Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, said the ex-US president looked like a “defeated man” when he looked him in the eye on Wednesday. (Watch the video below.)
Cohen addressed reporters after his testimony in Trump’s financial fraud trial heightened the drama, which featured the former president storming out of court.
“When you looked him in the eye, what did you see?” a reporter asked Cohen afterward.
“I saw a defeated man,” Cohen said. “I saw somebody that knows that it’s the end of the Trump Organisation.”
Cohen, who served time after pleading guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance crimes while working for Trump, noted that the judge had already determined the 2024 Republican frontrunner committed fraud in the $250 million (£207 million) civil trial. At stake now is “how much disgorgement the attorney general will be seeking,” he said.
Asked if he was intimidated by Trump, Cohen replied: “He’s got the wrong guy to intimidate. As you’ve seen, I haven’t stopped since, I don’t know how many years now, and I won’t, until, as I said, stop until accountability is had.”
Cohen prompted an uproar in court when he admitted that Trump never asked him to inflate numbers on his financial statements, prompting Trump to storm out and his team to ask the judge to declare an immediate verdict. Judge Arthur Engoron denied the motion, saying, “There’s enough evidence in this case to fill the courtroom.”
Cohen later testified that while Trump didn’t explicitly order him to inflate the numbers, Trump implied it, CNN reported.
Cohen added: “He speaks like a mob boss.”