Cohen admits he was handling Tiffany Trump ‘blackmail’
Blanche continues to press Cohen on other matters he was dealing with that coincided with the Stormy Daniels payoff.
This includes an apparent ‘extortion’ attempt involving the president’s daughter, Tiffany.
‘You agree with me, right, that you had a lot going on both in your personal life and with President Trump in those first two weeks of October?’ Blanche asked. Cohen agreed.
‘You recall on October 25th, you recall her communicating with you concerns about somebody trying to blackmail her?’ Blanche asked.
‘Yes sir,’ he replied. He handled it immediately, and spoke to David Pecker, Tiffany Trump, and others.
This is the day after he testified he spoke to Trump about the Stormy Daniels payoff using the phone of Keith Schiller, but Blanche pointed out it coincided with prank phone calls Cohen was receiving.
Blanche also called it a ‘potential extortion attempt’ involving photos.
Blanche then pointed out that Trump was preparing for an opening ceremony of his new D.C. hotel on October 26th. That gave him multiple subjects he could have spoken to Trump about during a phone call where Blanche last week accused Cohen of ‘lying’ about what came up.
‘So was fixing Tiffany Trump’s situation important to you?’ Blanche asked him.
‘It was important I take care of things but it was not personally important to me,’ he responded.
‘Woudln’t that be something you updated her father about when you spoken the next morning?’ Blanche asked.
‘No sir,’ was Cohen’s reply.
Cohen admits stealing from Trump Organization
Defence attorney Todd Blanche is homing in on Cohen’s testimony last week about his meeting with Trump Organisation’s chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, when they figured out how to reimburse the lawyer-cum-fixer.
It included money related to RedFinch, a tech company that was taken on to rig online polls in Trump’s favor.
Cohen just described withdrawing $20,000 from his bank over two days, and then handing it to the boss of the company in a brown paper bag. The company was owed $50,000 but that was enough to ‘placate’ its boss, said Cohen.
Yet, when it came to settling up between Weisselberg and Cohen, Cohen admits he asked for the full $50,000 reimbursement (seen the handwritten note below).
‘You stole from the Trump Organisation, right,’ asks Blanche.
‘Yes sir,’ said Cohen.
Trump shakes his head at the admission. He has not been paying much attention to the testimony up to that point.
In fact, because the numbers were doubled it meant that Cohen benefited by much more than $30,000.
Blanche asks: ‘Did you ever plead guilty to larceny?’
‘No sir.’
