Trump said ‘This is a disaster’ after hearing Stormy Daniels could go public, Michael Cohen testifies

Michael
Cohen
testified
Monday
he
feared
there
would
be
a “catastrophic”
effect
on
the
2016
presidential
campaign
of

Donald
Trump
if
porn
star
Stormy
Daniels
went
public
with
her
claim
of
having
sex
with
the
billionaire
real
estate
mogul
a
decade
earlier.

Cohen
said
Trump
was
very
angry
to
learn
that
Daniels
was
again
shopping
around
her
account,
five
years
after
his
then-personal
lawyer
and
fixer
Cohen
first
notified
Trump
about
the
potential
story
becoming
public.

” ‘I
thought
you
took
care
of
this,’ ”
Trump
said,
Cohen
testified
Monday
in
Manhattan
Supreme
Court
at
Trump’s
criminal
hush
money
trial.
″ ‘I
thought
this
was
under
control.’ “

Trump
then
said,
″ ‘This
is
a
disaster,
a
total
disaster.
Women
will
hate
me,’ ”
the
57-year-old
Cohen
testified.

” ‘Guys
will
think
it’s
cool,
but
this
is
going
to
be
a
disaster
for
the
campaign!’ ”
Trump
fumed,
according
to
Cohen.

Cohen
noted
that
at
the
time
that
he
learned
Daniels
might
sell
her
story
of
a
one-night
stand
with
Trump,
the
then-Republican
nominee
Trump “was
polling
very
poorly
with
women.”

“And
this,
coupled
with
the
previous
Access
Hollywood
tape”
made
Trump
upset,
Cohen
testified,
referring
to
the
infamous
recording
that
captured
Trump
boasting
of
kissing
women
and
grabbing
their
genitals
without
prior
consent.

Earlier
Monday,
Cohen
testified
that
Trump
had
warned
him
that “just
be
prepared,
there’s
going
to
be
a
lot
of
women
coming
forward,”
once
he
announced
that
he
was
running
for
president
in
2015.

Cohen
also
testified
about

secretly
recording
Trump
during
a
meeting
about
reimbursing
the
publisher
of
The
National
Enquirer
for
making
a
$150,000
hush
money
payment
to
a
Playboy
model
to
buy
her
silence
about
an
alleged
affair
with
Trump.

Pay
with
cash,”
Trump
says
on
that
recording.
The
publisher
ended
up
not
being
reimbursed.

Cohen’s
revelations
came
on
his
first
day
of
testimony
at
Trump’s
New
York

criminal
hush
money
trial,
where
he
detailed
efforts
to
protect
Trump’s
presidential
campaign
in
2016
from
being
harmed
by
salacious
disclosures.

Once
slavishly
devoted
to
Trump,
Cohen
is
now
his
avowed
enemy
and
could
be
the
key
witness
against
him
in
the
case.

Cohen
paid

Daniels
$130,000
shortly
before
the
2016
presidential
election,
in
exchange
for
her
silence
about
Trump.

When
a
prosecutor
asked
him
if
he
would
have
paid
Daniels
without
getting
a “sign-off”
from
Trump,
Cohen
said
no.

“Because
everything
required
Mr.
Trump’s
sign-off,”
said
Cohen,
who
also
said, “I
wanted
my
money
back.”

Trump
said, “Good,
good,”
when
Cohen
informed
him
he
had
paid
Daniels,
Cohen
testified.

“Don’t
worry,
you
will
get
the
money
back,”
Trump
also
said,
according
to
Cohen.

Trump’s
reimbursement
of
Cohen
for
that
payoff
while
he
was
serving
in
the
White
House
is
the
basis
for
the
Manhattan
District
Attorney’s

case
against
the
ex-president.

The
Trump
Organization
reported
the
Daniels-related
reimbursements,
which
ended
up
totaling
$420,000
over
12
months,
to
Cohen
as
legal
expenses.

But
District
Attorney
Alvin
Bragg
alleges
that
this
constituted
a
crime
—
falsification
of
business
records
—
committed
by
Trump
to
hide
the
fact
that
the
hush
money
had
protected
his
then-wobbling
presidential
candidate
at
a
key
moment.

Trump,
who
denies
having
sex
with
Daniels,
says
the
felony
charges
are
bogus.
The
presumptive
Republican
presidential
nominee
calls
them
an
effort
by
a
Democratic
prosecutor
to
damage
his
chances
to
win
the
upcoming
election
against
President

Joe
Biden.

Trump’s
lawyers
have
suggested
he
had
Cohen
pay
off
Daniels
because
he
was
worried
about
the
effect
on
his
family,
particularly
his
wife
Melania,
if
the
adult
film
actress
went
public
with
her
story
about
having
sex
with
Trump
months
after
Melania
Trump
gave
birth
to
the
couple’s
son
Barron.

