After about five hours of withering attacks on Cohen’s character and credibility, Blanche finally began asking about some of the core allegations in the case.
He turned to testimony Cohen gave earlier this week, when he said he spoke on the phone with then-candidate Trump on Oct. 24, 2016, and updated him on his efforts to secure the rights to Daniels’ story.
Blanche reminded Cohen he said he called Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, who put Trump on the phone.
Was the call on speakerphone, or did Trump pick up the phone? Cohen wasn’t sure.
Does Cohen remember what exactly they talked about?
“We talked about the matter, and it was resolved,” Cohen said.
But then Blanche showed Cohen two series of text messages from that evening. The first was an exchange between him and a person who had been prank-calling him. Cohen threatened to turn the person in to the Secret Service.
“I didn’t do it, I’m 14, please don’t do this,” the person replied.
Blanche then showed Cohen text messages with Schiller, with Cohen relaying the exchange with the prankster. Schiller told Cohen to call him.
Blanche accused Cohen of lying when he said he spoke to Trump about the Daniels deal on that call, saying it was instead focused on the prank calls.
His voice rising and the words coming fast, Blanche said: “That was a lie, because you were actually talking to Keith Schiller about the fact that you were receiving harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old, correct?”
Cohen said he believes he talked to Schiller about that, and subsequently updated Trump about the deal. Blanche noted that the call logs show the conversation last just over a minute and a half.
“Now your memory is that you, testifying truthfully, that you had enough time in a 1 minute, 36 second phone call to tell Mr. Schiller about being harassed by a 14-year-old” and to update Trump? Blanche asked.
Cohen said he did.
“I always ran everything by the boss immediately, and in this case it was saying, ‘Everything’s been taken care of, it’s been resolved,'” Cohen said.
