Former US President Donald Trump's nemesis-turned-enemy Michael Cohen directly stated on Monday that his client had approved large sums of money to keep facts he said could leak to the media. to harm his campaign for the White House in 2016, reports AFP.
This is what Cohen testified in the case in New York about forged documents, through which the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels was also bought. But this was not the only embarrassing moment for Trump that he managed to hide.
"You handled it," Cohen quoted Trump as saying to him after learning about the rumor that he fathered a child out of wedlock. The Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 to remain silent, although his claim was ultimately found to be unsubstantiated.
Cohen warned Trump that a Playboy model had claimed she and Trump had an extramarital affair. Again, the order was clear. The woman, Karen McDougall, was awarded $150,000.
"What I was doing was at the direction and for the benefit of Mr. Trump," Cohen testified.
Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and personal agent, is the Manhattan district attorney's most important witness in the case, and his long-awaited appearance on the stand signals that the first criminal trial against a former US president is entering its final stretch.
Cohen is important to the prosecution because it believes reimbursement documents were falsified to justify such payments.
As a reminder, in 2020, Cohen published the book "Disloyal", a memoir about his time as Trump's lawyer. Cohen was convicted of lying to Congress to defend Trump over his ties to Russia and that he paid women who had affairs with the US leader, which may have violated campaign finance laws. He was also convicted of lying to a financial institution and tax fraud. He served a three-year sentence at his home in New York because of the coronavirus.
US President Donald Trump "should get 360 years" prison for tax fraud. This was announced by Cohen, who commented in an interview on MSNBC about the article published by the New York Times newspaper. information about taxes paid by Trump.
"I wanted to say that in 2016 and 2017, while he paid $750, I paid over $3 million in taxes to the IRS, and it can be verified. "If I went to prison for 36 months for tax evasion, which probably should have been a tax slip, Donald Trump should go to prison for 360 years based on the numbers," Cohen said.
This is just one of the cases brought against Trump.
He could owe more than $100 million in back taxes as a result of the Internal Revenue Service's years-long investigation into claims of massive losses from his Chicago skyscraper.
Trump has declared massive financial losses twice - first on his 2008 tax return, when he declared the building, then in debt, to be "worthless," and again after 2010, when he transferred her ownership in a new company also controlled by Trump.
As a result of the 2008 claim, Trump reported losses of $651 million for the year, and there is no evidence that it was challenged by the IRS, the outlets reported.
A judge ruled earlier in May that Donald Trump's trial in Florida on charges of illegally storing classified documents after he left office be postponed indefinitely.
This significantly reduces his chances of facing a jury in either of the two federal criminal cases against him before the November 5 US election.
U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, said Tuesday that the trial will not begin on May 20, but did not set a new date. Cannon scheduled preliminary hearings to continue until July 22.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 federal charges accusing him of withholding classified national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate after leaving office in 2021 and obstructing the government's efforts to USA to get them.
Despite the legal problems, Trump is the Republican favorite for president.