In court faceoff, Michael Cohen testifies against Trump in fraud trial
In a courtroom showdown five years in the making, Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen testified Tuesday that he worked to boost the supposed value of the former president's assets to “whatever number Trump told us to."
Trump's lawyers — and outside court, Trump himself — by turn sought to portray Cohen as a serial deceiver who pleaded guilty to crimes that include tax evasion and telling falsehoods to Congress and a bank. During a fractious cross-examination, Cohen, a disbarred attorney, even floated his own lawyerly objections, responding to some queries with “asked and answered!”
It was a fraught face-to-face encounter between Trump and a man who once pledged to “take a bullet” for him. Cohen eventually ended up in prison and became a prominent witness against his former boss in venues from courthouses to Congress.