Former President Donald Trump’s defense on Thursday accused disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen of lying about an October 2016 phone call he claimed was about a payment to Stormy Daniels, per reports.
During cross-examination of Cohen in Trump’s business records trial, one of Trump’s defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, pressed Cohen about the call, which occurred just after 8:00 p.m. that autumn evening and was to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, reports say. The Hill notes Cohen claimed he spoke to Trump on the call about a payment to Daniels. Blanche was apparently suggesting he contacted Schiller about harassing calls from a teenage prankster.
The New York Times reported that Blanche was implying that “it is ridiculous that Michael Cohen might have simultaneously reported a prankster to Keith Schiller and talked to Trump about the hush-money payment.”
Trump’s lawyer Blanche: Show this to the jury but not to the courtroom
Justice Merchan: We can do that.
Prosecutor: It has numbers on it.
Blanche: Not to the courtroom… At 8:14 pm you texted Keith Schiller the number that had been harassing you.
Cohen: Yes.— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
The Inner City Press’s Matthew Russell Lee reports the call lasted less than two minutes, with more specifics of the exchange:
Blanche turned the clock back a quarter of an hour. He got Cohen to acknowledge or remember – depending on one’s perspective; maybe just, he got Cohen to say – that Cohen had been receiving harassing calls for three days and finally the harasser forgot to block their number.
Cohen texted the number, that he would be turning it over to the Secret Service. He said he learned, or was told, that it was a 14 year-old. And then he texted Keith Schiller, asking him to act on it.
Per Lee’s tweets, the call came in between texts to Schiller from Cohen regarding the harassing calls. The first text was at 7:48 p.m., and the second was at 8:14 p.m. The Daily Caller’s Katelynn Richardson reported from the courtroom that Schiller “left a voicemail at 8:01” and followed up “text me” at 8:02 p.m. The disgraced former attorney then called him at 8:02.
Blanche: You did not talk to President Trump on that night. You talked to Keith Schiller.
Cohen: I’m not certain that’s accurate.
Blanche: Now you’re saying you’re not certain it was accurate?
Cohen: I believe that I also spoke to Mr. Trump.
— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) May 16, 2024
“You lied about this. You said you didn’t remember the harassing phone calls – now you claim that in the one minute and 36 seconds call you spoke about the harasser and Stormy Daniels,” Blanche said, per Lee.
Trump’s lawyer Blanche: You are lying.
Cohen: Based on the records I think I spoke about both.
Blanche: We are not asking for your belief. This jury does not want to hear about what you think happened
Prosecutor: Objection!
Justice Merchan: Sustained.— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
Trump’s lawyer Blanche: The people’s chart omitted your texts with Keith Schiller – you claim you were telling the truth on Tuesday?
Cohen: Based on the documents.
Blanche: So you testified off documents the People gave me, and not your own memory?— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
Cohen, whose TikTok streams regarding the trial and Trump were at the center of cross-examination on Tuesday, claimed that the call could have been about both Daniels and the 14-year-old harasser.
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