Trump trial full coverage: Michael Cohen faces cross-examination on 2nd day of testimony

Judge Juan Merchan sent the jury home for the day. The trial will be dark on Wednesday and will resume on Thursday, May 16, according to the Washington Post.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche read a quote from Cohen's book Disloyal, in which he wrote that what he desires in life is “power, the good life, public acclaim, big deals, fast cars, private planes, the excess and the glamour and zest for life.” Per the New York Times, Cohen confirmed that those were his words.

“Is it fair to say you are motivated by fame?” Blanche asked Cohen, according to CNN.

“No, sir. I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Cohen replied. When asked if he was motivated by publicity, Cohen repeated that that was not fair to say, but said instead that he is “motivated by many things.”

Judge Juan Merchan has returned to the bench, and the defense's cross-examination of Cohen continues into the final stretch of day 17.

While Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche conducted his cross-examination of Cohen, Trump appeared to be snoozing for several minutes and had to be roused awake by lawyer Susan Necheles, per reporters in the room.

Politico described Trump as “motionless, his head hanging down.”

CNN said his eyes were closed, with his chin on his chest.

Necheles reportedly stared at Trump for a few seconds and tried getting his attention before moving into a seat next to Trump. She then whispered in his ear and went back to her seat, CNN reported.

Since the trial is not being televised and news photographers are only permitted 45 seconds to take still photos prior to the start of each day, the only images from inside the courtroom during Michael Cohen's testimony are portraits by sketch artists.

These, by noted sketch artist Jane Rosenberg, show Cohen on the witness stand being questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger while Judge Juan Merchan, Trump and his defense attorney Emil Bove look on.

Cohen appears bespectacled in one, looking at a screen that is displaying one of the checks that he said were from Trump to reimburse him for the hush money payment he made to Stormy Daniels.

In another, Cohen appears to be looking down on the witness stand while Trump sits with his eyes closed.

The trial takes a short afternoon recess.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche pressed Cohen to explain the difference between a lie and an inaccuracy in a line of questioning about statements to special counsel Robert Mueller in his probe into Trump's ties to Russia.

“Is not-accurate information a lie?” Blanche asked, according to CNN.

“Sure,” Cohen said.

“Is it a lie?” Blanche asked.

“It was inaccurate, yes,” Cohen said.

“Was it a lie?” Blanche asked.

“I don’t know if I would characterize it as a lie. It was inaccurate,” Cohen said, continuing with, “It wasn’t truthful. You want to call it a lie, I’ll call it a lie.”

A key exchange during Cohen's cross-examination occurred when Trump's defense lawyer Todd Blanche pressed Cohen about whether he was "obsessed" with his former boss.

"I wouldn’t say obsessed," Cohen replied. "I admired him tremendously."

But Cohen also acknowledged that he used the word "obsessed" in his book, "Disloyal."

📸 Big picture: It's clear that the defense wants to portray Cohen as someone whose obsession with Trump turned vengeful when it became clear the former president was not interested in giving him a meaningful White House job.

Cohen was pressed by defense attorney Todd Blanche about the Trump-related merchandise he sells in the online store for his podcast, Mea Culpa.

The jury was shown a photo of a $22 coffee mug that is sold on the site, which reads: "Send him to the big house not the White House." They were also shown a $32 T-shirt depicting Trump behind bars, which Cohen said he wore last week on his TikTok show.

Blanche asked Cohen if he was encouraging people to buy it.

“Yes, it's part of the merch store,” Cohen replied.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche reportedly asked Cohen whether he has "regularly commented on your podcasts that you want President Trump convicted in this case?”

“Yes probably,” Cohen responded, adding that he wanted to "see accountability."

Pressed for a "yes or no" answer on whether he wants to see Trump convicted in the hush money case, Cohen reportedly said, "Sure."

Cohen testified that he records two podcasts twice a week, totaling four podcasts a week, and confirmed Trump comes up in all of his episodes.

"I would say he's mentioned in every one, yes," Cohen said.

As he was pressed by the defense about the disparaging comments he's made about Trump on social media, Cohen confirmed that prosecutors have repeatedly asked him to stop publicly commenting about the case.

📸 Big picture: During procedural arguments last week, Trump's lawyers asked Judge Juan Merchan to impose a gag order on Cohen, complaining that the former president, who is under his own gag order, is unable to respond to Cohen's comments. Prosecutors said that they have asked their witnesses to refrain from publicly discussing the case but were limited in what they could control.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche started his cross-examination of Cohen by referencing an alleged personal social media swipe.

“You went on TikTok and called me a crying little s***​” Blanche asked Cohen, according to CNN.

“Sounds like something I would say,” Cohen reportedly responded before the prosecution objected to the question, per reporters in the room. Judge Juan Merchan sustained the objection.

