NEW YORK: Former Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen admitted Monday to jurors in the Republican’s hush money trial that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from Trump’s company as defense lawyers seized on the star witness’ misdeeds to attack his credibility.
With the prosecution’s case nearing its end, Trump’s attorneys hope Cohen’s admission — on top of his numerous other past lies and crimes — will sow doubt in jurors’ minds about Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the hush money scheme. The defense has painted Cohen as a serial fabulist who is on a revenge campaign aimed at taking down Trump.
Back on the witness stand for a fourth day, Cohen admitted while being questioned by defense attorney Todd Blanche that he pocketed cash that was supposed to be reimbursement for a $50,000 payment Cohen claimed he had shelled out to a technology firm. But Cohen actually gave the technology firm just $20,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, he said.
“So you stole from the Trump Organization?,” Blanche asked.
“Yes, sir,” Cohen replied. Cohen said he never paid the Trump Organization back. Cohen has never been charged with stealing from Trump’s company.
Cohen is the last prosecution witness, and it’s not yet clear whether Trump’s attorneys will call any witnesses, let alone Trump himself.
After more than four weeks of testimony about sex, money, tabloid machinations and the details of Trump’s company recordkeeping, jurors could begin deliberating as soon as next week to decide whether Trump is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first criminal trial of a former US president.
The charges stem from internal Trump Organization records where payments to Cohen were marked as legal expenses, when prosecutors say they were really reimbursements for Daniels’ hush money payment.
Trump has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say there was nothing criminal about the Daniels deal or the way Cohen was paid.
“There’s no crime,” Trump told reporters after arriving at the courthouse Monday. “We paid a legal expense. You know what it’s marked down as? A legal expense.”
While Cohen is prosecutors’ most important witness, but he is also vulnerable to attack.
The now-disbarred attorney has admitted on the witness stand to previously lying under oath and other falsehoods, many of which he claims were meant to protect Trump. Cohen served prison time after pleading guilty to various federal charges, including lying to Congress and a bank and engaging in campaign finance violations related to the hush money scheme.
And he has made millions of dollars off critical books about the former president, whom he regularly slams on social media in often profane terms.
Blanche grilled Cohen on Monday about his initial public denials that Trump knew about the Daniels payoff. After The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2018 that Cohen had arranged the payout to the porn actor more than a year earlier, Cohen told journalists, friends and others that Trump had been in the dark about the arrangement.
He did not change his account until after federal authorities in April 2018 searched Cohen’s home, office and other locations tied to him. Four months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges and told a court that Trump had directed him to arrange the Daniels payment.
Known for his hot temper, Cohen has remained mostly calm on the witness stand despite sometimes heated interrogation by the defense about his misdeeds and the allegations in the case.
Jurors remained largely engaged with Cohen’s testimony, though some appear to be dragging as his testimony stretched into another day. Several jurors stifled yawns while peering at the witness and looking at monitors in front of them as emails and other evidence were displayed. Some took notes. Others sat back and took in the testimony, occasionally peering at the gallery of reporters and public observers.
Cohen told jurors that Trump was intimately involved in the scheme to pay off Daniels to prevent her from going public late in his 2016 presidential campaign with claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. Trump says nothing sexual happened between them.
Cohen told jurors about meetings and conversations with Trump, including one in 2017 in which Cohen says he, Trump and then-Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg discussed how Cohen would recoup his outlay for the Daniels payment and how the reimbursement would be billed as “legal services.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is expected to rest its case once Cohen is off the stand, but prosecutors would have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses if Trump’s lawyers put on witnesses of their own. Judge Juan M. Merchan, citing scheduling issues, says he expects closing arguments to happen May 28, the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Defense lawyers said they have not decided whether Trump will testify. And Trump did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about whether his lawyers have advised him not to take the stand. Defense attorneys generally are reluctant to put their clients on the witness stand and open them up to intense questioning by prosecutors, as it often does more harm than good.
Trump’s lawyers have said they may call Bradley A. Smith, a Republican law professor who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the Federal Election Commission, to refute the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign-finance violations. But the judge has limited what Smith can address.
There are often guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws in a case.