Cohen
testified
that
at
one
point
during
discussions
about
the
hush
money
situation
he
asked
Trump “How
things
gonna
go
upstairs?”
a
reference
to
Melania
Trump.

Donald
Trump
replied, “Don’t
worry.
How
long
do
you
think
I’ll
be
on
the
market
for?
Not
long,”
Cohen
testified.

In
addition
to
making
the
payment
to
Daniels,
Cohen
was
closely
involved
in
the
arrangement
of
the
other
hush
money
payment
that
is
a
key
element
of
the
case,
to
Playboy
model
Karen
McDougal
by
the
publisher
of
the
National
Enquirer
in
2016
in
exchange
for
her
story
of
an
affair
with
Trump.

Cohen
testified
that
as
Trump
moved
to
announce
in
2015
that
he
would
make
a
run
for
the
White
House,
it
became
clear
that
the
married
real
estate
mogul
factored
in
his
secret
personal
life.

“Did
Mr.
Trump
express
any
concerns
about
negative
stories
about
his
personal
life?”
assistant
District
Attorney
Susan
Hoffinger
asked
Cohen,
as
Trump
sat
at
the
defense
table.

Cohen
replied, “Yes.”

“What
did
he
say?”
Hoffinger
asked.

Cohen
answered
that
Trump
said, ” ‘You
know
that
when
this
comes
out,
meaning
the
announcement,
just
be
prepared,
there’s
going
to
be
a
lot
of
women
coming
forward.’ ” 

As
Cohen
began
testifying
Monday,
telling
jurors
about
his
personal
and
professional
background,
Trump
listened
with
his
eyes
closed,
in
the
same
way
that
he
had
done
when
other
witnesses
in
the
case
took
the
stand.

“During
the
time
you
worked
there
for
Mr.
Trump,
how
often
would
you
say
you
met
with
him
or
spoke
with
him,”
Hoffinger
asked
Cohen.

Cohen
replied, “Every
single
day,
and
multiple
times
a
day.”
  

He
told
the
prosecutor
that
working
for
Trump
over
a
decade “was
an
amazing
experience
in
many
ways.”

“There
were
great
times
and
some
not
great
times,
but
for
the
most
part,
I
enjoyed
the
responsibilities
given
to
me,
I
enjoyed
my
colleagues,
the
Trump
children,”
Cohen
said,
as
Trump’s
son
Eric
Trump
stared
intently
at
him
from
the
courtroom
gallery.

“It
was
a
big
family.”

Cohen
later
detailed
how
he
used
to
encryption
app
Signal
to
communicate
with
David
Pecker,
the
then-CEO
of
American
Media,
the
publisher
of
the
National
Enquirer,
and
Pecker’s
lieutenant
Dylan
Howard.

Cohen
said
he
used
Signal
when
it “was
a
sensitive
matter
we
wanted
to
keep
private.”

He
testified
that
in
August
2015,
Trump
and
Pecker
met,
and “What
was
discussed
was
the
power
of
the
National
Enquirer
being
at
the
cash
register
of
so
many
supermarkets
and
bodegas
that
if
we
could
place
positive
stories
about
Trump
that
would
be
beneficial
and
if
we
could
place
negative
stories
about
some
of
the
other
candidates,
that
could
be
beneficial.”

Cohen
said
that
Pecker
offered
to
alert
Trump
to
any
potentially
negative
stories
about
Trump
so
that
he
could
stop
them
from
being
published.

In
June
2016,
Pecker
and
Howard
alerted
Cohen
to
the
fact
that
the
Playboy
model
McDougal
was
interested
in
selling
her
account
of
an
affair
with
Trump
to
news
outlets,
Cohen
testified.

Cohen
said
the
impact
from
McDougal
going
public
with
her
story
could
be “significant,”
and
that
he “immediately”
notified
Trump
after
hearing
from
American
Media
about
it.

“She’s
really
beautiful,”
Trump
said
of
McDougal
when
Cohen
told
him
what
Pecker
and
Howard
had
said.

“OK,
but
she’s
shopping
a
story,”
Cohen
replied,
according
to
his
testimony
Monday.

Trump
then
asked
his
fixer
to
see
that
McDougal’s
account
was
not
published,
Cohen
testified.

Cohen
then
substantiated
Pecker’s
previous
testimony
in
which
he
told
Trump
it
would
cost
$150,000
to “control”
McDougal’s
story.

“No
problem,
I’ll
take
care
of
it,”
Trump
told
Pecker,
according
to
Cohen.

But
Trump
did
not
pay
back
Pecker,
which
angered
the
publisher,
Cohen
testified.

