Details of Donald Trump‘s attorney Alina Habba’s heated cross-examination of Michael Cohen in a New York court have emerged online, showing how the attorney put pressure on the key witness in the former president’s civil fraud trial.
The testimony of Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer, who agreed to testify against his ex-employer as part of a plea deal, was likely the most anticipated of the entire trial. Trump, who is not obliged to appear in court during the trial and has been absent before, attended on Tuesday.
During his testimony, Cohen said that the former president had asked him to “increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” giving weight to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ accusation that Trump misrepresented the value of his assets by hundreds of millions. James is seeking a fine of $250 million and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and heading to the New York County Supreme Court on Tuesday, called Cohen “a liar trying to get a better deal for himself.”
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At the start of her cross-examination, Habba acknowledged that she and Cohen had met a few times before. She asked if she should call him Mr. Cohen or Michael, to which he responded, “Mr. Cohen.”
According to ex-litigator Lisa Rubin, who was in the New York court on Tuesday, Habba asked Cohen about his health and whether he was taking any medication that would interfere with his ability to answer questions truthfully, to which he said he wasn’t.
From the very start of the cross-examination, Habba dwelled on the fact that Cohen lied under oath multiple times, something that the onetime lawyer was forced to admit, undermining his credibility as a witness.
Commenting on the cross-examination on X, formerly known as Twitter, Rubin wrote that Cohen was “not making it easy” for Habba. “For example, he says he doesn’t recognize his plea allocution transcript by its cover sheet. But what she is doing is smart,” she wrote.
“She is confronting him with his guilty pleas to the counts that he, to this day, denies constituted crimes,” Rubin continued.
“The tactic is to force Cohen to admit to a lie: Either he was lying when he said he was guilty, or he is lying now when he denied he evaded taxes and/or lied on a home equity line of credit application,” she added.
Habba, according to Rubin, then reminded him that on August 21, 2018, he pleaded guilty, under oath, while he had a legal obligation to testify truthfully. Cohen admitted to lying to Judge William H. Pauley III at his plea allocution—a part of the court proceedings—in 2018.
Rubin also praised Habba’s cross-examination, saying that though she gets “a lot of abuse on this app and in other places about her skills,” she actually did very well in court on Tuesday.
“Her questions are clear and well-formed, designed to elicit yes or no answers, and I am the most awake I have been all day, because she is compelling in the courtroom,” she wrote.
Cohen’s cross-examination is expected to continue on Wednesday. Trump and his children, including co-defendants Donald Jr. and Eric, are still expected to testify.
Uncommon Knowledge
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