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Cohen Testifies He Called Trump Moments Before Making Hush Money Payment Because He "Required Sign-Off, And I Wanted My Money Back"; Cohen Testifies He "Immediately" Notified Trump When Payment Was Made. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired May 13, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:01:27]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to our special coverage of former President Trump's hush money criminal trial. Right now, Trump's former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, remains on the witness stand. He's been describing how in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, he was doing everything he could to protect his boss, Donald Trump. How he tried to delay the $130,000 payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels until after the presidential election and how he eventually fronted the payment to Daniels through a home equity line of credit. Laura?

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: We're right to the heart of the matter here, Wolf, and that is exactly right. I mean, Cohen has recounted his conversation with Trump about ultimately paying for these deals. He testified, quote, "'There's no reason to keep this thing out there, so do it.' He expressed to me, 'Just do it. Meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure this whole thing out.'"

With me now is CNN's Paula Reid and CNN's Kristen Holmes. We have an update as well. Cohen saying that he immediately let Trump know that he had signed the agreement and had it from Daniels in fact. This is important here because, of course, we know that there has been at the very beginning of testimony today, there had been a conversation about how he sought out the approval and also the confirmation that he was doing the right thing from Donald Trump, who assigned tasks that he had to follow up with them. He knew that if he didn't follow up with them and give him progress on things, it was an unpleasant response that was given.

He also says, one, he said he would know the matter, the task he gave to me was finished, accomplished, done. That goes back to this morning, doesn't it, Paula, about how he says, look, hey, I was assigned things all the time, and therefore, I knew I was doing the right thing by following up.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And it speaks to how he has described Trump as a micromanager, as many other witnesses have. He was involved in everything. Nothing happened without Trump's knowledge and without Trump's approval. And speaking of approval, Cohen also wanted credit for the fact that he had taken care of a problem. Now, this all goes to the prosecutor's case that Trump was completely in the loop on exactly what was going on here. But I also want to go back to the testimony of Jeff McConney, one of the top Trump Organization accounting officials who's testified in this case.

He testified, yes, Trump was a micromanager. His fingers were in everything until 2017, until he went to the White House. Then two things happened. He was the leader of the free world, so he was a little distracted. And two, Trump's defense attorneys are going to argue that they tried to put up this wall between the Trump Organization and Trump because there was so much scrutiny over whether he was profiting from the White House.

So this is all good for prosecutors, but they're going to have to get around that as well. So again, Cohen's saying here he kept Trump in the loop because he wanted credit for the fact that the task was done.

COATES: Yes, it's important to all showing agreement between the David Dennison and Peggy, of course, Peterson Peggy. This is the pseudonyms that were used by both people ...

REID: For Donald Trump.

COATES: But I mean, when you're talking about this role and the structure, Paula makes the point, of course, and all of these 35 - 34 records are all dated after the inauguration. So it's a different Trump world, essentially, a Trump Organization, which his sons were then heading up.

Allen Weisselberg, though, he was still there. He was still a part of it. And we know that Trump's name was nowhere on the agreement and he did not sign it. So even if he had been in the Oval Office at different times, later on, it seems very clear that he did not want the fingerprints.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's true. And Madeleine Westerhout was saying that even though all these checks were coming in, she could not say exactly that he knew every single thing that he was sometimes signing checks when he was on the phone, sometimes during meetings with other people.

[15:05:03]

There are a lot of gaps, I would say, in terms of what the defense is trying to do, which is to say he didn't know exactly what he was paying. But I do want to go back to this part about Allen Weisselberg, because going through Michael Cohen's testimony, one of the things he says is that it was Allen Weisselberg's idea, could we possibly pay this money through a Gulf membership or through a donation or a gift for a bat mitzvah. Then he says Allen Weisselberg ultimately settled on the idea that I should front the money and then we should go past this.

That, again, rises to the level of why is Allen Weisselberg not here when it seems to be Michael Cohen is testifying that there are three people who knew exactly what was going on. One of them, according to Cohen's testimony, was really driving some of the ideas behind this. But again, we know he is currently sitting in jail, not testifying in this case.

COATES: But just because someone's in jail, which is connected to the system, you can still bring them to testify.

HOLMES: Right.

COATES: We have an update here. Cohen said he initialed EC in the signature block for the essential consultant's area there. But Paula, the fact that he is at Rikers until July, and it's not as big of an issue as it would be, maybe people might think about this, is that he likely would not be, not only not a cooperator, but a cooperative witness.