During
one
restaurant
meeting,
Pecker
told
Cohen, “I
need
my
money
back,”
Cohen
testified.

“I
said, ‘Mr.
Trump
said
he
will
pay
you
back
and
he
will
pay
you
back,’ ”
Cohen
testified.

Cohen
said
he
later
told
Trump
he
was
concerned
about
a
file
American
Media
had
on
Trump.

“And
one
of
the
concerns
that
I
had,
that
I
expressed
to
Mr.
Trump,
was
that
if
he
[Pecker]
goes,
there’s
a
series
of
papers
there
that
relate
to
you,”
Cohen
testified.

Hoffinger
asked: “Was
Mr.
Trump
concerned
about
that?”

“Yes,”
Cohen
replied.

He
then
said
he
recorded
a
conversation
with
Trump
in
September
2016
about
buying
the
rights
to
McDougal’s
life
story.

Cohen
said
he
secretly
taped
Trump “so
I
could
show
it
to
David
Pecker,
and
that
way
he
would
hear
the
conversation,
that
he
was
going
to
be
paying
—
that
he
was
going
to
be
paying
him
back.”

“And
I
also
wanted
him
to
remain
loyal
to
Mr.
Trump,”
Cohen
testified.

The
recording
of
Cohen
and
Trump’s
conversation
was
then
played
for
jurors.

“What
I
was
doing,
I
was
doing
at
the
direction
of
and
for
the
benefit
of
Mr.
Trump,”
Cohen
said
of
his
involvement
in
getting
Amerian
Media
to
buy
McDougal’s
story.

Pecker
and
Howard
also
ran
negative
stories
in
the
Enquirer
about
Trump’s
GOP
primary
opponents,
the
senators
Ted
Cruz
and
Marco
Rubio,
and
about
Hillary
Clinton,
the
Democratic
presidential
nominee
in
2016.

“Some
of
the
negative
ones
that
I
received
from
David
or
Dylan
was
Hillary
Clinton
wearing
thick
glasses
allegations
that
she
had
a
brain
injury,
Ted
Cruz
photo
of
his
father
with
Lee
Harvey
Oswald
claiming
he
was
involved
in
the
assassination
of
JFK,
articles
about
Marco
Rubio
in
swimming
pool
with
several
men,
that
he
was
having
a
drug
binge
of
some
sort,”
Cohen
testified.

“AMI
[American
Media]
would
send
over
the
cover
story
and
I
would
show
it
to
Mr.
Trump
and
he
knew
David
was
loyal
and
on
board
and
doing
everything
that
he
said
he
would
do
at
the
August
meeting
and
he
was
actually
doing
it.”

Hoffinger
asked
Cohen
if
he
recalled
Trump’s
reaction
to
those
stories.

“That’s
fantastic,
that’
unbelievable,”
Trump
said,
according
to
Cohen.

Cohen,
who
in
the
past
has
said
he
had
a “blind
loyalty”
to
Trump
while
working
for
him,
is
expected
to
testify
for
several
days.

After
Hoffinger
finishes
her
first
round
of
questioning,
Trump’s
defense
lawyer
Todd
Blanche
will
cross-examine
Cohen.

Blanche
is
expected
to
hammer
away
at
Cohen’s
self-admitted
history
of
lying
—
often
in
the
service
of
Trump
—
and
his
federal
criminal
guilty
plea
to
tax
crimes
and
campaign
finance
violations
in
connection
with
the
Stormy
Daniels
hush
money
payment.

“He’s
a
convicted
felon.
And
he
also
is
a
convicted
perjurer.
He
is
an
admitted
liar,”
Blanche
said
in
his
opening
statement
about
Cohen
at
the
start
of
the
trial.

A
number
of
prominent
Republican
supporters
showed
up
at
court
Monday
to
support
Trump,
including
two
U.S.
senators,
J.D.
Vance
of
Ohio
and
Tommy
Tuberville
of
Alabama,
Rep.
Nicole
Malliotakis
of
New
York,
and
two
state
attorneys
general,
Steve
Marshall
of
Alabama
and
Breanna
Bird
of
Iowa.

“What’s
going
on
inside
that
courtroom
is
a
threat
to
American
democracy,”
Vance
told
reporters

On
Friday,
Blanche
asked
Judge
Juan
Merchan
to
slap
a
gag
order
on
Cohen,
who
has
been
an
outspoken
critic
of
Trump.
The
former
president
is
subject
to
a
gag
order
about
witnesses
in
the
case.

Merchan
did
not
agree
to
gag
Cohen,
but
he
did
tell
Bragg’s
prosecution
team
to
let
Cohen
know
that
the
judge
wanted
him
to
stop
making
public
statements
about
Trump
or
anything
else
in
the
case.

This
is
developing
news.
Check
back
for
updates.