When Michael Cohen takes the stand in the coming days as the star witness in his former boss\u2019s criminal trial, it will mark the climax of his transformation from Donald Trump\u2019s bullying defender to one of his loudest public enemies.<\/p>\n
As Cohen tells and retells the story \u2014 in congressional testimony, television interviews, two books, a popular podcast and assertions to the judge in his own criminal case \u2014 he is a man on a quest for redemption. After years spent serving Trump, he says he\u2019s ready to serve his country. A confessed liar, he says he\u2019s now willing to risk everything for the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am the canary in the coal mine for millions of Americans mesmerized by Trump,\u201d Cohen said on the debut episode of his podcast, \u201cMea Culpa,\u201d expressing his hope that speaking out would be a \u201cway to right some of the many wrongs I committed at his behest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen\u2019s penance goes beyond his weekly podcast or his anti-Trump memoirs, \u201cDisloyal\u201d and \u201cRevenge.\u201d He testified against the former president before multiple congressional committees in 2019. At Trump\u2019s civil fraud trial in New York, which concluded in February with a $454 million judgment that is now on appeal, Cohen was a key witness, deemed \u201ccredible\u201d by the judge.<\/p>\n
But as he prepares to serve as a linchpin in the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s criminal case against the former president \u2014 testifying that Trump ordered a hush money payment to an adult-film actress to preserve his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election \u2014 America\u2019s most famous ex-fixer remains a divisive figure, even among partisans on the Trump-loathing left.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors on Monday were clear with jurors about the moral failings of their star witness, with senior counsel Matthew Colangelo acknowledging that Cohen is a liar and convicted criminal \u2014 but stressing that \u201cthe evidence will also show why you can credit Michael Cohen\u2019s testimony despite those past mistakes.\u201d Trump\u2019s defense attorney Todd Blanche, meanwhile, told the jury that Cohen is \u201cobsessed with President Trump\u201d and he \u201crants and he raves about\u201d him.<\/p>\n
Whether the public buys Cohen\u2019s tale of self-reform could have implications not only for the outcome of Trump\u2019s first trial, decided by a jury of 12 New Yorkers, but also for Cohen\u2019s standing and influence afterward. He has long talked about his desire to hold elected office, and last summer mused aloud about running for Congress as a Democrat.<\/p>\n
Cohen has, of course, been castigated at every turn by elected Republicans and by Trump, who has called his longtime personal attorney a \u201cserial liar\u201d and \u201crat.\u201d For years, the former president has directed a level of bile at Cohen that he reserves for those he perceives as his worst enemies, testing the limits of his criminal trial\u2019s gag order just this month with social media posts denouncing his former attorney as a \u201cfelon\u201d and \u201csleazebag.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even some on the left offer wary assessments of the man who once said he would \u201ctake a bullet\u201d for Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I think his testimony is important. I think his willingness to speak out and to incur the wrath of Trump world is significant,\u201d said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a former federal prosecutor who chaired the House Intelligence Committee when it met with Cohen in 2019.<\/p>\n
Schiff said Cohen\u2019s admirers shouldn\u2019t lose sight, however, of the fact that he turned onto his new path only after Trump abandoned him, leaving Cohen to his fate when he faced criminal charges in 2018. \u201cHe would still be a loyal Trump soldier if Trump hadn\u2019t been willing to discard him like a piece of bad fruit,\u201d Schiff said.<\/p>\n
Cohen declined to comment, saying he would not be giving interviews during the trial.<\/p>\n
An April 2023 Economist-YouGov poll found that 48 percent of Democrats viewed Cohen favorably, while 31 percent viewed him unfavorably and 21 percent had no opinion. More independents and Republicans viewed him unfavorably than favorably.<\/p>\n
Especially among the most liberal voters and activists, Cohen\u2019s persistence in weathering Trump\u2019s attacks have made him a clarion voice of the resistance, speaking truth to power with a thick Long Island accent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife and I will be watching a show, and we\u2019ll see a character that is miserable and pathetic in the beginning of the show. And I\u2019ll say, \u2018Watch, this guy is on a redemption arc,\u2019\u201d said Majid Padellan, better known as the left-wing influencer Brooklyn Dad Defiant to his 1.3 million followers on the social media platform X. \u201cI think you could kind of say that about Michael Cohen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Padellan, who has appeared on Cohen\u2019s podcast, said he is convinced Cohen is a \u201cstandup guy\u201d who is doing the right thing at great personal cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay what you will about him, but there are very few people who are willing to publicly go on the record against a very vengeful guy like Donald Trump,\u201d Padellan said. \u201cAnd nobody knows how vengeful Donald Trump is better than Michael Cohen, who was often the instrument of Trump\u2019s vengeance.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Trump was elected, Cohen had been working as his attorney for a decade, a job in which he became notorious for bluster and threats \u2014 often directed against unsympathetic journalists \u2014 on his boss\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n
