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Michael Cohen answered the prosecution’s questions on redirect on Monday morning for just under an hour before breaking for lunch. Here are the key points.
There was no retainer agreement: Cohen testified the $420,000 he received was a reimbursement and that he never actually sent a legal retainer agreement to ex-Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg, contrary to what Trump’s signed checks stated. “There was no legal work that I was to be paid for,” he said. “There was no representation agreement within which to send.”
Cohen explains Red Finch payments: Part of the $420,000 payments to Cohen was a reimbursement for $50,000 to Red Finch for tech services. As Cohen explained, Trump had been polling low in a CNBC poll and was upset, so Cohen reached out to Red Finch, which said they could create an algorithm to boost his results in the poll. He ended up at number 9 in the poll.
“Despite cheating,” Trump felt he didn’t get his money’s worth for the work, Cohen said. CNBC ended up not moving forward with the poll, “and so (Trump) didn’t feel he had gotten the benefit” for the services they had provided.
Cohen explains stealing from Trump Org.: Under cross-examination, Cohen testified he was reimbursed $50,000 for payments to Red Finch but only paid them back $20,000, effectively stealing from the Trump Organization. On redirect, explained that he did so because he was upset about getting a surprisingly low annual bonus.
“I was angered because of the reduction in the bonus, and so I just felt it was almost like self-help,” he said.
He admitted it was wrong to do so.
Cohen says Trump approved false statements: Cohen confirmed that parts of a letter he sent to the Federal Election Commission and a public statement about the Stormy Daniels hush money payment were false and intended to be misleading.
“Did Mr. Trump approve the substance of these false statements by you?” Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cohen said.
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