Donald ‘Delay’ Trump: Michael Cohen sheds light on strategy to push back payments, trials and consequences

On his first day of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial, his former “fixer” Michael Cohen repeated one phrase when talking about the payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels: “Delay it.”

Cohen, the former president’s personal attorney, testified resoundingly about a strategy to delay commitments made by Mr Trump — a crucial insight into how the former Trump campaign worked in 2016, and potentially into how his current campaign and legal strategies operate today.

The former fixer spoke about the agreement to pay Ms Daniels $130,000 before Election Day 2016 in exchange for her silence over an alleged 2006 affair with Mr Trump. Those payments are at the heart of the ongoing criminal trial in which Mr Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the so-called hush money payments.

Cohen testified on Tuesday that he was instructed to drag out executing those payments. “My intent was to continue to delay it, as per Mr Trump’s demand,” he said.

He later testified that Yom Kippur was used as “a way of once again trying to delay it, that is until after the election. Because after the election, it wouldn’t matter.”

Cohen, who has been pitted as the star witness in the case, repeatedly mentioned this strategy to push off the so-called hush money payments until after Election Day 2016.

This “delay” strategy also extended beyond the payments to Ms Daniels, according to his testimony.

On Monday, Cohen told the court that when “Trump University fell into trouble”, Mr Trump evaded paying 50 vendors until he asked Cohen to renegotiate the bills, so that they would accept 20 per cent of the invoice. All but two vendors accepted that deal — and the remaining two “just went away”, he testified.

While Cohen’s testimony lays out Mr Trump’s campaign strategy in 2016, eight years on he and his legal team seem to be relying on the very same delay tactics.

Much like the former president’s inner circle used Yom Kippur to delay making the hush money payments in 2016, this March Mr Trump’s lawyers in the hush money case pointed to the religious celebration of Passover when they requested an “immediate adjournment” of the trial start date by more than 30 days.

They also sought to delay the hush money trial until after the US Supreme Court has ruled on his “presidential immunity” argument.

When the trial got under way in April, Mr Trump’s legal team asked on the first day if he could skip a day of proceedings to attend the Supreme Court hearing in Washington DC.

Judge Juan Merchan didn’t allow it. “He’s required to be here,” the judge said on April 15. “He’s not required to be at the Supreme Court.”

And in a separate criminal case, where Mr Trump is charged with mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House, his attorneys even cited the hush money case as a reason to push back the May deadline for reviewing classified evidence.

“President Trump has a constitutional right to be present at the trial in New York and, as a result, cannot participate in this work relating to important parts of his defense,” his legal team wrote in a filing.

The judge in that case has now postponed the trial indefinitely, citing that a host of issues around evidence, discovery, and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) still needed to be resolved before the trial starts.

Meanwhile, in his federal election interference case in Georgia, Mr Trump and his co-defendants sought a new tactic to delay the case getting to trial: trying to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.

The effort resulted in weeks-long hearings, derailing the trajectory of the case but ultimately failing.

The judge ruled that Ms Willis could remain on the case, prompting a request for an appeal from Mr Trump and his co-defendants. Earlier this month, a state appeals court granted that request, setting up yet another roadblock in the court proceedings.

Now, Mr Trump’s hush money trial is likely to be his only trial to start before the 2024 election in November.

The hush money trial in Manhattan continues this week. Cohen is expected to return to the stand on Thursday.