Michael Cohen, once a faithful collaborator and man for everything of Donald Trump, acknowledged having lied for his former boss and having used intimidation, when testifying this Monday at the trial in New York against the former president.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, is questioned by prosecutors about payments to a former porn film actress that were disguised as legal expenses and that have put the former president in the dock.

After the interrogation of Stormy Daniels last week, Cohen is the most important witness for the prosecution, which is trying to demonstrate that the former president falsified accounting records to hide a payment to the former actress in the middle of the final stretch of the 2016 elections.

At Monday’s hearing, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Cohen if he had ever lied for Trump, or if he had intimidated people.

“Yes… It was what had to be done to complete the task,” responded Cohen, who from time to time turned to look at Trump, sinking impassively in his chair.

Cohen has previously stated that at the request of his former boss he paid Daniels $130,000 out of pocket to buy her silence for a sexual relationship that occurred in 2006, and that the mogul has always denied. When he was already president, Trump reimbursed them in installments, passing them off as legal expenses, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The former lawyer, who was called “pitbull” for the zeal he showed to protect his boss, has already pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison – he only served 13 months and a year and a half under house arrest – for lying. to Congress and for financial and electoral crimes.

In a difficult week for Trump, 77, who aspires to return to the White House in the November elections, Daniels recounted in great detail the alleged one-night adventure with the magnate during a golf tournament for the rich: from his pajamas, his underpants and the sexual position as well as that he was not wearing a condom.

Details that the defense considered irrelevant to the case and for which they tried to get Judge Juan Merchan to annul the trial on two occasions. Unsuccessfully.

Over the course of three weeks, the jury that will seal the magnate’s fate in the middle of the election campaign has heard from the numerous witnesses who have taken the stand that Cohen was a difficult character, who intimidated and cajoled others to get his way. .

For defense lawyers, he is a pathological liar and a convicted criminal.