Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has told jurors that the Republican presidential candidate was furious that adult film actress Stormy Daniels was shopping a story in 2016 about an alleged sexual encounter with him, telling Cohen it would be catastrophic for his campaign.
"He said to me, 'This is a disaster, a total disaster. Women are going to hate me,' Cohen testified at Mr Trump's trial in New York state criminal court in Manhattan.
"'Guys, they think it's cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.'"
Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, said he learned that Ms Daniels was selling her story at a critical moment for Mr Trump's White House bid, after the release of an audio recording from the TV show 'Access Hollywood’ in which Mr Trump used made sexually aggressive language.
The tape left the Trump campaign scrambling to contain the damage only weeks before the 2016 Election Day.
Cohen's $130,000 (€120,000) payment to Ms Daniels to buy her silence about the alleged 2006 encounter is at the centre of the case.
For nearly a decade, Cohen, 57, worked as an executive and lawyer for Mr Trump's company and once said he would take a bullet for Mr Trump, a Republican, trying to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in this year's 5 November US election.
Prosecutors have said Mr Trump paid Cohen back after the election and hid the reimbursement by recording it falsely as a legal retainer fee in Mr Trump's real estate company's records.
Mr Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records tied to the reimbursement.
Prosecutors say the altered records covered up election and tax law violations - since the money was essentially an unreported contribution to Mr Trump's campaign -that elevate the crimes from misdemeanors to felonies punishable by up to four years in prison.
Mr Trump, who is running against Democratic President Joe Biden in November, has pleaded not guilty and denies having had a sexual encounter with Ms Daniels, who testified last week.
He argues the case is a politically motivated attempt to interfere with his campaign to take back the White House.
Mr Trump's defence has suggested the payment to Ms Daniels could have been made to spare Mr Trump and his family embarrassment, not to boost his campaign.
But Cohen testified that Mr Trump appeared solely concerned with the effect on his White House bid.
"He wasn't thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign," Cohen said, referring to Mr Trump's wife.
At the defence table, Mr Trump shook his head.
Cohen added that he recalled Mr Trump saying, "Just get past the election, because if I win it will have no relevance because I'm the president, and if I lose, I won't really care."
Jurors reviewed emails showing that Cohen repeatedly delayed paying Ms Daniels.
Cohen said he was trying to put off the deal until after the election at Mr Trump's behest.
Cohen also told jurors that he conspired with Mr Trump and a tabloid publisher to suppress negative stories that could damage his 2016 campaign.
At a meeting in 2015 at Trump Tower with Mr Trump and David Pecker, then publisher of the National Enquirer, the trio discussed using the supermarket tabloid to boost Mr Trump's candidacy while attacking his rivals, Cohen testified.
Mr Trump told Mr Pecker to let Cohen know if he became aware of negative stories that might arise, Cohen continued. The three men agreed that Mr Pecker would try to suppress any such stories, Cohen said.
When Mr Trump was preparing to announce his campaign for president, Cohen said, Mr Trump told him that there would be "a lot of women coming forward".
Mr Pecker previously testified that he killed a story about an alleged affair to help Mr Trump's presidential bid, after paying former Playboy model Karen McDougal for the exclusive rights to her account.
Prosecutors have said the payment to Ms Daniels was part of a broader "catch and kill" scheme between the trio to pay off people with potentially negative stories about Mr Trump in violation of campaign finance laws.
Cohen said it was fair to describe his role as a fixer for the former US president, testifying that he took care of "whatever he wanted".
Rather than work as a traditional corporate lawyer, Cohen reported directly to Mr Trump and was never part of the Trump Organization's general counsel's office.
Among his duties was renegotiating bills from business partners, threatening to sue people and planting positive stories in the press, he said.
Mr Trump, he said, communicated primarily by phone or in person and never set up an email address.
"He would comment that emails are like written papers, that he knows too many people who have gone down as a direct result of having emails that prosecutors can use in a case," Cohen said.
Mr Trump offered him a job in 2007, after Cohen presented him with a $100,000 (€92,000) bill from his then-law firm for work done for one of Mr Trump's companies.
"I was honoured. I was taken by surprise, and I agreed," Cohen said, adding that Mr Trump never paid the bill.
Cohen a frequent Trump target
Cohen, who served as Mr Trump's personal lawyer after his presidential term began in 2017, broke with him when federal prosecutors probing Mr Trump's 2016 presidential campaign focused on Cohen.
He has become one of Mr Trump's most outspoken critics, frequently disparaging him on social media and on podcasts.
On Friday, Justice Juan Merchan urged prosecutors to tell Cohen to stop making public statements about the case after defence lawyer Todd Blanche said he had posted on social media while wearing a T-shirt showing Mr Trump behind bars.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts and denies having had a sexual encounter with Ms Daniels. He argues the case is a politically motivated attempt to interfere with his campaign.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating federal campaign finance law by paying off Ms Daniels and testified that Mr Trump directed him to make the payment.
Federal prosecutors did not charge Mr Trump with any crime.
Mr Trump's defence lawyers have told the 12 jurors and six alternates that Cohen acted on his own when paying Ms Daniels, seeking to distance Mr Trump from the payments at the heart of the case.
Cohen has admitted to lying under oath multiple times, providing substantial fodder for the defence to undermine his credibility.
He has acknowledged lying to the US Congress in 2017 about a Trump Organization real estate project in Moscow, but has since said he did so to protect Mr Trump.
He also pleaded guilty to violating tax law in 2018, but now claims he did not commit that crime.
Cohen has been on the receiving end of Mr Trump's vitriolic social media attacks, some of which the judge has said violated a gag order restricting Mr Trump from making statements about witnesses, jurors and families of the judge and prosecutors if meant to interfere with the case.
Mr Trump has called the gag order a violation of his right to free speech and has said it was unfair to bar him from responding to attacks by witnesses.
Judge Merchan has fined Trump $10,000 (€9,200) for repeated violations and warned the former president he could face time in jail if he keeps up his attacks.
The case is widely seen as less consequential than three other criminal prosecutions Mr Trump faces, but it is the only one certain to go to trial before the election.
The other cases charge him with trying to overturn his 2020 presidential defeat and mishandling classified documents after leaving office. He pleaded not guilty to all three.