Judge Juan Merchan is on the bench and Trump's defense team is set to begin its cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Court transcripts reveal that during a morning sidebar, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Judge Juan Merchan that the prosecution scrapped plans to call another witness, a publisher. That means Michael Cohen will be the final witness called by the prosecution in Trump's hush money trial.

The New York State Unified Court System's media website has made certified transcripts free to access following each day's proceedings.

The court is taking its daily lunch break. When the trial resumes at 2 p.m. ET, the defense will begin its cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Under direct questioning, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger reportedly asked Cohen, "At any time did you alter or modify the audio recording of your conversation with Mr. Trump?"

"No ma’am," Cohen replied.

Here's the key part of that recording.

📸 Big picture: The jury has heard the cellphone recording that Cohen made of his conversation with Trump about the hush money deal they made with Karen McDougal. When it was first introduced, defense attorney Emil Bove suggested that it was possible Cohen's cellphones could have been tampered with.

Cohen told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger that he worked with American Media Inc., which owns the National Enquirer, to pay off Karen McDougal "in order to ensure that the possibility of Mr. Trump succeeding in the election — that this would not be a hindrance."

The payments to McDougal to suppress her claims that she had an affair with Trump were also part of Cohen's 2018 guilty plea.

Cohen recalled his previous testimony to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the House Oversight Committee about payments made to Stormy Daniels, in which he also apologized to Congress and the country for his earlier lies under oath.

"I apologized to Congress. I apologized to the country. I apologized to my family," Cohen said, according to CNN. He said he apologized to the American public "for lying to them, for acting in a way that suppressed information that the citizenry had a right to know in order to make a determination on the individual who was seeking the highest office in the land."

Despite the FBI raid on his home and office, Cohen remained fiercely loyal to Trump. But he told the court that a conversation he had with his family members changed his perspective.

"And my family — my wife, my daughter, my son — all said to me, 'Why are you holding on to this loyalty? What are you doing? We're supposed to be your first loyalty,'" Cohen recalled in court, according to reporters in the courtroom. "I made a decision based again on the conversation I had with my family that I would not lie for President Trump anymore," he said.

Soon after, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, tax evasion and lying to Congress, was sentenced to three years in federal prison and began cooperating with prosecutors.

Cohen testified that his former legal adviser, Robert Costello, told him not to reach out to then-president Trump directly and offered to open a back channel to Trump "to ensure that you're still good and you're still secure," according to reporters in the room.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger introduced emails from April 19, 2018, into evidence between Cohen and Costello, who Cohen deemed as "sketchy," due to his close ties with Rudy Giuliani.

"I am sure you saw the news that Rudy is joining the Trump legal team. I told you my relationship with Rudy which could be very very useful for you," Costello emailed, according to CNN.

"The back channel was Bob Costello to Rudy, Rudy to President Trump," Cohen explained of the back-channel structure.

Judge Juan Merchan is back on the bench and Michael Cohen returns to the witness stand.

A New York appeals court has denied Trump's request to end the gag order that was imposed on him in the ongoing hush money case, according to the court's order.

"We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm," the court wrote.

Judge Juan Merchan has held Trump in contempt 10 times for violating the gag order. Trump has called the order against him unconstitutional.

Before the midmorning break, Cohen testified about the 2018 FBI raid of his hotel room, apartment and office.

Cohen said he was staying at the Loews Regency hotel in Manhattan because his apartment had flooded.

"At 7 a.m. in the morning, there’s a knock on the door. I look through the peephole. I saw a ton of people out in the hallway. I saw the badge, so I opened the door. They identified themselves as the FBI, asked me to step into the hallway," Cohen reportedly said.

He said he was shown a search warrant and that agents seized his two cellphones as well as other electronic devices and assorted records. Cohen said he was angry and scared, but that Trump sought to reassure him.

“‘Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States,’" Trump told him, according to Cohen. "‘There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK.’”

Cohen added that it was the last time the two men spoke.

The court is taking a 15-minute midmorning break.

While Cohen was testifying, the jury was shown a text he sent to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who is sitting in the courtroom and live-blogging the trial.

In the text, Cohen informed Haberman that Trump approved of a statement that he was prepared to give her saying that Cohen made the hush money payment to Daniels himself, and that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a part of it.

Cohen told the court that the statement was misleading, which Haberman quickly noted on the Times blog.

"We noted in coverage of Cohen's statement at the time that he wouldn't answer follow-up questions," she wrote. "Now, years later, he is testifying that the statement was misleading."

Cohen says he knew Stormy Daniels's statement denying the alleged sexual encounter with Trump was false and that he informed Trump about getting her to deny it, according to reporters in the courtroom.

Cohen said he wanted to "get credit" for his continued efforts to protect Trump.

On Jan. 17, 2018, Cohen confirmed that he exchanged text messages with Daniels's attorney, Keith Davidson, telling him that he had booked Daniels to appear on Sean Hannity's Fox News show.

"I wanted to continue to promote the statement that there was no relationship and that Trump had no involvement," Cohen told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.

