Trump trial live updates: Michael Cohen’s lies at center of cross-examination

If it was a “private” or “unusual” conversation, he’d use Signal or other encrypted apps.

Blanche notes that there were 95 secretly recorded conversations on his phones.

He notes that it’s not ethical for an attorney to record a client.

Cohen says: “Yes – except of course in a crime-fraud exception.”

A few people in the overflow room literally yelped.

Cohen met Maggie Haberman roughly 20 years ago and had asked her to write positive stories about him.

Blanche asks whether, in exchange, he would give her tips?

“I would use Ms Haberman if the story was something that I believed the New York Times would run. If it wasn’t a Times-style story, I would go to a different outlet.”

Asked if he would record conversations with reporters: “I wouldn’t say a lot.”

Asked how many, he came up with a number very quickly: “40.”

Cohen said he stopped recording conversations in 2016, after the election.

You didn’t record in 2017 or 2018? “I’d have to check.”

“OK.” (said in an almost “okie dokie” kind of way).

Did he ever disclose that?

He doesn’t recall, but notes that “it’s not illegal in New York.” (It’s a so-called one-party state.)

Cohen had a “full rolodex” of reporters, Blanche says.

“You never reached back out to a reporter, ever, without first checking with President Trump?”

“It was my routine to always advise Mr Trump because if the story I was going to put out, 1, it would cause him to blow up at me, and 2, it would be the end of my job.”

“One magazine, one newspaper would pick up the same story, so I would use the same statement over and over and over again. For those I would not tell Mr Trump, I would send to my same list of reporters … We just mimicked the same response to the next magazine, the next newspaper, and so on.”

Blanche is finally correcting that CNN interview / unsealed indictment timeline for the jurors.

He asks Cohen whether by the time he was on CNN the indictment of Trump had been unsealed.

Cohen is now reading through the text messages from Oct 24 with the alleged 14-year-old about the harassing phone calls. The messages are on the screen now and are entered into evidence.

Meanwhile, outside the court…