Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s one-time political fixer, conceded Thursday that in years past he has been a serial liar, telling a jury at the former president’s New York criminal trial that sometimes he told lies to help Trump and other times to protect his family.
Under a withering series of questions, Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche sought to portray Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, as someone who cannot be believed, that essentially, he is dishonest.
In one instance, Cohen recalled the lies he told to a congressional panel about how many times he spoke to Trump about a planned Trump Tower construction project in Moscow that never materialized.
Cohen said the lies were intended to help Trump at the time, but Blanche asked him, “You knew you were lying, correct?”
“Yes,” Cohen responded.
On another occasion, Cohen said he lied to a federal judge in a tax evasion case because he wanted to keep his wife, Laura, from being charged in the case.
He also recounted lies he had told at various times to investigators looking to probe his and Trump’s actions before and during his presidency that ran from 2017 to 2021.
Blanche suggested that Cohen also lied in denying he had sought a pardon from Trump before Trump left office. Cohen replied that he had only explored the idea with his lawyer but did not pursue it with Trump.
Cohen is the prosecution’s 19th and last witness against Trump and came at the end of four weeks of testimony in the first ever criminal trial of a U.S. presid
