Former President Donald Trump’s legal team said Thursday that disgraced former lawyer Michael Cohen lied about an October 2016 phone call he claimed was about a payment to Stormy Daniels, according to a report. denounced.
During Cohen’s cross-examination at Trump’s business records trial, Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, reportedly said that after 8 p.m. that fall, he had written to Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller. Mr. Cohen reportedly confronted him about the phone call he made.of hill Note Mr. Cohen claimed that he spoke by phone with Mr. Trump about the payment to Mr. Daniels. Blanche appeared to suggest that she contacted Schiller about harassing phone calls from teenage pranksters.
of new york times report “It’s ridiculous that Michael Cohen could have reported the prank to Keith Schiller and at the same time told Trump about hush money payments,” Blanche said.
President Trump’s lawyer Blanche: “We’ll show this to the jury, but we won’t show it to the court.”
Judge Marchan: You can do that.
Prosecutor: There are numbers on it.
Blanche: I’m not coming to court… At 8:14 p.m., you texted the number that was harassing Keith Schiller.
Cohen: Yes.— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
Matthew Russell Lee, Inner City Press report The call lasted less than two minutes and the details of the exchange were as follows:
Blanche set her clock back 15 minutes. He either acknowledged or reminded Cohen, depending on how you look at it. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but he got Cohen to say that he had been receiving harassing calls for three days and that the harasser had finally forgotten to block his number.
Cohen texted that he would turn the number over to the Secret Service. He said he knew or was told it was a 14-year-old child. He then sent a text message to Keith Schiller asking him to act on it.
Lee’s tweet said the calls were made in between text messages about harassing phone calls from Cohen to Schiller.first text was The second time at 7:48 p.m. was At 8:14 p.m., Caitlin Richardson of the Daily Caller reported from court that Schiller “left a voicemail at 8:01 p.m.” and “sent a text message” at 8:02 p.m. He reported that he had followed up. The disgraced former lawyer then called Mr. Schiller at 8:02.
Blanche: You didn’t talk to President Trump that night. You talked to Keith Schiller.
Cohen: I don’t know if that’s accurate.
Blanche: Are you saying you’re not sure if that’s accurate?
COHEN: I think I also spoke to Mr. Trump.
— Katelyn Richardson (@katesrichardson) May 16, 2024
“You lied about this. You said you didn’t remember the harassing call, but now you claim you talked about your harasser and Stormy Daniels in a 1 minute, 36 second call. “I’m doing it,” Branch said, according to Lee.
Trump’s Lawyer Blanche: You’re lying.
COHEN: I think I talked about both, according to the record.
Blanche: We’re not looking for your beliefs.This jury doesn’t want to hear what you think happened.
Prosecutor: Objection!
Judge Marchan: I agree.— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
President Trump’s lawyer Blanche: People’s Chart omitted your message with Keith Schiller – do you claim you were telling the truth on Tuesday?
Cohen: Based on documents.
Blanche: So you were testifying based on documents that people gave me, not your own recollection?— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) May 16, 2024
Cohen, whose cross-examination focused on Tuesday’s trial and the TikTok stream about Trump, argued that the call could have been about both Daniels and the 14-year-old harasser.
