NEW YORK — With Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen expected to take the witness stand Monday, the judge in the former president’s hush money case issued prosecutors a stern warning: Get Cohen to stop his taunting posts and jabs at Trump.
Judge Juan M. Merchan’s comments came as a dramatic and consequential week in the first criminal trial of a former American president drew to a close Friday.
Prosecutors have been building up their case ahead of crucial testimony from Cohen, who arranged the $130,000 payout to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public ahead of the 2016 election about an an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denies ever having sex with Daniels.
Defense attorneys will argue that the disbarred lawyer who served prison time is out to get the former president and cannot be believed.
Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Cohen is expected to take the stand Monday. The people could not discuss the matter publicly and and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Trump’s lawyers complained after Cohen this week wore a shirt featuring a figure resembling the former president behind bars in a social media video. They have argued it’s unfair Trump is under a gag order that prevents him from speaking publicly about witnesses while Cohen has continued to post about Trump on social media.
“It’s becoming a problem every single day that President Trump is not allowed to respond to this witness but this witness is allowed to continue to talk,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said.
Merchan told prosecutors they should inform Cohen “that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements” about the case or about Donald Trump. Prosecutors told the judge they had already requested that Cohen and other witnesses not talk about the case, but had no direct means of controlling their behavior.