Michael Cohen made an appearance Tuesday for Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York City. This was the first time Trump had to face his former fixer in five years.
Trump is on trial for fraud after he was found liable for inflating his assets in order to gain better terms from lenders and business partners. Cohen admitted to doing just that—helping inflate numbers and thereby, Trump’s ego. Cohen testified that he was told, actually ordered, to increase the value of the former President’s assets to an arbitrary number in a “reverse-engineering” operation of sorts.
Cohen mentioned being part of a “gang of four” that handled insurance programs, claims management, and other financial matters for the Trump Organization. Trump’s kids were also involved in providing data from different ventures and Cohen said they knew about his financial statements. So you mean the whole family is crooked?! I am shocked!
Cohen described a sinister “marking-up” process where he would go into the office and Trump would start talking about his assets. As described by Cohen, Trump would say ludicrous things about actually being worth more than what the stated assets indicated and would tell his associates to go away and return when they achieved the desired goal Trump would set. He gave examples of his net worth being $4.5 billion, but he wanted that number to be $6 billion. So he was ordering people to make crap up to reach a random number that soothed his insecurities and got him better standing for financial deals. Yes, this is the same manchild who was once (and please not ever again) in control of the nuclear codes.
A particularly telling and pathetic part of the proceedings was when Cohen brought up how his former boss tried to get a loan to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills back in 2014 for $1 billion. He told Morgan Stanely he was worth more than $8 billion when in reality he was allegedly only worth $2.3 billion. Lies, lies, deceit, lies, more deceit, fraud, fraud, that pretty much defines Trump’s business career.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba tried to get an A for effort by bringing up Cohen’s history of lies. And look, no one here is defending Michael Cohen! He’s not a good guy! But he had already admitted some of his wrongdoings, like pleading guilty to arranging payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Going to prison for Trump is truly a horrible thing to have on your resume but hey, if he can use his own admitted criminal actions to help bring down Trump in a massive way then good!
Summing up his overall gig working Trump, Cohen said: “Whatever issues he had, whatever created ire for him, he would bring it to me in order to resolve it.” What a life. He definitely seemed to take the bullet, as he called it, for Trump for many, many years. That changed in 2018 when he was raided by the feds. In April of this year, Trump filed a $500 million lawsuit alleging that Cohen had breached his obligations as his former attorney and fixer by speaking out against his old boss. However, Trump and his team recently dropped the lawsuit, presumably because Trump was too scared to be deposed.
Trump was in court Tuesday as Cohen testified. Apparently, he sat there glaring. I am sure he was irate. Seeing people turn on him is something he just hates. Seeing this in person, being unable to post about it in all caps, is probably worse. And I love that for him!
According to PBS, there were times when Trump shook his head or whispered some stuff to his lawyers while Cohen was testifying. He seemed particularly interested in the cross-examination that I brought up briefly earlier. He would sometimes “crane” his neck to be able to see better. There were times when he also had his arms crossed. Poor man! The sad part is that this is not a reality show. This is real life. And the true reality is that more and more former cronies are revealing just how dangerous and fraudulent the former President is. From this civil trial to the RICO charges in Georgia, his once-allies are revealing that the depths of his lies and deceit have no bottom.
(featured image: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
