By EFE
Feb 26, 2024, 11:55 PM EST
The defense of former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) presented a motion this Monday to prevent several key witnesses from testifying in the trial for irregular payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in New York.
Trump’s legal team requested to block the testimony of Michael Cohen, who was the former president’s personal lawyer and mainly responsible for delivering payments to Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for the payments to the interpreter, with which he tried to hide an alleged ‘affair’ that the actress had had with the then candidate for the White House ten years earlier.
According to Trump’s lawyers, the witness committed perjury last fall by asserting, during the civil trial against the former president for fraud in his family business, that he was not guilty of the tax evasion crimes that he admitted in 2018.
“Cohen is not a person who tells the truth, he is a compulsive liar,” the defense motion reads.
Trump’s lawyers also requested that Daniels herself – whom they also accused of being unreliable – and model Karen McDougal, who also received bribes, not testify.
This same Monday, the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office asked the judge responsible for the criminal case against Trump to impose a gag order on him.
With this request, the Prosecutor’s Office seeks to protect both witnesses and jurors to prevent the former president, who is in the middle of an electoral campaign with a view to the Republican nomination for the November elections, from revealing their names.
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