Cohen Day 2: It’s Trump’s Lawyers’ Turn

It was — and remains — the ultimate litmus test for anyone in the orbit of Donald Trump: Are you loyal, or not?

The question percolated through today’s testimony by Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, whose second day on the stand also featured a furious pushback from defense lawyers. They painted Cohen as a liar and an opportunist obsessed with Trump — and bent on seeing him convicted.

The day was split: Cohen was on the stand for prosecutors before lunch, and in the afternoon faced a barrage of aggressive questions as cross-examination began.

Cohen said he abandoned his affiliation with the former president in the months after federal agents raided his house and office in April 2018, during Trump’s second year in the White House.

The raid partly involved Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, to silence her account of a sexual encounter with Trump, the same event that precipitated the charges the former president is facing in a Manhattan courtroom. There, often glum, Trump has watched a procession of former employees and confidants take the stand as witnesses for the prosecution.