A mano-a-mano contest between Michael Cohen and Donald Trump

Jurors heard the voice before they saw the man. And what a voice: pushy, impolite, pure Long Island. A fuhgeddaboudit accent. Sometimes boastful, sometimes defensive, sometimes self-pitying, always mouthy. Days before he appeared in court to testify against his ex-boss and sworn enemy, prosecutors played a recording of a phone call during which Michael Cohen sounded terribly sorry for Michael Cohen. Or as he complained to the guy on the other end of the line: “Nobody is thinking about Michael. You understand?”

Now everybody is thinking about Michael. The man who once called himself Donald Trump’s “thug, pit bull and lawless lawyer” is the star witness in Manhattan prosecutors’ case against the former president. Only Mr Cohen can directly tie Mr Trump to the charged crimes. On the stand he was measured and doleful: less pit bull, more basset hound. He followed directions. And he told prosecutors exactly what they wanted to hear.

Mr Cohen started working for Mr Trump in 2007 as a lawyer and fixer. Praise from The Boss, he wrote years later, was an aphrodisiac. He could think of “nothing better” than pleasing him. He especially liked it when Mr Trump encouraged him in negotiations to “be rough”. He liked it less when it looked as though Mr Trump might stiff him. Just before the election in 2016 Mr Cohen paid Stormy Daniels, a former porn star, to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Mr Trump from years earlier. According to Mr Cohen, Mr Trump was slow to repay him. Mr Cohen says that eventually The Boss and another executive at the Trump Organisation agreed to reimburse him in 12 instalments, and record the payments as legal fees in the company books. Prosecutors accuse Mr Trump of falsifying business records to cover up the hush money, which they contend was an illicit campaign contribution. He denies it all.

In court Mr Cohen told prosecutors that he had paid the hush money “at the direction and for the benefit of” the defendant, to protect him. In fact he said some variation of that 28 times, lest anyone miss it. Next came the cross-examination. Mr Trump’s lawyer opened it with a considered question: “You went on TikTok and called me a crying little shit, didn’t you?” “Sounds like something I would say,” replied the witness. Mr Cohen does indeed maintain a prolific output of podcasts (four episodes a week) and TikTok live-streams (almost daily) devoted to denigrating his former boss. He and his guests pathologise Mr Trump, then he invites them over for lasagne.

This case comes down to Mr Cohen’s credibility. He went to prison for a campaign-finance violation related to the hush money (and other crimes), and now wants revenge. He even wrote a book called “Revenge”. He is a prodigious liar who loves validation. That last part helps prosecutors. Consider the telling testimony of Hope Hicks, a former aide to Mr Trump. Asked if it would have been like Mr Cohen to pay the hush money out of kindness, she said that, no, it would not have been: “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person, um, or selfless person.” In other words, he was a thug in a suit. The Boss’s thug in a suit. ■