Trump hails prospect of testimony from ex-Cohen
adviser in hush money case
Robert J Costello, scheduled to appear before New York
grand jury on Monday, likely to question Trump accuser’s credibility
Trump calls on
supporters to protest as potential indictment looms
Adam
Gabbatt, Hugo Lowell, Martin Pengelly and agencies
Mon 20 Mar
2023 17.11 GMT
Donald
Trump has cheered the news that a former adviser to Michael Cohen will testify
before a Manhattan grand jury investigating the ex-president’s alleged role in
a hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.
‘Making court
appearances in New York, Georgia, Florida and Washington DC while also
maintaining a campaign schedule may prove to be a daunting task,’ said former
US attorney Barbara McQuade.
Robert J
Costello, a one-time legal adviser to former Trump attorney Cohen, was
scheduled to appear before the grand jury on Monday and expected to give
testimony “attacking the credibility of Cohen’s statements”, the Associated
Press reported.
Cohen pleaded
guilty in 2018 to federal charges involving $130,000 paid to Daniels close to
election day in 2016. Daniels claims she had sex with the former president in
2006, an allegation Trump denies.
Trump said
on Saturday he would be “arrested on Tuesday” – a claim for which sources close
to the 76-year-old said he had no evidence – but then offered a more buoyant
outlook after news of Costello’s scheduled appearance.
“Just
reported that the most important witness to go before the New York City grand
jury, a highly respected lawyer who once represented convicted felon, jailbird
and serial fake storyteller and liar, Michael Cohen, will be doing so tomorrow
afternoon,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“The
information he will present will supposedly be conclusive and irrefutable!
Witch hunt!!!”
Costello,
who has represented the Trump confidants Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani,
offered to represent Cohen in 2018 as he faced charges related to the Daniels
payment. The pair discussed the case, the New York Times reported, but the
relationship soured after Cohen began to criticize and implicate Trump.
The AP
reported that Costello recently contacted a Trump lawyer, claiming he had
information that contradicted Cohen’s account and could prove exculpatory for
Trump.
The lawyer
brought it to the attention of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg,
who last week subpoenaed Costello’s law firm for records and invited him to
testify.
There was
more good news for Trump on Monday when Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, his
closest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, addressed the
likely indictment for the first time.
Trump
allies had called for DeSantis to speak out. Speaking to reporters at a college
in Panama City, the governor mocked the notion that hush money payments to a
porn star might be seen as indictable conduct. He also repeated an antisemitic
dogwhistle.
DeSantis
said Bragg “like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponise their office to
impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and
public safety”.
George
Soros, a Hungarian American progressive financier and philanthropist, is a
boogeyman for Republicans and a regular target for antisemitic invective.
DeSantis
mentioned “Soros-funded prosecutors” five times in a two-minute answer.
Throughout
Sunday, Trump published a flurry of all-caps posts, railing against perceived
injustice.
Using a
term short for “Republicans in name only”, one post complained of persecution
by “COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS, RINOS AND LOSERS”. Several posts attacked Cohen.
While Trump
has focused on Bragg, Cohen and others, his lawyers have focused on a defense
strategy.
Outside
counsel – Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles – have reasoned that a hush money
case centered on campaign finance violations could be weak after a similar
prosecution against the Democratic senator and vice-presidential nominee John
Edwards failed in 2012.
If the
indictment alleges the Daniels payment violated campaign finance laws, Trump’s
lawyers are expected to argue that it fails the “irrespective test” posed by
the Edwards case: that Trump would have paid Daniels irrespective of his
campaign, to avoid embarrassment because he was a public figure.
Trump may
face an uphill struggle with those arguments, given that having “mixed motives”
to protect himself personally and to protect his campaign could leave him
liable. The timing of the payments also suggests an urgency to pay before
election day.
There is
also the matter of Trump’s own comments on the Edwards case. In 2012, he told
Fox News “a lot of very good lawyers have told me that the government doesn’t
have a good case” against Edwards.
As former
New York prosecutor Ronn Blitzer wrote for Law and Crime, “that … sentence
undermines Trump’s claim that he was relying on Cohen as his attorney to know
the law to steer him in the right direction” over the Daniels payment, “and
that he didn’t direct Cohen to break the law”.
“[Trump]
said during the Edwards case that he spoke to ‘a lot of very good lawyers’
about these very issues, which would mean he was aware of the relevant laws,”
Blitzer said.
Trump’s
legal team is also expected to argue that when Daniels tried to sell her story
in 2011 she was told to “leave Trump alone – forget the story”, thereby proving
her silence was desired long before Trump ran for president.
Trump’s
lawyers made those arguments when Necheles urged Bragg to drop the case, the
Guardian previously reported. But all signs indicate Bragg will move ahead in
an unprecedented indictment of a former president – who is also running to
return to the Oval Office.
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