Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels will be allowed to testify at the former president’s New York criminal trial, a judge ruled Monday.
Judge Juan Merchan denied a motion from Trump’s attorneys to prevent Cohen and Daniels – two key witnesses in the Manhattan district attorney’s case – from testifying at Trump’s hush money trial, which could begin next month.
The district attorney’s office charged Trump with falsifying business records, accusing him of concealing the reimbursement of hush money payments Cohen made to Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her from going public about an alleged affair with Trump. The former president has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.
Trump’s lawyers sought to block Cohen’s testimony, arguing that Cohen previously committed perjury and alleging that he lied in his testimony at Trump’s New York civil fraud trial last year.
But Merchan wrote in his decision that Cohen had not been charged with perjury for his more recent testimony.
“Defendant provides examples of situations where Cohen’s credibility has been called into question. However, he offers no proof of perjury in the case at bar,” Merchan wrote, noting that he found nothing to support “Defendant’s rationale that a prosecution witness should be kept off the witness stand because his credibility has previously been called into question.”
Merchan also denied a bid from Trump’s attorneys to block Daniels from testifying about the hush money payment she received from Cohen in 2016.
“Locating and purchasing the information from Daniels not only completes the narrative of events that precipitated the falsification of business records but is also probative of the Defendant’s…
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