A former legal advisor to Michael Cohen has shattered his credibility as a witness for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying the onetime Trump fixer is too unreliable to be trusted by jurors.
Robert Costello, whose text communications with Cohen previously appeared as evidence in Cohen’s own perjury trial, told Fox News that his former associate’s testimony should be discredited by the jury which will weigh the fate of former President Donald Trump in his hush money trial. Costello recounted how Cohen previously “sw[ore] to God” that he had no evidence implicating Trump in unlawfully influencing the 2016 election and that he would do “whatever it takes” to stay out of prison.
“‘Guys, I want you to understand I will do whatever the f*** I have to do. I will never spend a day in jail,’ and then he’d slam his hand on the conference room table,” Costello said on Thursday. “This guy is saying ‘I will lie, cheat steal, do whatever I have to do. I’m not going to jail.’ Well he did go to jail, and who do you think he blames for that?”
Since advising President Trump in 2016, Cohen has flipped on his former boss, releasing two tell-all books and appearing in countless interviews to bash Trump as a scofflaw who will stop at nothing to retake the White House. Costello claimed Cohen’s shtick is an act to “monetize himself” off of his infamy.
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“Quite frankly, he’s using this [trial] to monetize himself because this is the only way this guy can make money right now – selling books and t-shirts and trinkets and being the ultimate anti-Trumper, and because he was doing that on TV and I saw that I said I can’t sit by and let this guy tell the grand jury, tell the jurors now, tell this false story now when he told us the opposite story at a moment when he was desperately seeking a way out and was willing to kill himself,” Costello added.
Cohen’s third day on the stand was marked by a heated cross-examination with defense attorney Todd Blanche who replayed for the jury some of his most prolific lies to Congress. Cohen was forced to admit to some lies while saying he forgot the details about others and further admitted that the oath he broke in front of Congress was the same he took in Trump’s ongoing trial.
Costello previously told CBS News that Blanche had contacted him about potentially serving as a witness in the trial, something he didn’t rule out. If he does, the former advisor would be a powerful counterweight to Bragg’s use of Cohen. On Wednesday Costello testified before the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is exploring connections between Bragg, special counsel Jack Smith, and other prosecutors Republicans say are illegally coordinating cases to protect President Biden and tear down Trump in court.