The prosecution returned to Cohen’s testimony about skimming $30,000 off a payment meant for the tech firm RedFinch.
Cohen elaborated on the work that the company did for him. In 2014, CNBC ran an online poll asking readers to vote for the top businessmen in the country.
“Mr. Trump’s name was on that list, and at the beginning of this poll he was polling toward the very, very bottom and it upset him, and so he had me come to his office,” Cohen said. “He provided me with a sheet of paper that showed it.”
Cohen said he reached out to RedFinch’s owner, John Gauger, who told him he could craft a program to vote repeatedly for Trump, using different IP addresses to avoid detection.
Cohen said he told Trump about what RedFinch could do, and they discussed what place he should finish in the poll.
“He, of course, wanted to be No. 1, but we didn’t think that was a good idea, because it would raise red flags,” Cohen remembered. “As long as we were top 10 we would go into another round.”
Cohen said he told Gauger to move forward. When the poll ended, Trump was ranked No. 9.
But then Trump refused to pay RedFinch, Cohen said: “CNBC ended up not continuing and moving forward with this poll, and so he didn’t feel that he had gotten the benefit of what the services were ultimately supposed to provide.”
After the bill languished for months, Cohen said he felt pressure to pay Gauger, whom he considered a friend. That’s when he gave him roughly $20,000 in cash, out of the $50,000 he was owed, Cohen said. He noted the money came from his own pocket.
Hoffinger asked why Cohen sought the full $50,000 in the invoice to the Trump Organization in 2017. Cohen said he was angry that his year-end bonus had been cut.
“I was angered because of the reduction of the bonus, and so I just felt like it was almost like self help,” he testified. “I had protected [Trump] the best that I could, and I also had laid out money to RedFinch a year and a half earlier, and again $130,000, and to have my bonus cut by two-thirds was upsetting to say the least.”
The final total Cohen would receive over the course of 2017 included $60,000 to make up for the cut to his bonus.
