"Here are some of the lies, deceptions and misleading statements Cohen copped to on the witness stand:
Cohen testified that he lied to Congress about the ex-president’s role in the aborted project to build a Trump Tower in Moscow to corroborate Trump’s public messaging “that there was no Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Cohen told the jury he used the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur as an excuse to push off paying Daniels in an Oct. 12, 2016 email to her lawyer — all because Trump was allegedly hoping to delay the payment past the election, and eventually stiff Daniels when her one-night-stand story would no longer be relevant.
Cohen said he opened up a First Republic Bank account under false pretenses, describing the LLC the account was for as a management consulting company, rather than labeling it for its true purpose — an account “to pay off an adult film star for a nondisclosure agreement.”
Cohen testified that he used a home equity loan to pay Daniels to avoid leaving a paper trail and to avoid angering his wife.
Cohen described the nondisclosure agreement he helped Trump and Daniels reach in which the duo’s identities were masked with aliases — Trump was “David Dennison” in the document and Daniels was “Peggy Peterson.” While Daniels’ lawyer came up with the idea to mask their identities with aliases, Cohen went along with it.
Cohen said he fibbed on invoices he billed to the Trump Organization to get reimbursed for his payment to Daniels by labeling the $35,000 monthly fees as part of his retainer agreement.
Cohen testified that his law firm in 2018 drafted a “misleading” letter to the Federal Election Commission, claiming that neither Trump Org. nor the Trump campaign were a party to the Daniels’ agreement. The letter “omitted” that it was the Donald J Trump revocable trust that reimbursed Cohen.
Cohen claimed he secretly recorded Trump while they were discussing plans to have then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker “catch-and-kill” Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal’s story that she had a month-long affair with Trump, by having her paid $150,000. In the recording, Trump allegedly said, “So, what do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Cohen said he made the surreptitious recording to assure Pecker they were good for the money."
