Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen who's set to testify next week in Trump's civil fraud trial and the fact that Trump signed off on everything that happened at the Trump organization: "There is no way for him to escape this."
October 8, 2023

I guess we all know why Trump was losing his mind on his sorry excuse for a social networking site this Saturday and attacking CNN's Erin Burnett. Between the news that the former controller of the Trump Organization, Jeffrey McConney, just testified that Eric Trump directed him to over-value various properties, to an appeals judge refusing to halt the civil fraud case in NY, to his former lawyer Michael Cohen making an appearance on Burnett's show to talk about the fraud case, and Trump dropping his $500 million suit against Cohen, Trump was apparently a little testy this weekend.

Cohen is set to testify next week, along with Allen Weisselberg, and as Cohen discussed with Burnett, Trump, his organization and his son Eric are in for a world of hurt once this trial is over. Cohen also made clear who was ultimately responsible for all of the decisions, no matter who else was involved:

COHEN: No. And I think that McConney also made a statement to the extent that Donald Trump had the ultimate sign off on the documents. I also believe that Donald Bender, from Mazars, stated the same exact thing.

Look, I also testified before the House Oversight Committee, and said the exact same thing as well. That everything that happens at the Trump Organization happened at the direction and with the explicit knowledge of Donald J. Trump.

Burnett also asked Cohen about the fact that he's on the witness list, and whether he could link Trump directly to the pattern of fraud with his testimony.

COHEN: The answer is yes. I don't want to at this point in time go into how I will have that established or the extent to which the attorney generals office will be questioning me. But I can assure you that as I had stated once again, before the House Oversight Committee, everything that happened at the Trump Organization happened with the direct knowledge and at the direction of, and ultimately signed off by Donald J. Trump. There is no way for him to escape this.

BURNETT: So you have more examples. You've got the receipts.

COHEN: Yes. Actually, the receipts are in the hands of the attorney general.

Cohen also weighed in on why he believes Trump dropped the suit against him just before he was due to be deposed:

COHEN: Well, he is certainly demonstrated that he didn't want to be deposed by Danya Perry, my attorney, or her team. He certainly was concerned that some of the information that he may have to testify to, because it was an expensive testimony, that it could ultimately implicate him in crimes, and that he then earlier needed Chris Kise to prevent him from implicating himself, and being able to then assert the Fifth Amendment.

This is the craziest scenario. Everybody acknowledges that it was retaliatory for my participation with the Manhattan district attorney case. It was done to harass me. It was done to financially harm me.

And ultimately, what we did, is we decided that we were going to accept the complaint, and we were going to press him for his deposition.

As we expected, he certainly did not want to do that. Because the second to Donald Trump opens his mouth, he implicates himself in something. He is not a good witness, by any stretch of the imagination. And he had no interest, whatsoever, in being deposed by myself, or by my counsel.

I'm curious to see what those receipts are. Too bad they don't allow cameras in the courtroom.

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