Is ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen too flawed to be a star witness?

(NewsNation) — Donald Trump’s former attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen is expected to play a crucial role as a witness in the former president’s alleged hush money trial which began Monday.

Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, moved to block testimony from Cohen in February, but the judge denied the motion.

Cohen has relationships with nearly everyone involved in the case against Trump, stemming from his years as Trump’s attorney, even saying he would take a bullet from him at one point.

Trump’s trial revolves around payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels aimed at concealing an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, who was then a presidential candidate in the 2016 election.

Cohen’s role in the case

Cohen allegedly made $130,000 in payments on behalf of Trump to keep Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, from going public, a month before Trump’s 2016 election campaign, with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.

Prosecutors claim the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees to cloak their actual purpose.

Trump’s lawyers say the disbursements were legal expenses, not a cover-up.

What to expect in Cohen’s testimony?

Cohen is expected to testify that he paid Daniels on Trump’s behalf to keep Daniels from opening up about an alleged affair.

Trump maintains that never happened and the money transferred to Cohen was not reimbursement, but rather a legal expense.

The prosecution predicts Cohen’s testimony to be both true and corroborated.

However, Trump’s legal team has argued that Cohen’s history is questionable due to past instances of lying and suggested he’d do it again.

Cohen’s credibility

Trump and his attorneys are questioning Cohen’s credibility on the stand.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including criminal tax evasion and campaign finance violations. He was charged with concealing more than $4 million from the Internal Revenue Service from 2012 to 2016.

The former lawyer was also charged with influencing the 2016 election by making two payments to women on what he claimed was Trump’s behalf.

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Trump folds on Blanche as GOP senators hand him devastating defeat



President Donald Trump conceded Thursday he may pull his own attorney general nominee rather than give two outgoing Republican senators what they are demanding.

Trump made the admission on Truth Social after the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's nomination Wednesday night. The vote was canceled when it became clear two Republicans would block it.

Those two senators — Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — are leaving Congress at the end of the year.

"Todd Blanche is a STAR, and everyone knows it!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "He has the potential to go down as one of the Greatest Attorney Generals of All Time."

"I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office," Trump wrote.

Trump also attacked both senators directly, calling them men "whose political careers have been ended by my action" — a reference to his decision not to endorse them. He added that "both Cornyn and Tillis voted for Merrick Garland," invoking former Attorney General Merrick Garland, a name Republicans cite as a symbol of Democratic overreach.

On Capitol Hill Thursday morning, Cornyn told reporters the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Asked whether Blanche could be confirmed before the August recess, he said the odds were against it.

"It's looking doubtful," Cornyn told reporters, according to NBC News congressional reporter Laura Weiss.

Cornyn said talks with Blanche had been "very constructive" and that he believed a deal was close Tuesday night. But by Thursday morning, something had shifted.

"Other people intervening," he said. He told NBC News congressional correspondent Julie Tsirkin he did not know whether the president himself was standing in the way.

At the heart of the standoff is a settlement Trump's Department of Justice reached with the Internal Revenue Service. The deal granted Trump and his family immunity from tax audits and created a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who said they had been targeted by the government for political reasons.

The fund was later abandoned, but Cornyn wants that abandonment in writing — and wants the audit immunity narrowed so it does not cover future tax filings, according to MS NOW.

"All I want them to do is to confirm what he said in his sworn testimony before the Judiciary Committee, with regard not only to the weaponization fund, but also who is protected from future audits and what agencies of the federal government are bound by the release," Cornyn told reporters, according to CBS News.

The Department of Justice, Cornyn said, had not delivered. "They've simply refused to cooperate," he said, according to The Hill.

As of Thursday morning, Cornyn said he was waiting on a DOJ response to his latest offer and had no meetings or calls scheduled with the White House or the Department of Justice.

NYC leaders urge Gov. Hochul to sign SUNNY Act to legalize balcony (plug‑in) solar

City officials and climate groups rallied at City Hall Park asking Gov. Hochul to sign the SUNNY Act (S.8512/A.9111) to legalize small plug‑in “balcony” solar panels and exempt them from utility interconnection rules.