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New York (AFP) – Donald Trump is expected to attend his New York civil fraud trial on Tuesday to face off with his former lawyer and confidant Michael Cohen.
Issued on: Modified:
2 min
Cohen, who has become one of the former president’s most vocal critics, had planned to testify at the trial last week but had to delay his appearance for health reasons.
Trump is not required to attend the proceedings, but he has showed up sporadically and used his appearances to portray himself as the victim of a Democratic Party plot to interfere with his 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump and his two eldest sons are accused of vastly inflating the value of the Trump Organization’s real estate assets to receive more favorable bank loans and insurance terms.
The former president does not risk going to jail in the fraud trial, but New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, is seeking $250 million in penalties and the removal of him and his sons from management of the family empire.
Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer for years, earning him the nickname “The Pitbull,” has been taunting the former president on X, formerly Twitter, ahead of his testimony.
“It appears that I will be reunited with my old client @realDonaldTrump when I testify,” he said. “See you there!”
“I will continue to speak truth to power… no matter Donald’s continued smear and harassment campaign against me,” he added.
It was Cohen’s testimony before Congress in 2019 that sparked the investigation by the New York authorities into whether Trump artificially inflated his net worth.
Hush money case
Cohen is also expected to be a star witness in a criminal case facing the former president in New York for allegedly paying election-eve hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the payment. He has pleaded not guilty.
Cohen says he arranged the $130,000 payment in exchange for Daniels’ silence about a tryst she says she had with Trump in 2006.
Cohen was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison for crimes including the hush-money case and tax evasion, but was released after a little over a year and served the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.
Trump’s defense lawyers are expected to attack Cohen’s credibility during his testimony in the civil fraud trial by bringing up his criminal record.
Earlier this month, Trump withdrew a lawsuit he filed against Cohen in April seeking $500 million for alleged breach of attorney-client privilege and a confidentiality agreement.
No reason was given for Trump dropping the suit, but Cohen, 57, noted that it came just days before the former president was scheduled to sit for a deposition.
The civil fraud and hush money cases are just two of several legal battles facing Trump as he seeks to recapture the White House in 2024.
He is to go on trial in Washington in March for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and in Florida in May on charges of mishandling top secret government documents.
The 77-year-old Trump also faces racketeering charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to upend the election results in the southern state.
© 2023 AFP
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