Michael Cohen Reveals How Trump Hid Reimbursing Him for Stormy Payment

Michael Cohen’s second day of testifying in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial started off with a bang, blowing a gigantic hole in the GOP presidential nominee’s legal defense.

According to Cohen, the payments distributed to him by Trump weren’t legal fees but rather reimbursements for the $130,000 sum he gave to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence her ahead of the 2016 presidential election. As evidence, Cohen testified that he hardly worked for Trump the following year, after the deal with Daniels was done.

Cohen described the amount of work he performed for Trump in 2017 as “minimal,” likely constituting less than 10 hours of total labor while Cohen worked on a trademark issue for Melania Trump. “It was more work in 2018 than it was in 2017,” Cohen told the court Tuesday.

But none of that was billed, Cohen explained, because he didn’t expect to get paid.

Cohen also revealed the payback scheme via a series of invoices submitted to former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, which he specified were not pursuant to a retainer agreement but rather strictly “for reimbursement.”

Trump’s attorneys have attempted to argue that the funds to pay off Daniels came from Cohen alone and that Trump had zero awareness of the hush-money payments. They’ve also argued that the funds issued to Cohen were payments for the purpose of keeping Cohen on retainer—but that narrative has been contradicted several times in the trial, including by several witnesses and Trump’s own words.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

A New York appeals court on Tuesday shut down Donald Trump’s request to overturn the gag order in his hush-money trial, reports MSNBC.

The Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department, ruled Tuesday that with his decision to impose a gag order, Judge Juan Merchan “properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases.”

“Justice Merchan properly determined [Trump’s] public statements posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well,” the appeals court added.

The gag order prohibits Trump from attacking Merchan, court staff, the prosecution, witnesses, and their families. Trump has decried this order as an attack on his constitutional right to free speech, complaining that he isn’t allowed to respond to statements made against him. The former president has already been fined $10,000 for 10 violations of the order, and Merchan has warned Trump that any further violations would send him to jail.

In the past week, Trump has heard testimony from two witnesses with damaging testimony: adult film actress Stormy Daniels and his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, who have each gotten under his skin. He is carefully attempting to skirt the order by dodging reporters’ questions about having surrogates attack the people he cannot. For example, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson attended Trump’s trial on Tuesday and criticized the people specifically mentioned in the gag order.

The former president is accused of paying off Daniels in order to keep their affair under wraps before the 2016 presidential election with the help of Cohen. Trump faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

This story has been updated.

After being mercilessly bullied by Donald Trump during his failed run for president, Ron DeSantis is now helping Donald Trump.

The Florida governor is going to be fundraising for Trump over the next few weeks, as they discussed during a meeting last month in Miami. DeSantis is calling donors while his staff organizes a travel schedule that includes stops in Florida and Texas, the AP reported late Monday.

It’s a far cry from the presidential primary race, when Trump called DeSantis a variety of names, including “Meatball Ron,” “Rob,” “Ron DeSanctimonious,” and “Ron DeSanctus,” as well as the pedophile slur “groomer.” A story about DeSantis eating pudding with his fingers was the basis for an attack ad from a Trump-aligned political action committee.

So what is DeSantis’s angle? His authoritarian laws have crumbled, losing in repeated court cases, and DeSantis has been forced to back away from measures such as his signature book ban. He’s probably eyeing the 2028 race and hoping to stay in Trump’s favor, having endorsed Trump right after he dropped out of the current presidential race.

Trump’s campaign desperately needs the cash, as nearly a third of his campaign donations have gone to pay the former president’s legal bills. He has even resorted to selling the use of his likeness to other political campaigns.

Former President Donald Trump took to his social media platform Tuesday morning to fume in his usual type-screaming style that the hush-money case against him is “election interference” and that Judge Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, is somehow “making big money.” Trump’s rhetorical attacks on Merchan have previously led to threats against his family.

Ahead of trial proceedings regarding hush-money payments made to adult actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged 2006 affair with Trump, the former president was flanked by a gaggle of conservative politicians, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

NBC reported that Trump carried his online ranting into Manhattan Criminal Court Tuesday morning, telling reporters as he arrived, “Signing an NDA is not a crime.” NBC noted this was an unusual statement for Trump to make, as he previously claimed no awareness of a nondisclosure agreement with Stormy Daniels.

In a video posted to his Truth Social account, Trump spoke from a stack of prepared notes for the court reporters, seemingly treating his hush-money trial as a campaign stop, where he criticized electric vehicles being “shoved down our throats,” read off polling data, quoted various figures supportive of Trump amid this latest trial, and even gave backhanded props to Biden preparing to impose new tariffs on China, including on electric vehicles.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and self-described “fixer,” is set to continue his second day of testimony, where he says he was directed by Trump to pay Daniels $130,000 to quash efforts to sell her story regarding an alleged affair she had with Trump in 2006.

On Monday, Cohen recounted his discussions with the former president, at the time the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, claiming Trump told him Daniels’s story would be a “total disaster” to his campaign.

Donald Trump’s hush-money trial has become a real who’s who of conservatives vying for the presumed GOP presidential nominee’s favor.

Before the trial began on Tuesday, some of Trump’s former GOP nomination opponents, as well as some of the biggest players in the Republican Party, showed up to support him. Biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy—who is reportedly under consideration to be homeland security secretary if Trump wins in November—and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, whom Trump has confirmed is on his veep long list, were at the courthouse, apparently bearing no ill will toward the man who overwhelmingly defeated them in the 2024 Republican primaries.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who never performed above single-digit support in the primaries, also came out to back Trump. As did House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is not a running mate contender but enjoyed Trump’s support during a chaotic bid to oust him from the speakership.

They all join Senators J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville, who appeared with Trump outside the courtroom on Monday.

A majority of Trump’s high-profile attendees have refused to provide direct answers in recent weeks when questioned about whether they’ll accept the November election results. Scott, for his part, refused six times to give his answer on the issue during an interview on Meet the Press. The show of loyalty is a significant rejection of the rule of law in favor of power in Trump’s potential administration—and it’s especially poignant in the face of his first criminal trial.

Trump is accused of using Michael Cohen to sweep an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.