Donald Trump's wife and former First Lady Melania Trump has been once again absent from the courtroom while her husband's former fixer took the stand, but his testimony revealed new details about Melania's role and reaction to the scandal.
Melania Trump was behind the idea to call her husband's infamous Access Hollywood tape "locker room talk", according to Michael Cohen. Donald Trump's wife Melania first became aware of the tape after the footage leaked just before the 2016 election as the former president could be heard telling radio host Billy Bush that as a celebrity, he could "grab" women by their genitalia.
Trump's 2016 campaign press secretary Hope Hicks called the former president about the tape as Cohen and his then-campaign manager Steve Bannon sent emails "in order to protect Mr Trump." Following several conversations with Trump and his campaign staff, Cohen said they needed to "put a spin on it"
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Trump was caught on mic (The Washington Post/Getty Images)During Michael Cohen's Stormy Daniels testimony yesterday, it was claimed Melania supported the idea of spinning the tape into "locker room talk." He explained: "The spin that he wanted to put on it was that this is locker room talk, something that Melania had recommended, or at least he told me that's what Melania had thought, and use that in order to take control over the story to minimize its impact over him and his campaign."
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Trump was seen in court shaking his head in disagreement when Cohen made the claims, according to journalists in the room. It comes as Cohen provided jurors with an insider’s account of payments to silence women’s claims of sexual encounters with Trump, saying the payments were directed by Trump to fend off damage to his 2016 White House bid.
Trump is accompanied to the set by Access Hollywood host Billy Bush (The Washington Post/Getty Images)Cohen is expected to be on the witness stand for several days, and face intense grilling by Trump’s attorneys, who have painted him as a liar who’s trying to take down the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. While prosecutors’ most important witness, he’s also their most vulnerable to attack — having served time in federal prison and built his persona in recent years around being a thorn in Trump’s side.
Cohen tied Trump directly to the hush money scheme, recounting meetings and conversations with his then-boss about stifling negative stories in the waning weeks of the 2016 campaign. “He expressed to me: Just do it,” Cohen said of the $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who was threatening to go public with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denies they ever had sex.
Michael Cohen made the claims in court yesterday (Getty Images)Less than two weeks before the election, Cohen finalized the payments to buy Daniels’ silence. Immediately, he went to Trump to inform him the deal was done, he testified.
“The task he gave to me was finished, accomplished and done,” Cohen testified, before pointing to a second reason for updating his boss: “to take credit for myself so that he knew I had done it and finished it, because this was important.”
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