In the first few weeks of the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, witnesses have cast Michael D. Cohen as a bully, a nervous wreck and, as one witness put it, a “jerk.”
That may not make Mr. Cohen, the one-time lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump, seem like the ideal witness in the first criminal trial of an American president. But prosecutors — anticipating the attacks Mr. Trump’s lawyers will mount against the man who once called himself the former president’s “designated thug” — have introduced those unflattering characterizations as a way to desensitize the jury to Mr. Cohen’s bracing presence.
On Tuesday, one of the prosecutors, Susan Hoffinger, walked Mr. Cohen again through previous testimony about “monetizing” his role as Trump’s personal lawyer by using it to attract other clients — another attempt to present and defang Mr. Cohen’s behavior themselves, before what is expected to be a cross-examination bent on undermining his credibility.
Mr. Trump’s legal team, which has taken aim at Mr. Cohen before, is expected to paint him as a rogue actor who caused more problems than he fixed. They have promised to seize on Mr. Cohen’s credibility and criminal record — Mr. Trump is fond of noting that he is a “convicted liar” — and portray him as a scorned underling seeking revenge against the former president.
Mr. Cohen does have baggage: In August 2018, he has pleaded guilty to a number of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws with a pair of hush-money payments to women who had said they’d had sex with Mr. Trump.
One of those payments, to the porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, is at the heart of the case. Mr. Cohen is expected to offer his firsthand account of how the new president subsequently reimbursed him but falsified records to disguise the reimbursement as legal expenses.
While the prosecutors introduced witnesses to corroborate much of Mr. Cohen’s account, they have invited those same witnesses to offer their unflattering views of him.
Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, scoffed at the notion that Mr. Cohen would have made the $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels out of the kindness of his heart because doing so “would be out of character for Michael,” an insulting comment that nonetheless supported Mr. Cohen’s story.
The intent, it appears, is to suck the air out of the defense’s attacks and turn Mr. Cohen into an object of amusement for the jury. Already, his name has drawn smiles from some of the jurors, who will now evaluate his credibility for themselves.
Prosecutors also made sure to enter into evidence the voice of a man who had once found Mr. Cohen essential.
“Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer,” Mr. Trump said, in a recording from a news conference in 2017 that was played in the courtroom. “He’s a good lawyer at my firm.”