He also took pride in solving Trump\u2019s problems, a role he carried into the presidential campaign. When the adult-film star Stormy Daniels threatened to go public in the fall of 2016 with her story about a sexual encounter with Trump, Cohen sprang into action, buying her silence with $130,000 of his own money. Prosecutors say he was later reimbursed by Trump, who denies having sex with Daniels.<\/p>\n
But when Trump went to Washington, Cohen found himself marginalized. He didn\u2019t get a White House job. In April 2018, the FBI raided Cohen\u2019s office, apartment and hotel room, seizing records as part of an investigation into his hush money payments to Daniels and another woman who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. The same month, Trump appeared to distance himself from his former fixer, telling Fox News that Cohen had managed only \u201ca tiny, tiny fraction\u201d of his legal work.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long afterward when Cohen met Tom Arnold, the actor and comedian best known for his role on the 1990s sitcom starring Arnold\u2019s ex-wife, Roseanne Barr.<\/p>\n
Arnold \u2014 who was on a largely fruitless hunt for incriminating evidence to use in a Viceland series, \u201cThe Hunt for the Trump Tapes,\u201d that aired later that year \u2014 introduced himself to Cohen at the Loews Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in New York. They exchanged phone numbers, according to Arnold, and Cohen confided that he was on the fence about whether to turn state\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just back and forth. He wanted Trump to pay for his legal fees, he wanted this or that. He wanted to stay good with Trump,\u201d Arnold recalled in an interview. With the hard-earned wisdom of his four marriages, Arnold said, he gave Cohen some advice. \u201cI said: \u2018This is a terrible, toxic relationship, you and Trump. And you\u2019ve got to break up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen denied that Arnold\u2019s input weighed in his decision-making.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom Arnold played no role in my decision to break with Trump,\u201d he wrote in a text message to The Washington Post. \u201cAs I have repeatedly stated, that decision was done for my wife, daughter, son and the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Arnold was not the last faded figure of Hollywood Cohen would encounter on his personal journey, but their relationship was perhaps the oddest: The pair communicated sporadically over the next two years, including a 2019 phone call, which Arnold recorded and then leaked to the Wall Street Journal, in which Cohen claimed he hadn\u2019t committed some of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty in federal court. A legal adviser to Cohen at the time said he \u201cmeant no offense\u201d by the recorded comments.)<\/p>\n
In August 2018, Cohen turned himself in to the FBI and pleaded guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a bank and campaign finance violations. In November 2018, he also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress during his 2017 testimony about the extent of Trump\u2019s business dealings in Russia. He was sentenced to three years in prison and told to pay nearly $2 million in fines, forfeiture and restitution.<\/p>\n
Before he went into lockup, Cohen made a dramatic appearance before the House Oversight Committee in which he sparred with Republicans and denounced the man he had spent 12 years defending.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 I will not sit back, say nothing and allow him to do the same to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen ended up spending about a year in prison, serving the remainder of his three-year sentence at home. He started recording and broadcasting \u201cMea Culpa\u201d while still under home confinement. In the first episode, he interviewed the actress Rosie O\u2019Donnell, a Trump antagonist who had written a kind letter to Cohen while he was behind bars.<\/p>\n
Cohen talked about how he had wept over O\u2019Donnell\u2019s letter, describing it as a \u201ckick to the gut\u201d and saying he \u201cfinally understood \u2026 just how much I had helped [Trump] to hurt people, yourself included.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exchange set the tone for future episodes of \u201cMea Culpa,\u201d which evolved into a distinctive blend of anti-Trump commentary and life-coaching sessions with a rotating cast of celebrity guests.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me ask you a question: How do you feel?\u201d Henry Winkler, who a few years earlier had performed a mocking impersonation of Cohen on \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d inquired during his appearance on the podcast in November. The 78-year-old actor praised Cohen for making positive use of his negative experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need you to take a moment to reflect,\u201d he told Cohen, ordering him to \u201cwrite down the word, \u2018pride,\u2019 in red, and put it up on the mirror where you comb your hair, so you can see it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen demurred, saying his wife would not allow sticky notes on their mirrors.<\/p>\n