However, Daniels ended up not doing the interview. Later that evening, Cohen texted Davidson that the story was "dying" and that she shouldn't do any more interviews.

Under direct questioning by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Cohen testified about his 2017 testimony to Congress, during which he lied to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that were probing Trump's possible ties to Russia.

Cohen said that he felt "a tremendous amount of pressure" both financially and personally to appease Trump and therefore made false statements downplaying the Trump Tower Moscow real estate project.

"I was staying on Mr. Trump’s message that there was no 'Russia, Russia, Russia,'" Cohen said.

Cohen was later sentenced to three years in federal prison for lying to Congress, tax evasion and campaign finance violations for his role in the hush money deals with Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels.

📸 Big picture: When it's time for cross-examination, Trump's defense attorneys will no doubt grill Cohen over the lies he told to Congressunder oath. The prosecution is allowing him to explain his reasoning to the jury before they do.

Cohen answered "no" when prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked whether the $420,000 he was paid from the invoices in 2017 had anything to do with the small amount of work he did for Trump that year, according to reporters in the room.

Cohen testified that he thinks he worked less than 10 hours for Trump in 2017.

He said, for example, that he looked over Melania Trump's agreement with wax museum Madame Tussauds, but said he was not compensated for that.

"I didn’t expect to be paid on it. It wasn’t enough work to have me send an invoice," Cohen reportedly said.

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Speaking to reporters outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated Trump's claims that the hush money trial playing out inside is a politically motivated "scam."

Johnson, who is among the Republican lawmakers who have joined the former president in court this week, went even further, attacking the prosecutors in the case; their key witness, Michael Cohen; and the judge's daughter — all of which Trump himself is barred from doing under a gag order.

Of Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and "fixer" who is on the witness stand again today, Johnson said: "This is a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge, and who is widely known as a witness who has trouble with the truth.

"No one should believe a word he says today," Johnson continued, adding that Cohen "lied to Congress, he lied to the IRS. He lied to federal election officials."

Cohen described a meeting he had with Trump in the Oval Office on Feb. 8, 2017, during which he said the then president discussed reimbursing Cohen for the hush money that was paid to Stormy Daniels before the election.

According to Cohen, Trump told him to arrange a repayment schedule with Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization chief financial officer, and that he would initially receive two checks, dated January and February of that year. Cohen said he received 11 checks in all, totaling $420,000, and that the invoices he submitted for them were falsely categorized as being for legal services.

📸 Big picture: Prosecutors want to show that Trump not only knew of Cohen's reimbursement, he also directed it.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger walked Cohen through the invoices and the checks he received.

"Did you receive this check for $35,000 in response to that false invoice?" Hoffinger asked, according to ABC News.

"Yes ma'am," Cohen replied.

"Whose signature is it?" Hoffinger questioned.

"Donald J. Trump," Cohen said.

Hoffinger reportedly went on to ask, "Were any of those invoices that you submitted based on services performed for the months indicated pursuant to a retainer agreement?"

"No ma’am," Cohen said. "They were for a reimbursement.”

Speaking to reporters after arriving at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, Trump praised his supporters in Congress who are joining him in court Tuesday. Among them: House Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills of Florida.

"I do have a lot of surrogates, and they are speaking very beautifully. And they come from all over Washington, and they're highly respected and they think this is the greatest scam they've ever seen," Trump said. "They're very embarrassed by what's going on."

Trump went on to complain about the gag order preventing him from attacking witnesses, including Michael Cohen, who is testifying against him for the second straight day.

"The gag order has to come off," Trump said. "When you ask me a question about the people that we're talking about, I'm not allowed to answer."

Michael Cohen has taken a seat on the witness stand to resume testimony for a second day. The jury has been called into the courtroom.

Members of the public have paid line sitters hundreds of dollars in hopes of securing seats for Tuesday's trial proceedings, during which Michael Cohen is set to take the witness stand for a second day, according to the New York Times. Some have been waiting outside the Manhattan courthouse since Monday night. The Times reported:

Judge Juan Merchan is on the bench for day 17 of Trump's hush money trial.

Trump has had a steady stream of Republican lawmakers attend the trial to show support. The latest: House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose office issued a statement saying he will join the former president at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Tuesday and "address the media outside of the ongoing sham prosecution of President Trump."

Also joining Trump in court today: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, GOP Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills of Florida, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who was one of Trump's Republican primary challengers.

• Former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial resumes Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. ET.
  

• Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and so-called fixer, is expected to be called back to the witness stand for a second straight day of direct testimony.
  

• Cohen testified for nearly five hours on Monday, telling the the court that Trump directed him to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000 before the 2016 election, to silence her about her alleged sexual affair with Trump — and approved of a scheme to conceal his reimbursement.
  

• Prosecutors said they could wrap up presenting their case against Trump as soon as this week.
  

• It's unclear whether Trump will testify when the defense presents his case.