President Trump watched anxiously in 2018 as news broke about federal agents searching the home of Michael Cohen, the man entrusted to conceal some of the president’s deep secrets. After coming to Cohen’s defense, Trump washed his hands of his fixer within weeks, brushing aside Cohen’s feelers about a pardon and disavowing his legal bills. Trump took a different tack when prosecutors focused on Allen Weisselberg, the Trump family’s longtime financial gatekeeper. Trump’s company paid Weisselberg’s legal bills and awarded him a $2 million severance, with a condition: He could not voluntarily cooperate with any law enforcement agency. Trump’s lawyers pressed him to testify in a civil fraud case filed against the former president, hoping the testimony would aid their defense. Prosecutors say Weisselberg lied during his testimony, and this month he pleaded guilty to perjury. Weisselberg and Cohen landed behind bars. While Weisselberg remained loyal, refusing to implicate his boss, Cohen is poised to become a central witness for the district attorney at rump’s criminal trial next month, the first prosecution of a former U.S. president, reports the New York Times.
The contrasting cases of Cohen and Weisselberg demonstrate the power and peril of Trump’s tactics. The trial, in which Trump is accused of covering up a sex scandal surrounding the 2016 presidential campaign, is the realization of his fear that prosecutors would flip trusted aides into dangerous witnesses. Trump, facing four indictments and several lawsuits while seeking to reclaim the White House, seeks to exert control over witnesses. In screeds posted on his social media site, he mixes enticements with threats, praise with scorn, and when all else fails, he makes life miserable for anyone audacious enough to cross Trump's company praised Weisselberg as a “fine and honorable man,” but Cohen felt the brunt of the former president’s attacks. Trump has sued him, called him a “rat” and referred to him as “death.” That aggressive approach — stick, rather than carrot — will be tested at the Manhattan trial, and at others that may follow in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Despite Trump’s lashing of Cohen and others, they are still set to testify against him.
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