REID: Yes. I mean, the man's gone to Rikers twice to protect Donald Trump. There was an expectation, prosecutors have said, that if he did take the stand, he would plead the fifth and that there wouldn't be a lot of value in that and ...

COATES: And you can't bring him there just to do that, either.

REID: Exactly, yeah.

COATES: You can't just say, I call him and have him testify the fifth.

REID: Exactly. And it's just unclear that he was actually going to offer them anything of value, which is why he hasn't been on the witness list. And defense attorneys said, look, he's not on the list. We don't expect that he's going to be called. They're not going to call him because they don't have the burden of proof, so this is really a gift for the defense.

But at some point, they will have to explain to the jury why they didn't call him. And today, the judge said he would not allow prosecutors to bring in Allen Weisselberg's severance agreement, which lays out the terms that he had to agree to in order to get millions of dollars from the Trump Organization, including not willingly participating in any adversarial proceedings like this.

So it's a complicated situation for prosecutors. Like, what do you do with a witness like Allen Weisselberg? But there are three people allegedly involved in this conspiracy. One's the defendant, one's in Rikers and one is Michael Cohen, which is why this testimony and how they handle it, how he establishes credibility and potentially how the defense undercuts it, really will decide this case. And,

COATES: Wolf, the judge was clear this morning on that very point that you could not bring in that agreement that Weisselberg had signed just for the purpose of showing that he was not available. That can't cut it for the actual jurors. It would not move the needle, according to the judge. Paula, Kristen, stand by. Wolf?

BLITZER: Laura, thank you very much.

And only moments ago, Michael Cohen described setting up the company that would be used to pay Stormy Daniels. Just one day later, he testified about appearing with me in THE SITUATION ROOM, our show here on CNN, and said he was acting as a surrogate for then-candidate Donald Trump.

I remember that interview with Cohen. I remember it well. The Access Hollywood tape had recently been made public, and multiple women had begun to come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump. Much of our conversation was centered around Trump's behavior toward the treatment of women. The accusations clearly having an impact on the presidential election only days away. Here's part of our conversation in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, FMR. PERSONAL ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: To be honest I have never ...

BLITZER: Have you ever heard him - have you ever had locker room talk, boy talk, as Melania Trump called it yesterday, with him along those lines?

COHEN: Wolf, I have never heard Mr. Trump say anything even remotely close to the statements that I heard. When I first heard that there was a tape that was going to be coming out, I said it's got to be fake because - and I spend thousands of hours with Mr. Trump a year. And I can tell you I have never heard him say anything, anything even close to that.

In honesty - truthfully, Mr. Trump actually respects women very, very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We now know that behind the scenes, Donald Trump and Michael Cohen were allegedly embroiled in a hush money scheme at that moment to buy Stormy Daniels' silence.

Our panel of experts is back with us right now. Elie, what do you think?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, so that is an example of pre-Michael Cohen, of the old Michael Cohen. This is what prosecutors will say. This is the Michael Cohen who will tell you, members of the jury, that he used to lie for Donald Trump. He used to do whatever was necessary to protect Donald Trump.

Prosecutors are going to say, look at this guy. Here he is lying to Wolf Blitzer's face, lying to the face of the American public. Can you trust him now? Can you put a verdict on this guy's word? But there's going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of Michael Cohen on tape, on camera, saying things back then that we now know are lies. The question is, is the jury going to be on board with this narrative that, well, when he flipped, he made a clean break, and now he's a truth teller.

BLITZER: Because you heard him say, Michael Cohen, that Trump actually respects women very, very much.

[15:10:03]

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: There's a reason why prosecutors painstakingly, with every question they've asked Michael Cohen, have been asking him questions in the context of evidence that has come up previously in the trial, in the context of phone messages, in the context of conversations with the banker, Gary Farrow, who testified last week. And what they've done is, in effect, pre-corroborate his testimony. For the reasons that we're talking about here, there's some credibility issues, memory issues and all of the above. And they're trying to use Michael - trying to make his testimony as airtight as possible.

Something that was said a few moments ago - these updates are coming very quickly, but one was, I take credit for myself. I had to let Mr. Trump know that I'd done this. It was important that he knew that the task that he gave to me was finished. This - he's establishing his conversations with Donald Trump, how - and the prosecutors are trying to make sure that it's as airtight as possible.

BLITZER: Yes. And he testified this, Elie, let me get your reaction. I wanted to ensure that, once again, he approved what I was doing, because I require approval from him on all of this. Everything required Mr. Trump's sign-off.

