Michael Cohen Buries Trump in One Exchange on Hush-Money Trial

Michael Cohen’s latest testimony just added another dent to Donald Trump’s crumbling legal defense in his hush-money case.

While on the stand Thursday, Cohen revealed that he didn’t do anything without Trump’s knowledge and his send-off, even if the excessive measures infuriated his campaign. That extra insurance was largely out of fear of any repercussions for doing or saying something on Trump’s behalf that the testy former reality TV star might not approve of.

During a string of questions probing Cohen’s relationship with the press, Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked if Cohen had ever answered a question without first checking in with Trump.

“It was my routine to ask him,” Cohen said, noting that Trump would “blow up” at him if Cohen got something incorrect, potentially costing him his job.

“So over the course of nine and a half years, you never commented on a story on your own?” continued Blanche.

Cohen testified that, for an initial comment on the story, he would “always get a comment to something” from Trump. But after that, he would effectively copy and paste the response to subsequent outlets running similar stories.

It’s just another instance in which Cohen has undercut Trump’s legal defense, which has attempted to frame Trump as a boss totally unaware of the hush-money payments and that the funds for the payments came from Cohen alone. Instead, Cohen has repeatedly outed Trump as a “micromanager” who was aware of his every move, telling the court on Monday that the pair spoke “every single day, and multiple times a day.” And, if they weren’t able to communicate one-on-one, Cohen said he would often communicate with Trump via one of his other close confidants, including his former assistant Rhona Graff, Trump Organization employee turned director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller, Trump’s children, or Hope Hicks.

Other witnesses in the criminal trial have also testified that Trump was the originator of the hush-money payments, including Daniels’s former attorney Keith Davidson, who said that he understood at the time the agreement was drawn up that the ultimate source of the money was Trump.

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.

On Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved a full pardon for Daniel Perry, an Uber driver who shot and killed anti–police brutality protester Garrett Foster in 2020. Perry was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Texas state district court judge in May 2023.

But that’s not all that came with the pardon. In a disturbing move, Abbott also restored Perry’s firearm rights.

“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,” Abbott said in a statement announcing the pardon.

Abbott, a far-right governor who has openly feuded with the federal government about migrants and LGBTQ+ rights—and sent swarms of state troopers to violently clear college Gaza solidarity encampments—has sought to pardon Perry since he was convicted.

Stand Your Ground laws were popularized and brought into law by conservative legislators following the vigilante murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012. The laws serve to negate “duty to retreat,” which are contrasting sets of laws prohibiting the use of deadly force in situations where a person could reasonably flee to safety.

In 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests that year, Perry encountered a protest while driving for Uber in Austin, Texas. According to Austin police, Perry stopped his car, honking at the protesters, before driving his car into the march. Perry then shot Garrett Foster, who was legally open-carrying an AK-47 while pushing his fiancée’s wheelchair. Perry’s attorneys argued Foster raised his rifle at Perry and he acted in self-defense, but witness testimony and video from the march disputed these claims. After his murder conviction, messages and posts by Perry self-identifying as “a racist” and wanting to “go to Dallas to shoot looters” were released to the public.

Abbott pushed to secure a pardon for Perry immediately after he was sentenced, directing the parole board to review the case the day after the 2023 verdict. Abbott’s pardon was announced almost immediately after the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended it, The Texas Tribune reported Thursday.

At Donald Trump’s hush-money trial Thursday, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen had a legal lesson for Trump’s counsel.

Cohen, a witness for the prosecution, was being cross-examined by Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche, who asked Cohen about conversations that the former Trump employee had secretly recorded. 

Blanche, in a stern tone, asked Cohen if he ever told anyone that he was recording them, and reportedly seemed surprised when Cohen said no.

Cohen calmly told Blanche, “It’s not illegal in New York.” Blanche seemed offended at this answer.

“Mr. Cohen, I did not ask you if you were breaking the law,” Blanche replied.