Merchan has ruled that Smith can give general background on the FEC, the laws it enforces and the definitions of such terms as “campaign contribution.” But he cannot interpret how federal campaign-finance laws apply to the facts of Trump’s case or opine on whether the former president’s alleged actions violate those laws.
Michael Cohen says he stole from Trump’s company as defense presses key hush money trial witness
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Michael Cohen says he stole from Trump’s company as defense presses key hush money trial witness
- The defense has painted Cohen as a serial fabulist who is on a revenge campaign aimed at taking down Trump
- Cohen is the last prosecution witness, and it’s not yet clear whether Trump’s attorneys will call any witnesses, let alone Trump himself
British PM heads to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales to reset ties with UK’s 4 nations
- While each of the devolved nations in the UK elects members to the House of Commons in London, they also have their own regional parliaments
- Starmer told Abbas that the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process was the “undeniable right of Palestinians”
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is heading off Sunday to the four corners of the UK as part of an “immediate reset” with governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Starmer, who said he has a “mandate to do politics differently” after his party’s landslide victory, will meet Scottish First Minister John Swinney in Edinburgh in an effort to “turn disagreement into cooperation.”
“That begins today with an immediate reset of my government’s approach to working with the first and deputy first ministers,” he said. “Meaningful co-operation centered on respect will be key to delivering change across our United Kingdom.”
While each of the devolved nations in the UK elects members to the House of Commons in London, they also have their own regional parliaments.
Starmer’s Labour Party trounced Swinney’s Scottish National Party for seats in Parliament. But the SNP, which has pushed for Scottish independence, still holds a majority at Holyrood, the Scottish parliament.
The trip to build better working relations across the UK is part of Starmer’s broader mission to work toward serving people as he tackles of mountain of problems.
The Labour government inherited a wobbly economy that left Britons struggling to pay bills after global economic woes and fiscal missteps. It also faces a public that is disenchanted after 14 years of chaotic Conservative rule and fiscal austerity that hollowed out public services, including the revered National Health Service, which Starmer declared broken.
Starmer said he wants to transfer power from the bureaucratic halls of government in London to leaders who know what’s best for their communities.
After his brief tour, he’ll return to England, where he plans to meet with regional mayors, saying in his first news conference Saturday that he would engage with politicians regardless of their party.
“There’s no monopoly on good ideas,” he said “I’m not a tribal political.”
Starmer continued to speak with other world leaders, having separate calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He spoke with both about his priorities for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, the return of hostages to Israel, and an increase in humanitarian aid, a spokesperson said.
He told Abbas that the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process was the “undeniable right of Palestinians” and told Netanyahu it was important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution, including ensuring financial means for Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to operate effectively.
On Tuesday, Starmer will jet off to Washington for a NATO meeting.
Meanwhile, his top diplomat, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, was due in Poland and Sweden Sunday after visiting Germany on Saturday for his first trip abroad to strengthen ties with European partners.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the social media platform X that the UK was an indispensable part of Europe and they were working with the British government to see how it could move closer to the European Union.
Lammy reiterated Starmer’s pledge not to rejoin the EU single market after British voters in 2016 voted to break from the political and economic union.
“Let us put the Brexit years behind us,” Lammy told The Observer. “We are not going to rejoin the single market and the customs union but there is much that we can do together.”
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Sunday on Sky News that the UK should look for ways to improve trade with the EU and that removing some trade barriers was sensible. But he said the Labour government was not open to the free movement of people that was required as a member of the union.
‘Miracles’ and hope: Deadly stampede spotlights India’s craze for godmen
- Hindu preachers and gurus in India are sought by millions of followers for miracle cures and spiritual advice
- Gathering addressed by Bhole Baba, an ex-policeman, last week drew a quarter of a million people in a crowded field
BAHADURNAGAR: Just a pat on the back by preacher “Bhole Baba” and Ramkumari said a stone in her kidney vanished. The 85-year-old gave no proof but this story and countless others of similar “miracles” led to Baba’s following rocketing in India’s northern states.
A gathering addressed by the former police head constable in a crowded field last week drew a quarter of a million people and caused one of the deadliest stampedes in the country.
Bhole Baba, or Innocent Elder, was born Suraj Pal Singh Jatav. He quit the police in 2000 to join a series of Hindu preachers and gurus in India who are sought by millions for miracle cures and spiritual advice. They are often called godmen, and many have been wooed by politicians for the influence they wield.
