration,” Blanche said, based on family texts. “I think so,” Cohen said.
Cohen’s defense was that although he wanted to be “considered” for a job for his “ego,” he landed where he wanted with an influence-peddling job that earned him millions as “the president’s lawyer.”
“There’s a way to monetize that, and I did it,” he testified.
Whether jurors buy it may depend on how much value they place on a smiling Cohen who posed for a photo behind the White House podium during a visit there.
Cohen challenged by his own refusals to pay $130,000
Blanche finally comes around to the $130,000 payments Cohen made to porn star Stormy Daniels through an LLC he helped create.
It is the issue in which prosecutors spent hours reviewing tedious procedures to establish the trail. But Blanche has her own newspaper to rely on. One is a statement from Cohen claiming that none of the funds came from the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization.
Another is a letter sent by a law firm to the Federal Election Commission.
Blanche’s next step could be to establish that the $130,000 wasn’t even a campaign contribution. The defense wants to call former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith, a conservative jurist whose opposition to government regulation of campaign finance helped defeat major campaign finance reforms in the landmark Citizens United case.
Trump’s entourage could help him outside the courtroom, but not inside
Trump keeps the media guessing who will make up his daily court entourage. He has already brought up senators, the speaker of the House of Representatives and now a group of conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who has had to deal with his own issues with prosecutors, ended up sitting at the front of the court with Eric Trump, and appeared in the shot inside the courtroom as Trump criticized the case.
But Trump’s growing entourage could be wearing thin inside the 15th floor courtroom, where Trump’s freedom could be at stake. Prosecutors filed complaints about disruptions to their security details, and Merchan seemed sympathetic. The way members of the Republican Party have given Trump talking points could catch the judge’s attention as a way to get around his gag order.
Judge Merchan looks for the exits
Judge Merchan told lawyers to be ready for summary arguments on Tuesday. This comes despite Todd Blanche’s refusal to dismiss former President Trump’s own testimony.
Merchan was even willing to give up one of his precious Wednesdays, which he uses for other court business instead of the Trump trial. (President Biden mocked Trump this week, saying, “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays when you challenge him to a debate.”)
He is also looking at how to avoid long pauses in the pace of the test, a sign that he could have his sights set on finishing before Memorial Day.