As Michael D. Cohen, Donald J. Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified on Thursday about the series of steps he took to buy the silence of a porn star on his old boss’s behalf, he referred to a phone call he had made in 2016 to Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s bodyguard.
Mr. Cohen told the jury in Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan that he had known that his boss, then a presidential candidate, was with Mr. Schiller at the time and that he was calling the bodyguard to inform Mr. Trump how he planned to pay off the porn star, Stormy Daniels, to silence her account of a sexual encounter with him.
But a defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, cast doubt on Mr. Cohen’s account in a fiery line of questioning, suggesting that Mr. Cohen had fabricated that story and instead called Mr. Schiller to complain that a teenager had been mercilessly pranking him.
Mr. Blanche used a complex sequence of questions that put Mr. Cohen on the defensive about what he had testified to days earlier. And while it’s not clear what jurors may have made of the exchange, it capped a morning in which a former lawyer for Mr. Trump faced off with a current one.
Mr. Blanche first asked whether Mr. Cohen had ever mentioned to prosecutors that he had spoken to Mr. Trump on the evening he called Mr. Schiller’s phone, Oct. 24, 2016. Mr. Cohen said he was not sure.
But it seems that Mr. Cohen was receiving a series of harassing calls at the same time, and that they were beginning to agitate him. Mr. Blanche, drawing on old text messages, said that it appeared that the prankster had failed to block his or her number, and eventually confessed to Mr. Cohen that he was 14 years old. (Mr. Cohen said that he asked the prankster to put him in touch with his parents.)
Mr. Blanche then suggested that Mr. Cohen had not called Mr. Schiller to speak to Mr. Trump, but rather to complain of the harassment and see if there was anything that Mr. Schiller could do about it.
Mr. Blanche forcefully insisted that Mr. Cohen had been dishonest about the purpose of the call, as if he were hoping that Mr. Cohen would break and confess. But Mr. Cohen maintained that he had called Mr. Schiller to speak to Mr. Trump about the payoff to Ms. Daniels.
Directly accusing Mr. Cohen of lying, Mr. Blanche said, “You can admit it.”
“No sir, I can’t,” Mr. Cohen responded.
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