In the state of New York, for a recording to be made legally, one-party consent is required. This means that one party to the recorded conversation has to give their permission to be in accordance with the law, and Cohen, as the one making the recordings, had that consent from himself.

Earlier, Blanche pressed Cohen about recorded conversations that were privileged, like those between attorney and client, but then probably wished he hadn’t.

“You understand that it is not ethical to record a conversation with your client, there’s lots of New York bar opinions on this. But you are not supposed to record your client,” Blanche said.

“Well, there’s the crime-fraud exception rule,” Cohen replied, alluding to the case in question.

Cohen has been testifying all this week on his role in Trump’s scheme to cover up an affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election by paying her off with Cohen’s help. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Jared Kushner secured a massive $500 million contract with the state of Serbia to build a hotel on the memorialized ruins of a former military base in Belgrade, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The announcement of the contract reportedly provoked protests in Belgrade against the deal, which is being bankrolled by Kushner’s Saudi-backed investment company, Affinity Partners. In defense of the contract, a Serbian government official described Kushner’s company primarily funded by foreign interests as a “reputable American company.”

“The government of Serbia has chosen a reputable American company as a partner in this venture, which will invest in the revitalization of the former Federal Secretariat for National Defense complex,” the statement read. The deal with Kushner’s company inked by Serbian officials includes a 99-year lease to convert the site into a luxury hotel, commercial space, and over 1,500 residential units.

This is one of the biggest investment deals Kushner has landed while his father-in-law, Donald Trump, runs for president.

Prior to approval of the contract, public officials in Serbia heavily opposed the deal for its insensitivity and potential for political manipulation. Serbian politician Borko Stefanovic described the location as “one of the pearls of pre-war architecture” to The Daily Beast, noting, “Most Serbs believe this site should not be desecrated in any way.”

A petition was launched in Serbia against the contract with Kushner in late March that generated 10,000 signatures in a matter of hours and over 25,000 within days, according to The Daily Beast. The location has long been sought after by Trump and his acolytes: In 2013, Trump expressed interest in turning the site into a hotel. In 2020, while serving as a diplomat for Trump, Richard Grenell—who joins Kushner on this contract—suggested “repairing” the complex.

The Yugoslav Ministry of Defense military complex was bombed by NATO forces in 1999 during a U.S.-backed campaign that killed an estimated 2,000 civilians and lasted until the Yugoslav Army retreated from Kosovo during the Kosovo War. The prospect of a U.S. company building anything on the site was described by Politico as “if the Taliban wanted to build a luxury apartment compound on the site of New York’s Twin Towers.”

Kansas City Chiefs Harrison Butker upset more than just a few women online with the misogynistic commencement speech he gave at Benedictine College over the weekend. As of Thursday, more than 120,000 people had signed an online petition calling on the NFL team to give the kicker the boot.

“We demand accountability from our sports figures who should be role models promoting respect for all people regardless of their race, gender identity or sexual orientation,” the petition reads. “We call upon the Kansas City Chiefs management to dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct.”

In the span of just a few minutes, Butker managed to rail against abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia, the LGBTQ community, and the “tyranny of diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs. He also encouraged the women in the crowd at the private Catholic college to forget the “diabolical lies” sold to them and to return to the “vocation” of bearing children and cooking in the kitchen instead of beginning careers related to their degrees. The strangest part is that Butker holds these beliefs in spite of the fact that his own success is in part due to his mother’s career as a medical physicist at the Emory University Department of Radiation Oncology.

But the growing chorus of people calling for Butker to face consequences for the remarks hasn’t translated into action by the NFL. Instead, the football league issued a lukewarm response, scarcely acknowledging Butker’s disturbing views.

“Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.”

Still, the chauvinistic messaging could stir up problems for another Chiefs player, team captain Travis Kelce, whose relationship with pop superstar—and self-described feminist—Taylor Swift has launched him and the football team into national celebrity status. Especially since Butker specifically called Swift out in his speech, quoting a line from her song “Bejeweled” that “familiarity breeds contempt.”