Fraud trial | Michael Cohen testifies against Trump, who calls him 'proven liar'

Michael Cohen testified that he and former Trump finance chief Allen Weisselberg worked to inflate Trump's assets to "whatever number Trump told us to." Trump denied the allegations and called Cohen a "proven liar." Cohen said the trial was about accountability, while Trump called it a "scam" and "sham" by Democrats. Trump's lawyers sought to delay the trial, citing COVID-19 concerns. Cohen and Trump had a fraught reunion in court.

In a courtroom showdown five years in the making, Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen testified Tuesday that he worked to boost the supposed value of the former U.S. president's assets to “whatever number Trump told us to."

Mr. Trump's lawyers — and outside court, Mr. Trump himself — by turn sought to portray Mr. Cohen as a serial deceiver who pleaded guilty to crimes that include tax evasion and telling falsehoods to Congress and a bank. During a fractious cross-examination, Mr. Cohen, a disbarred attorney, even floated his own lawyerly objections, responding to some queries with “asked and answered!”

It was a fraught face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a man who once pledged to “take a bullet” for him. Mr. Cohen eventually ended up in prison and became a prominent witness against his former boss in venues from courthouses to Congress.

Now, Mr. Cohen is a key figure in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit alleging that Mr. Trump and his company duped banks, insurers and others by giving them financial statements that inflated his wealth.

“I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets, based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected,” Mr. Cohen testified, saying that he and former Mr. Trump finance chief Allen Weisselberg labored “to reverse-engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets, in order to achieve a number that Mr. Trump had tasked us.”

Asked what that number was, Mr. Cohen replied: “Whatever number Trump told us to.”

Mr. Trump denies Ms. James' allegations. Outside court, Mr. Trump dismissed Mr. Cohen's account as the words of “a proven liar.”