'Take the stand': Michael Cohen trolls Trump after his courthouse fulmination
Michael Cohen trolled Donald Trump Monday after he was badmouthed by the former president outside the New York City courtroom where Trump faces an ongoing hush money trial.
"Your attacks of me stink of desperation," Cohen told Trump, using his lewd nickname for the former president. "We are all hoping that you take the stand in your defense."
Trump has pleaded not guilty 34 felony counts of falsifying business records linked to hush money payments Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg contends he paid Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Court proceedings closed for Passover at 12:30 p.m., at which point Trump addressed the public and hurled insults at Cohen.
"It’s a case as to bookkeeping, which is a very minor thing in terms of the law, in terms of all the violent crime," Trump claimed. "This is a case in which you pay a lawyer, and they call it a legal expense in the books."
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"I got indicted for that," he said.
Trump trashed Cohen by name, claiming that the reasons his former attorney went to jail "had nothing to do with me."
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance charges and lying to congress and received a three-year sentence.
"He represented a lot of people over the years, but they take this payment, and they call it a legal expense... and this is what I got indicted over," Trump said.
Amid the opening statements, Trump lawyer Alina Habba backed up her boss, telling the press, "You hire lawyers to solve problems. Lawyers solve those problems. That's it."
But Lincoln Project podcast host Reed Galen argued on X that Cohen "went to prison for 'solving the problem.'"
"Seriously…Trump’s defense to the jury is there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election," Cohen said as Trump arrived at the courthouse on Monday morning.