Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen poised to take the stand | AP News

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, is expected to take the witness stand on Monday in the former president’s hush money trial and offer jurors an insider’s view of the dealings at the heart of the case.

Cohen is by far the most important witness in the case and his expected appearance in court signals that the trial is entering its final stretch.

In criminal trials, many witnesses come to the stand with their own criminal records, relationships with defendants, prior contradictory statements or something else that could affect their credibility.

Cohen has a particular set of baggage.

In testimony, he will need to explain his prior disavowals of key aspects of the hush money arrangements and to convince jurors that this time he is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The alleged sexual encounter at the center of Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial got a graphic airing in court this past week as porn actor Stormy Daniels shared her account.

Daniels’ testimony about her time with Trump was by far the most awaited moment of the trial thus far, which now enters its fourth week of witnesses.

But it wasn’t all salaciousness.

▶ Here’s a look at what happened last week.

Sandwiched between his appearances in court, Donald Trump headed on Saturday to the Jersey Shore, where he repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden for the criminal charges he’s facing as the presumptive nominees prepare to face off in the November election and called his New York hush money case “a Biden show trial.”

Blasting the Democratic president “a total moron,” Trump before a crowd of tens of thousands repeatedly characterized the cases against him as politically motivated and timed to harm his ability to campaign.

“He’s a fool. He’s not a smart man,” Trump said of Biden. “I talk about him differently now because now the gloves are off.”

He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors’ biggest piece of legal ammunition in the former president’s hush money trial.

But if Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is poised to offer jurors this week an insider’s view of the dealings at the heart of prosecutors’ case, he also is as challenging a star witness as they come.

Cohen can address the jury as someone who has reckoned frankly with his own misdeeds and paid for them with his liberty. But jurors likely also will learn that the now-disbarred lawyer has not only pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and a bank, but recently asserted, under oath, that he wasn’t truthful even in admitting to some of those falsehoods.

The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump’s hush money trial will take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case and his expected appearance signals that the trial is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they may wrap up their presentation of evidence by the end of the week.