Tuesday Briefing: The Prosecution’s Star Witness at the Trump Trial

Michael Cohen said that working for Donald Trump was the fulfillment of a youthful dream.Credit…Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press

Michael Cohen on the stand

Michael Cohen — the do-anything fixer who once boasted about burying Donald Trump’s secrets and spreading his lies — testified yesterday at Trump’s criminal trial. In a crucial passage, he said that the hush-money payment that he made to Stormy Daniels came at Trump’s direction.

“He expressed to me, ‘Just do it,’” Cohen said on the stand, adding, “I was doing everything and more to protect my boss.”

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Cohen’s testimony is key to efforts to tie Trump to allegations of a conspiracy to safeguard his presidential campaign in 2016 by burying Daniels’s account of a 2006 sexual encounter. Cohen admitted to lying and bullying for Trump, buying and suppressing negative stories while acting the part of a “thug.”

Cohen, who still faces cross-examination from the defense, also ground down some key assertions.

Trump’s lawyers argue that Trump was oblivious to his fixer’s machinations; Cohen described his boss as a micromanager. Trump’s team has also tried to paint its client as a family man deeply worried about how Daniels’s accusations would harm his marriage. Cohen described Trump as callous, saying that it “was all about the campaign.”