Their patrons have included international celebrities like the Beatles, who spent days in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late 1960s. Some of these gurus expanded beyond India, most famously Osho, who lived and preached in the United States in the early 1980s.
Almost all of them are credited by their followers with miraculous powers.
“I had gone to one of his early gatherings and told him I had chronic pain from a kidney stone for many months,” said Ramkumari, Baba’s former neighbor in Bahadurnagar village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, where he was born and still has a home.
The village has only about 50 homes in all and is set amid fields which grow corn, wheat and rice. On the periphery is a sprawling, pearly-white ashram run by devotees of Baba.
“He smiled and blessed me with a pat on the back. The stone vanished soon after,” said Ramkumari, who gave just one name.
Another resident in the village, 55-year-old Surajmukhi, said Baba’s blessing helped her give birth to a son after seven daughters. Sons are sought after in many Indian families.
“We desperately wanted a boy,” said Surajmukhi. “Then I met Baba with my husband. He made me chant some mantras (verses), gave me some water to drink and patted me on my back. After nine months I had a baby boy.”
Lying on a cot next to her, Baba’s older sister Sonkali, thin and frail, said: “It was a miracle.”
Baba, formally known as Narayan Sakar Hari now, is estimated to be about 72 by his family and followers, who are spread across India’s heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
LINE TO GOD
Two neighbors who have known him since his childhood, including Ramkumari, said he took the path after a dream one night about 25 years ago that a divine spirit had given him supernatural powers. He quit the police in the city of Agra and started preaching, they said.
Baba would later claim he had a direct line to God and could channel divine blessings to people.
“Soon after we saw a line of cars bringing Suraj Pal into the village and people said he would henceforth be called a Baba (elder),” Ramkumari said.
Reuters could not contact Baba. He told Reuters partner ANI that he was grieving and his aides would help the injured and the families of the deceased.
The stampede at his gathering on Tuesday killed 121 people, mostly women, and injured scores out of about 250,000 who had congregated in a canopied paddy field to listen to him, many trampling over one another as they ran after his car when he was leaving.
Police say authorities had allowed only 80,000 to attend, and have arrested six aides to Baba who were involved in organizing the event. The main organizer surrendered to police on Friday.
Police said that in the initial days of his rise to fame, Baba had claimed that he could bring the dead back to life and even tried to take away the body of a 16-year-old girl from a crematorium promising a miracle to the family. Police intervened and the matter was closed soon after.
Posters and videos posted on YouTube show him dressed in traditional Indian kurta tunics or pristine white suits and ties, often sporting sunglasses, a departure from the spartan image of most godmen.
Still, his clout is smaller than other gurus and godmen in India, including Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Sadhguru. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, runs the Patanjali consumer goods brand that has boomed in recent years.
Two godmen, Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, were both convicted of rape in separate cases and jailed, after years of drawing thousands of devotees to their sermons and ashrams.
GIVE PEOPLE HOPE
Sociologists say such gurus are often believed to possess healing powers, and are especially popular among those who are poor, sick or feel underprivileged.
“People are insecure — economically, socially and otherwise,” said Dipti Ranjan Sahu, head of sociology at the University of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.
“Unemployment, deprivation, discrimination, ignorance, illiteracy — these things play a part. So they see hope in the godmen, maybe some miracle will happen.”
Surinder Singh Jodhka, who teaches social sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and has researched on the subject, said “people are kind of looking for some meaning in their life” and that’s where godmen come in.
“People are feeling lost and they are looking for some sense through which they can identify with other people, they feel less lonely,” he said. “This gives them hope and they are willing to believe in it.”
Mango galore: Annual festival delights thousands of visitors in New Delhi
- With over 1,500 varieties of mangoes, India produces about half of world’s total
- New Delhi hosted 33rd edition of annual mango festival from July 5 to 7
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of people attended New Delhi’s annual mango festival over the weekend to see and taste hundreds of the fruit’s varieties from all over India.
The South Asian country grows over 1,500 varieties of mango, making it the world’s largest mango producer as it accounts for about half of global production of the fruit.
