Damning emails reveal pressure campaign on Michael Cohen from Trump’s inner circle: ‘He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet’

Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial were shown a series of damning emails that appear to show Rudy Giuliani-linked attorney Robert Costello pressuring Michael Cohen to stay loyal to the former president while the one-time “fixer” was under federal investigation.

In April 2018, Cohen’s office and home were raided by the FBI and his cellphones and documents seized in connection to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Following the raid, Mr Costello suggested that Cohen should retain him as counsel, in what Cohen previously testified was part of a “pressure campaign” to keep him close to Mr Trump and prevent him from “flipping” against him.

On Tuesday, Mr Costello returned to the stand as Mr Trump’s final defense witness – and the historic trial’s final witness – just hours after he had been nearly tossed off the witness stand altogether for rolling his eyes at the judge.

Under cross-examination from the prosecution, Mr Costello was confronted with emails where he had called on Cohen to “get on the same page” and reminded him that he has “friends in high places.”

On May 2018, Mr Costello emailed his partner saying: “Our issue is to get Cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following instructions from Giuliani or the President.”

One month later on 22 June 2018 – two months before Cohen reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors – Mr Costello emailed an associate to complain that Cohen “continues to slow play us and the president.”

“Is he totally nuts?” Mr Costello wrote. “What should I say to this a******? He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet.”

“That email certainly speaks for itself, doesn’t it, Mr