THE Donald Trump was “arbitrarily” inflating the value of his properties in order to secure more favorable insurance premiums, his former lawyer argued today Michael Cohenin his testimony at the former president’s fraud trial.

Cohen, who once said he would “take a bullet” for Trump, is now a key witness against him in the case brought before the courts by the Democratic New York attorney general. Leticia James.

Cohen testified that he saw Trump instructing him to inflate the value of several properties owned by the Trump Organization so that on tax returns those assets would appear to have “very high value and minimal liabilities to secure better insurance premiums.” The value of the properties was “whatever number Mr. Trump told us,” Cohen added, in brief testimony before adjourning court for a lunch break.

After the break, Trump told reporters he was “not at all concerned” about Cohen’s testimony.

THE Colin Faherty, the attorney representing the prosecution, began her questions to Cohen from his criminal record. The former attorney pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and lying to Congress in another investigation into Trump’s business dealings with Russia. “He did it at the behest, in agreement, and for the benefit of Donald Trump,” he said from the witness stand, referring to his false testimony to Congress.

Trump leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Cohen, whispering intermittently to his lawyers. Before the start of today’s hearing he called his former partner a “liar”. “He’s a proven liar, you know, a criminal. We didn’t do anything wrong and that’s the truth,” he told reporters.

In 2019, Cohen entered prison to serve his three-year sentence. The following year, during the pandemic, he was released from prison but placed under house arrest.

His testimony in an investigation of Congress, in 2019, about Trump’s financial data, prompted an investigation by Leticia James. Then, in a “vitriolic” attack on his former boss, the lawyer claimed that Trump “inflated the prices of his properties whenever it was convenient for him”, including to make Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people.

After being sentenced to three years in prison in 2018, Cohen cooperated with prosecutors in several cases against Trump. He will be a key witness in another trial, set for March 2024, involving the payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence before the 2016 presidential election. Cohen himself has been convicted for this case and asserts that he acted at the behest of Trump, with whom Daniels claimed to have an affair.