In the Indian capital, farmers and sellers from across the nation gathered to present more than 500 varieties of mangoes to lovers of the fruit and curious visitors as part of the city’s three-day festival that ended on Sunday.
“People love this and eagerly await this every year … This show hosts the largest number of mango varieties,” Maniksha Bakshi, public relations manager of the festival’s organizer, Delhi Tourism, told Arab News.
“Besides the private farmers, a number of agriculture universities and government organizations have also participated and displayed their hybrid varieties … The variety of mangoes on display has increased. People have come from Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana and different parts of the country.”
On the 33rd edition of the festival this year, Delhi Tourism also arranged side events to attract more visitors, including special sessions dubbed “master classes,” which involve chefs making mango-based dishes.
Organizers said they had expected about 30,000 people to attend, making it an opportunity for farmers to showcase the wide range of their produce.
“I want to display my variety of mangoes at the festival,” said mango farmer Azmi Rizvi, who is from Sitapur city.
“In my mango orchard, there are at least 120 to 130 varieties. Besides that, sweet mangoes and pickle mangoes are also there.”
Teppei Yamashita, a Japanese national, was surprised to discover the array of mangoes at the event.
“I never knew this many types of mangoes existed. I thought it was a joke. My staff was telling (me about) hundreds and hundreds of types of mangoes, and I now witnessed it as a fact,” he said.
Some Indians also attended out of curiosity about the different mango varieties, as many are not commonly found in the capital’s markets.
“The kind of mangoes that we see here, we generally don’t see in the market … Majority of them we never heard the name of … so it’s a wonderful experience to be here,” visitor Gaurav Narang said.
For Vikash Singh, who has been attending the mango festival throughout the years, the wide spectrum of choices was the event’s main appeal.
“The reason for coming here is that in one place you get to see … varieties of mangoes — all different colors, different pulp, different shapes, different sizes,” Singh said. “It’s great fun here because you can get to taste the mangoes. You can buy mangoes (too).”
The festival also attracted mango buffs like Rumi Garg, who was among those who took part in a mango-eating competition.
“I had to participate in the contest. I am an avid mango lover and I like all the mango products — mango cakes, mango shakes and all those mango puddings. I finished it all, hoping to win in the competition,” he said.
Dr. A.K. Singh, a professor at Pantnagar University in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, said he has been going to the festival for more than a decade.
“We (India) are the leaders in the case of mango production,” Singh said. “I have been attending this mango festival for the last 16 years and the response of the public is really good. They are very much interested.”
Chinese Premier Li congratulates new British PM Starmer
BEIJING: Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday congratulated new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his election, state media reported, the first senior leader in Beijing to do so publicly.
China is “willing to work with the new UK government to consolidate mutual political trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Li told Starmer, according to state news agency Xinhua.
Their call came after days of silence from top officials in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying only that it noted the results of the UK election.
By comparison, Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Iran’s incoming president Masoud Pezeshkian just hours after his election on Saturday.
China was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner as of 2023, according to the UK Department for Business and Trade.
But diplomatic relations between the two countries have been icy in recent years, with Beijing and London sparring over tightening communist control in former British colony Hong Kong.
The two sides have also traded accusations of espionage, with Beijing saying last month that MI6 had recruited Chinese state employees to spy for the UK.
Xinhua on Sunday said Li told Starmer that the “strengthening of bilateral coordination and cooperation was in the interests of both sides.”
Russia says captured another village in east Ukraine
- Russian troops had “liberated the village of Chigari” in the Donetsk region
- On Saturday, Moscow said its forces had taken control of another small village in the same region
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday said its forces had captured another village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the latest modest territorial gain for its advancing forces.
Russian troops had “liberated the village of Chigari” in the Donetsk region, the defense ministry said in a daily briefing posted on social media.
On Saturday, Moscow said its forces had taken control of another small village in the same region, where Kyiv says the fiercest fighting across the entire front line is taking place.
Russia has made a string of battlefield advances since the start of the year, beginning with the capture of industrial hub Avdiivka in February.
But its progress has been grinding as the conflict looks locked in an attritional phase, with neither side able to punch a decisive breakthrough and both saying they are inflicting heavy casualties on the other.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday repeated his demand for Ukraine to totally withdraw from the region, along with three others in the south and east of the country, if it wants peace.