HONIG: Yes. So I think Michael Cohen has explained to the jury, he had two worries, two motivations there. One is, he didn't want to tick off the boss. You don't want to go and do something that the boss doesn't approve of. And two, he's worried about whether he's going to get his money back.

I mean, Michael Cohen said the very first thing, one of the first things he ever did for Donald Trump was basically try to reduce the amount of money that Donald Trump would pay to vendors. So that part of testimony, I think, will ring true with the jury.

The key is, again, is the jury comfortable taking Michael Cohen at his word about the nature of those conversations? But frankly, it makes sense in the context of all the other testimony that we've heard.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, talk about leading a double life.

HONIG: Yes.

BORGER: I mean, here he is on CNN talking to Wolf Blitzer about the Access Hollywood tape and saying, I've never heard Mr. Trump say anything like that, and he respects women, et cetera, et cetera. Meantime, in the real world, he is negotiating this payment for Stormy Daniels and trying to come up with the $130,000 that he needs to keep her quiet and to get rid of her story.

At the same time, he's appearing on TV saying, Mr. Trump would never do anything like that. And by the way, at the same time, women, and you remember this, Jeff, are coming out of the woodwork saying, I had encounters with Donald Trump that were - that was similar to this.

And so he's like - he's playing whack-a-mole here.

WILLIAMS: (INAUDIBLE) ...

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORREPONDENT: And I think an interesting thing this afternoon also, just to - like think of in the room, Donald Trump is watching all of this.

BORGER: yes.

ZELENY: And our reporters in the room say he's nodding, and he's looking directly at Michael Cohen as they are talking about this very important period. But when you step back, it's easy to get sort of lost in the forest for the trees of this here.

But one, he has linked Donald Trump directly to the payments. And two, he said that the former president was worried about the election, about this causing him issues among female voters. So I think as of now, those are pretty big headlines.

WILLIAMS: And Jeff, that's a really important point that you make there, because of this whole idea that there are two different Michael Cohens, one where he might be lying and one where he might be telling the truth.

Well, one of the stories is fully corroborated in the form of this evidence that we've been talking about with the checks and the financial records and other witnesses' testimony. Now, again, the defense will certainly confront him with the fact that his story appears to have changed, as we saw in that video quite spectacularly, talking to Wolf a few years ago. But still, half of the narrative is fully corroborated. It'll be interesting to see what they do with it.

HONIG: To that end, watch the defense team make this argument. They're going to show a clip like the one of Donald Trump talking to you, Wolf, and they're going to say, look how smoothly, and easily, and casually he just lies right to the face of CNN or Wolf Blitzer. Look how easily he does this, right? He doesn't even blink. He's pretty convincing, if you just watch that clip. And they're going to say, this guy's a sneaky operator. And you're going to trust him now when he was just so easy about lying back then? That'll be a line of cross as well.

BORGER: So he's lying. They're going to say, so he's lying here to you in court. But then, of course, you have the Pecker testimony and the Davidson testimony ...

HONIG: Yes, exactly.

BORGER: ... which corroborates what Michael Cohen is saying, so that's the question about who they believe.

HONIG: That'll be exactly the back and forth.

BORGER: Yes. HONIG: The defense team will say, how can you trust this guy? Prosecutors will go, trust him because of the corroboration.

BLITZER: Well, it's not a crime to lie to a television reporter.

HONIG: Not yet.

BLITZER: It is a crime to lie under oath during testimony.

BORGER: Yes. Did you put him under oath?

BLITZER: No, he was not under oath.

BORGER: Okay.

BLITZER: All right, guys, everybody stand by. Just ahead, we'll have more from inside that New York courtroom as one of Donald Trump's one- time closest confidants testifies against him as our special coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:19:15]

COATES: Welcome back to our special live coverage of the hush money criminal trial of former President Donald Trump. It's another dramatic day in court, to say the least, as the prosecution's star witness, the former Trump so-called fixer, Michael Cohen is being questioned on the witness stand. Right now, prosecutors are zeroing in on the flurry of activities surrounding the payment to Stormy Daniels at the core of all the falsified business records charges. Now, when asked if he would have gone forward without Trump's approval, Cohen simply said no.

Joining us now is former federal judge, John E. Jones III. Now, from a judge's perspective, I'm glad that you're here right now to help us unpack what's going on. So what have you made of what Michael Cohen has said this far? Does it ring credible to you?

