Trump on trial: What to know as case moves toward pivotal witness

This week porn star Stormy Daniels provided some of the most explosive testimony yet in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial in a Manhattan courtroom.

Under oath, and in front of a jury, Ms. Daniels described in vivid detail her alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump during a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006 – something the former president has publicly denied ever occurred.

But for all the drama of her testimony and cross-examination by Trump attorneys, Ms. Daniels was something of a preliminary witness. 

The trial is now barreling toward what may be the most confrontational and legally important moment yet: the appearance of former Trump personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen on the stand.

Mr. Cohen almost certainly will be the only witness to testify that Mr. Trump personally told him to make a payoff to keep Ms. Daniels quiet – and that the reason for the payment was to hide her story from voters. His narrative links all the elements of the prosecution’s case together.

But Mr. Cohen – as others have already testified – can be an abrasive and difficult witness. He has a recent criminal past, including convictions on campaign finance abuses, tax evasion, and other charges.

He is both crucial to the prosecution and a target for the defense. The legal struggle to define him and frame his story for the jury could well determine the trial’s outcome.

“I submit to you that he cannot be trusted,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said of Mr. Cohen in the defense’s opening statement for the trial.

“You will need to keep an open mind” about Mr. Cohen, said prosecutor Matthew Colangelo in his opening. “Keep in mind all the evidence that corroborates Mr. Cohen’s testimony.”

What did Stormy Daniels say?

Over two days of testimony, Ms. Daniels talked about her childhood and love of horses. In high school, she was editor of the yearbook and hoped to be a veterinarian. But she discovered that stripping paid more than shoveling manure, and veered into acting in explicit movies, and then into producing and directing adult entertainment.

She was chatty, even funny. She said that after Mr. Trump had invited her to dinner at the Tahoe tournament, her publicist told her to go, adding, “what could possibly go wrong?” At that, the trial overflow audience room burst into laughter.

Her descriptions were also detailed. She remembered that when she used the bathroom at Mr. Trump’s hotel suite, the shampoo in his toilet kit was not just Pert, but Pert Plus.

Her speech might actually have been too loquacious. The defense objected to prurient details as prejudicial, and Judge Juan Merchan scolded her at least twice, telling her to stick to the questions asked and not meander down verbal alleyways.

On cross-examination, Trump attorney Susan Necheles chipped away at some of her story, trying to portray her as a greedy fabulist. Ms. Daniels bristled at the charges, and their exchanges turned tense. When Ms. Necheles charged that the porn star was “looking to extort money” during negotiations over her hush money payment in 2016, Ms. Daniels had had enough. She loudly responded: “False!”

On Thursday morning Ms. Necheles continued along the same lines in a fiery wrap-up of her questioning. At one point, she directly accused Ms. Daniels of lying just to make money. “You made all this up, right?” the Trump attorney asked.

“No,” Ms. Daniels replied.

Was Stormy Daniels’ story important?

Ms. Daniels’ allegations about her affair with Mr. Trump – which, again, he has denied – are the animating force behind the first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history. In that sense, they are very important.

In a legal context, her words gave the jury a sense of why Mr. Trump might have been motivated to strike a deal to keep her silent, and of the stakes for him of not doing so only weeks prior to the 2016 presidential vote. Plus, she testified to the effectiveness of the alleged cover-up, saying that she would have spoken out had Mr. Cohen not paid her $130,000 before the election.

But it is not illegal to pay hush money per se, or to cheat on one’s wife. Mr. Trump instead is being charged with falsifying business records to achieve a criminal end. In that sense, the more important witness, or witnesses, was the documents described in Monday’s testimony by Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization’s longtime controller.

Perhaps the most important of these were People’s Exhibits Nos. 35 and 36. These were a sheet of notebook paper and a bank document that contained contemporaneous, handwritten notes from Mr. McConney and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg that detailed monthly payments to Michael Cohen.

“Yep, it’s the one with my chicken scratch on a Trump pad, yes,” said Mr. McConney cheerfully when identifying one of the papers, according to the trial transcript.

The notes said that Mr. Cohen would be paid back $130,000 – the amount of the hush money, though that’s not directly noted on the papers – plus another $50,000 expenditure he had made on behalf of the organization. On top of that, he would get a $60,000 bonus, and the whole thing would be doubled to account for taxes. That worked out to about $35,000 a month.

The notes said nothing about the sum being a payment for legal services, as they were described in Trump Organization books.

Asked by prosecutors if he had ever seen another expense reimbursement doubled to account for taxes, Mr. McConney said, “No.” He added that he had never seen the legal retainer the payments were allegedly fulfilling.

Why is Michael Cohen’s testimony key?

The one very crucial thing prosecutors have yet to establish is that Mr. Trump knew about the alleged hush money scheme and directed it. That is what they hope Mr. Cohen will establish in the eyes of the jury.

To this point, the prosecution case has focused on piling up circumstantial evidence that bolsters what they expect Mr. Cohen to say. On Tuesday, for instance, prosecutors called Penguin Random House executive Sally Franklin to the witness stand. She read excerpts from some of Mr. Trump’s management books in which he described the importance of being a detail-oriented, hands-on executive. 

“I always sign my checks, so I know where my money’s going. In the same spirit, I also always try to read my bills to make sure I’m not being over-charged,” read one.

The message there, according to the prosecution, is that Mr. Trump had to know about the $35,000 a month he was paying Mr. Cohen, much of it with checks he personally signed in the White House.

The checks reached Mr. Trump outside the normal flow of White House paper. The Trump Organization sent them to the homes of two of the then-president’s personal White House aides, who then delivered them to the Oval Office for a signature, per Thursday’s testimony.

Mr. Cohen, however, promises to be a witness who could be a challenge for the prosecution as well as defense. He has pointedly and abrasively attacked Mr. Trump on social media. He has made no secret of his desire to avenge himself for the wrongs he believes the former president has done him in the past. During cross-examination, the defense is sure to challenge him as a convicted perjurer. Why should his words now be believed?

The prosecution has been secretive about the order and timing of its witnesses. Mr. Cohen could appear as soon as Friday – or days later. Prosecutors have said they are more than halfway through their witness list.

When he does testify, the tension in the courtroom will be the highest the trial is likely to experience – unless Mr. Trump, against the almost certain advice of his lawyers, decides that in the end he needs to testify for his own defense.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include witness testimony on Thursday, May 9.