Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen to face cross-examination | AP News

Donald Trump‘s fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen returns to the stand Tuesday as the prosecution’s star witness and awaits a bruising round of questioning from Trump’s lawyers.

A day earlier the Trump fixer-turned-foe delivered matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial. Cohen provided jurors with an insider’s account of payments to silence women’s claims of sexual encounters with Trump.

Donald Trump was intimately involved with all aspects of a scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen said Monday.

In hours of highly anticipated testimony, Cohen placed Trump at the center of the hush money plot, saying the then-candidate had promised to reimburse the lawyer for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

The events at the center of former President Donald Trump’s hush money case date back almost two decades, with new dates coming to light as the trial plays out in a Manhattan courtroom.

Here are the key moments in the case so far, as described in trial testimony and court documents.

With Donald Trump barred from publicly attacking the key witness in his hush money trial, his campaign brought to court a band of Republican elected officials to speak for him.

Trump, who is balancing the demands of a felony trial with his third run for the White House, has been prohibited by a judge’s gag order from criticizing witnesses and already fined for violating the restrictions.

Bringing allies to court allowed Trump’s campaign to press his message without violating the gag order. It also gave those allies a high-profile platform to demonstrate loyalty to their party’s presumptive nominee and perhaps audition for higher office.

Once Donald Trump’s loyal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen provided jurors with an insider’s account of payments to silence women’s claims of sexual encounters with Trump, saying the payments were directed by Trump to fend off damage to his 2016 White House bid.

While prosecutors’ most important witness, he’s also their most vulnerable to attack — having served time in federal prison and built his persona in recent years around being a thorn in Trump’s side.

Here are some takeaways from Cohen’s testimony so far.

Donald Trump‘s fixer-turned-foe awaits a bruising round of questioning from the former president’s lawyers on Tuesday after testimony that linked the celebrity client to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign.

Michael Cohen returns to the stand Tuesday as the prosecution’s star witness, where a day earlier he delivered matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial. He said, for instance, that Trump had promised to reimburse the money he fronted for the payments and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” Cohen said.