[15:20:03]

JOHN E. JONES III, FORMER CHIEF JUDGE: It rings credible, but I think, Laura, the larger point, and you know this as an attorney, is that when the prosecution rests, they will very quickly - the judge will hear motions, counsel will engage on that and, of course, the defense will move for a judgment of acquittal, which they can do.

And I read a pundit this morning, Jonathan Turley, speculating that the judge ought to direct a verdict. That went out the window this morning. There's plenty of evidence by which the jury could convict, which, as you know, is the standard on that. So he's been good enough, based on everything that I've seen, to carry the prosecution's case, that is if the jury believes him.

COATES: Let's unpack that a little bit for the audience. Because at the end of the presentation of this case-in-chief, the prosecution's case, which they have the burden, the defense never has to even call a single witness. But they do, as a defense, have the ability to say, listen, they didn't connect the dots. Here were the elements of the crime, intended to fraud or intent to carve another crime, to falsify business records, to cover another crime, et cetera.

If they don't feel they've proven that, they could go to the judge and say, Your Honor, they didn't do enough here. We need not continue to even a jury. Before this morning, you're saying, with Michael Cohen's testimony, they could have entertained that motion. But now, perhaps that should be sealed.

JONES: Well, as you know, Laura, they'll make the motion notwithstanding anything that I say or you say or anybody else. But I think it's going to be a quick denial of the motion at this point. What they had prior to Cohen's testimony this morning was circumstantial evidence, I think.

Now, he's been, as one of your panelists said, pre-corroborated and that means something. And so, if the standard is, which it is, is there sufficiently credible evidence by which the jury could convict. I can't imagine that Justice Merchan would, under any circumstances, grant a motion for a directed verdict or of acquittal.

And as you know, Laura, if he would grant that, it has a preclusive effect. Jeopardy attaches, and that means that the former president couldn't be retried. So it's a very significant moment in the trial or not, as the case may be, if the presiding judge denies the motion.

COATES: It's as significant, of course, as a motion to dismiss, right? They know that - he's already said, no, I'm not going to do that very notion. But it strikes me that the instructions that a jury is going to get, whether it's at the conclusion of the trial for the full jury verdict instructions, or it's the limiting instructions we've already heard so far.

Part of which we heard a little bit earlier today with the judge on his own said, listen, I haven't heard anyone ask for this instruction yet, but I want to tell the jury that the recording that they've heard is going to be treated not as the evidence, but it can be considered as part of something larger.

Unpack for us why the judge wanted to have an instruction like that to the jury and why it's so important.

JONES: Well, because transcriptions can be inaccurate. And so it's what the jurors hear themselves that is in evidence, and there'll be a fight over different words that were uttered during the tape. Some of them are less clear than others. So the transcription is a person's interpretation. They don't use AI necessarily to transcribe, so there's human error and frailties, and you may argue over a word.

So the - it's what the jurors actually heard that controls and not necessarily what they read, which is kind of an aid as they go through the testimony.

COATES: That's what you said, it'll be an aid for you all, but not necessarily used to replace what you're thinking about.

JONES: Right.

COATES: Is there any world here, Your Honor, where a judge would not give a circumstantial evidence instruction? I mean, that's going to be something very important as well, even without this testimony, you routinely will tell a jury they can use their common sense and some aspects of that which is not directly said by the defendant, right?

JONES: Absolutely. Oh, he'll give the circumstantial evidence charge. And you know, Laura, when I would send a jury back to deliberate, one of the things I would say to them in my charge, albeit in federal court, was you don't check your good common sense and judgment when you go into the jury room and start to deliberate.

And I am sure that Justice Merchan will give a similar charge to the jury. I mean, they're going to patch this together as best they can. This case is like a mosaic coming together. Now, they may find that Michael Cohen is not credible, but that remains to be seen.

[15:25:02]

That's within the purview, as you know, of the finder of fact and that's the jury in this case.

COATES: Yes. They have within their powers to decide whether someone's credible or not, who they believe and don't believe in them. It's a gut check and they can't check their common sense, the door, Your Honor, and their body language, reading expertise that every human being who's had a conversation will try to use as well. Judge John Jones, thank you for joining us.

JONES: That's exactly right. Thanks, Laura. Great to be here.

COATES: Thank you. Well, this is - thank you - this just in, the prosecution says that it expects to question star witness Michael Cohen into tomorrow. If you thought this would be a one-day affair, well, you are mistaken. Much more on his testimony in the criminal trial of his former boss, Donald Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)