Donald Trump came face to face with former “fixer” Michael Cohen at the former president’s fraud trial in Manhattan on Tuesday, frowning when Cohen claimed his former boss had made him value his assets at “whatever figure” he wanted. Trump would like.
“He was like, ‘I’m not really worth $4.5 billion, I’m actually worth more like $6. [billion]”Cohen recalled, as Trump faces charges that he lied about his results to deceive banks and insurance companies to save money.
The showdown in Manhattan Supreme Court marked the first time Cohen, who worked for Trump from 2007 to 2018, was in the same room as the New York City real estate mogul since he was sentenced to three years in prison for rapes. of campaign financing, taxes and bank fraud and lying to Congress.
“What a meeting,” Cohen joked to a mass of news photographers as he left court for a lunch break.
Cohen testified Tuesday that he worked with former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to reverse engineer values in the former president’s financial statements to meet Trump’s desired final totals.
Trump, dressed in a dark blue suit and bright blue tie, looked at Cohen with his arms tightly crossed over his chest as his former personal attorney testified against him during the third week of Cohen’s $250 million fraud lawsuit. New York attorney general who could jeopardize the 45th president’s Big Apple real estate empire.
Donald Trump came face to face with former “fixer” Michael Cohen at the former president’s fraud trial in Manhattan on Tuesday.REUTERS
Cohen, who once served as Trump’s special counsel and describes himself as a “fixer,” has consistently admitted to committing crimes on behalf of Donald, the man he once boasted he would “take a bullet for.”
But Trump’s current personal lawyer, Alina Habba, criticized Cohen during cross-examination, after Cohen attempted to distance himself from parts of his earlier guilty plea to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Manhattan.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on former President Donald Trump’s fraud trial.
Cohen testified Tuesday morning that he himself never made hush payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and also said he was “complicit” in paying Trump’s best-known alleged mistress, former porn star Stormy Daniels.
Cohen said it was American Media Inc, the former owner of the National Enquirer, that arranged the 2016 payment to McDougal to keep quiet about her alleged affair with the then-Republican presidential candidate.
Trump has long denied McDougal and Daniels’ claims.
“What a meeting,” Cohen joked to a mass of news photographers as he left court for a lunch break. Steven Hirsch
Cohen also claimed from the stand Tuesday that he has never evaded taxes, even though he had previously pleaded guilty to that charge as well.
“At best, it could be characterized as a tax omission,” Cohen testified. “I have never failed to pay taxes in my life.”
Cohen responded, “Yes,” on the stand when Habba asked him if he lied to federal Judge William H. Pauley III during his 2018 plea hearing.
When the proceedings ended that day, Trump called Cohen a “proven liar” who could not be trusted.
“The witness is already totally discredited,” Trump told reporters as he left the courthouse.
Here’s How Donald Trump’s New York Fraud Ruling Impacts Your Business
The shocking court ruling finding Donald Trump liable for fraud left even his own lawyers scratching their heads, asking the judge Wednesday to clarify his decision to cancel the former president’s business licenses in New York.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s 34-page ruling on Tuesday would force Trump, 77, to hand over control of his Empire State properties, including Trump Tower in Midtown, to an independent third party, too. known as trustee.
In his ruling, the judge wrote that the trustee should be appointed “to manage the dissolution of canceled business certificates” for limited liability corporations, or LLCs, under the Trump Organization umbrella.
A Manhattan judge found former President Donald Trump liable for fraud by exaggerating the value of his assets.Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Here’s how the ruling impacts Trump’s businesses, according to legal experts:
What are commercial certificates and what does it mean to revoke them?
Business certificates are issued by the state to demonstrate the validity of a business and are used for business transactions.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron canceled Trump’s business licenses in New York.REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
They can be considered like a birth certificate is for a person, former financial crimes prosecutor Diana Florence told The Post.
When the judge canceled them, it was like receiving “death certificates,” and the ruling amounted to a “corporate death penalty,” Florence said.
Judge revokes Trump’s New York business licenses, finds he committed fraud by inflating wealth
These certificates are required for entities such as LLCs and have privileges such as protecting personal assets if the company goes bankrupt, said Cornell Law Professor Robert Hockett.
Hockett said a common but “unpleasant” business practice is for a company to pretend it has more money than it really does to help it obtain an LLC certificate.
In this case, an LLC functions as a “shell” intended to “evade liability.”
“What the judge concluded yesterday is that Trump is indeed doing this,” Hockett told The Post. “He has been pretending that many of his companies are well capitalized and able to pay their creditors; in fact, they do good work that benefits the public and guarantees limited liability certifications.”
“They used someone who is a criminal,” he said of the prosecutors.
“You all know his history. “It’s horrible,” the former president said during a break that same day. “All you have to do is ask the Southern District of New York.”
Cohen previously testified that he manipulated the totals of Trump’s financial filings (by marking the document with a red pen) with the help of Weisselberg, a co-defendant in the New York attorney general’s civil suit.
U.S. Attorney General Colleen Flaherty asked Cohen to clarify how he and Weisselberg decided what totals to include in financial statements.
“Whatever number Mr. Trump told us,” Cohen responded.
Among the assets Cohen said he recalled inflating the value of were Trump Tower in Midtown, Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza and Trump’s mansion in Seven Springs. Steven Hirsch
Among the assets Cohen said he recalled inflating the value were Trump Tower in Midtown, Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza and Trump’s mansion in Seven Springs.
Cohen testified that he would reach inflated numbers by valuing Trump properties as if they were other, more valuable assets that had advantages like unobstructed views or higher ceilings.
“You could call them comparable, but that would imply that they were similar,” Cohen testified. “So no, they weren’t comparable, they were just different.”
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