Robert Bies, a professor at Georgetown University\u2019s McDonough School of Business who studies leadership and the rehabilitation of disgraced public figures, said Cohen\u2019s path bears the classic signs of a \u201credemption tour\u201d involving what Bies and his fellow researchers have categorized as the \u201cthree R\u2019s\u201d: remorse, rehabilitation and restoration.<\/p>\n
That path could culminate with Cohen\u2019s testimony against Trump in the hush money case, Bies said, if Cohen is restored in the public eye by virtue of a convincing performance on the witness stand. But even if that happens, Bies acknowledged, it is unlikely Cohen will ever shed his retinue of doubters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in the possibility of change,\u201d Bies said. \u201cThere are other people who don\u2019t want to believe that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skepticism of Cohen may run particularly deep in New York. Not unlike his former boss, Cohen is a familiar and frequently unloved figure in the Big Apple, whose residents have observed his previous incarnations as a 2003 Republican city council candidate, taxi medallion magnate and stalwart Trump lieutenant.<\/p>\n
When Cohen said in August he was considering running for Congress as a Democrat, possibly mounting a primary challenge to incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler in Manhattan, some thought he had taken his road to redemption a bridge too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a reprobate,\u201d said New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat whose district includes the Upper West Side and parts of Hell\u2019s Kitchen and who said Cohen was \u201ceminently unqualified to hold any public office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen\u2019s penitential acts and statements are \u201cbetween him and his God,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cIf he feels the need to clean his soul of all the dirty deeds he did with the former president, you know, go ahead. And maybe that makes [Cohen] feel better. It does not make the general public trust him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even judges, of whom Cohen has gotten to know a few in recent years, have offered conflicting views of his credibility. New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who presided over Trump\u2019s civil fraud trial, wrote in his decision that he believed Cohen \u201ctold the truth.\u201d The remark delighted Cohen, who in an interview on MSNBC directed viewers to the page in Engoron\u2019s ruling that mentioned him.<\/p>\n
Things didn\u2019t go quite so well last month, when a federal judge denied Cohen\u2019s request for early release from ongoing court supervision after his prison sentence.<\/p>\n
Judge Jesse M. Furman noted that Cohen had \u201crepeatedly and unambiguously testified\u201d during Trump\u2019s civil trial \u201cthat he was not guilty of tax evasion and that he had lied under oath\u201d when he pleaded guilty several years earlier. The situation gave rise to two possibilities, Furman added: Either Cohen had perjured himself when he had accepted responsibility, or he had perjured himself later when he denied it.<\/p>\n
An attorney for Cohen disputed Furman\u2019s characterization afterward, saying in a statement that \u201cdefendants often feel compelled to agree to coercive plea deals under severe pressure. That is exactly what happened to Mr. Cohen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cohen will soon return to yet another courtroom, testifying in the first criminal prosecution of a former president. His role has no exact historical precedent, though there is a person who may understand better than most what Cohen is going through.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichael has had his own Rubicon he\u2019s had to pass,\u201d said John Dean, 85, the former White House counsel who became a key witness against President Richard M. Nixon and other top administration figures in the Watergate scandal.<\/p>\n
Dean, who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for his role in the coverup and served a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors, was, like Cohen, disbarred. In the years after Watergate, he devoted himself energetically, like Cohen, to talking and writing about his experiences.<\/p>\n
Unlike Cohen, Dean waited until after the cases in which he was a witness had run their course before going on the public speaking circuit. If there is one thing that worries him, Dean said, it is that Cohen\u2019s voluminous rehashings of his redemption story might become fodder for defense lawyers who want to pick apart his statements at Trump\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s going to be a powerful witness. He has a lot of charisma. He\u2019s got no motive to lie. He\u2019s smart,\u201d Dean said. \u201cHis greatest weakness is the fact he\u2019s talked so much about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily Guskin and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When Michael Cohen takes the stand in the coming days as the star witness in his former boss\u2019s criminal trial, it will mark the climax of his transformation from Donald Trump\u2019s bullying defender to one of his loudest public enemies. As Cohen tells and retells the story \u2014 in congressional testimony, television interviews, two books, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}