'I recanted nothing': Michael Cohen flattens Trump's claim that he 'took back everything'
Donald Trump left court on Thursday to deliver a press conference during the closing statements of his trial and among his allegations were that Michael Cohen withdrew his testimony given in the New York fraud case.
"He's got a lot of problems," Trump said of Cohen. "He's been a man who's been convicted of lying. He's a felon. A convicted felon. And not a good person. But that's their only witness, and he is now crashed and burned. They have no witnesses. And by the way, that witness took back everything he said in court. He took it all back."
Speaking to CNN, Elie Honig explained it isn't entirely accurate, saying Cohen never took back what he testified to in the fraud trial after appearing on the stand for two days.
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Speaking to Cohen Thursday evening, he made it clear, "I recanted nothing."
"The only ones who made that pronouncement were Donald and his legal team, which was rebuked," Cohen told Raw Story.
Honig wasn't the only one to call the statement a complete mischaracterization of the trial. The New York Post performed the fact-check in the headline of its article.
Cohen testified at the end of October 2023, when he made it clear that Trump tasked him with twisting the numbers.
"I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that [Trump] arbitrarily elected," Cohen testified according to The Messenger's Adam Klasfeld, typing a transcript. "And my responsibility, along with Allen Weisselberg, predominately, was to reverse-engineer the various asset classes — increase those assets to achieve the number that Mr. Trump asked us."
Trump's attorney, Chris Kise, asked Cohen, "Yes or no," if Trump directly ordered him to fraudulently report the numbers. Cohen said "no," clarifying that Trump never gives direct orders like that. He compared Trump to a "mafia boss," who makes vague demands without directly asking for them.
The issue that Trump likes to confuse is that Cohen confessed that he lied to Judge William H. Pauley when he pleaded guilty in 2018. Cohen never committed the crimes he pleaded guilty to. Speaking to him Thursday, Cohen cited a 2021 book by Judge Jed S. Rakoff, senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The book, "Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free: And Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System," outlines how so many people end up pleading guilty to crimes they never committed.
"There is a distinction between this in the case of Donald Trump and these specific questions asked of me at trial," said Cohen. "A distinction should be made between Donald's explicit or implicit task demand. We knew what he wanted based upon the conversation, and Donald acknowledged what we had done by signing off on the document."
Trump admitted on the stand that his were the final eyes on the financial documents. Donald Trump Jr. admitted on the stand that he signed fraudulent financial documents.