Prosecutors are limited in how they may reference Michael Cohen’s past guilty pleas during former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial, but these restrictions have not stopped them from finding ways to tie Trump to Cohen’s crimes in front of the jury.
Judge Juan Merchan expressly ruled that prosecutors are not permitted to use Cohen’s guilty pleas for two campaign finance violations in 2018 as evidence that Trump committed a crime, but the judge did provide leeway on the matter, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has used it.
Cohen, who is expected to testify in the trial, was Trump’s attorney and fixer in 2016 amid the presidential election, but Cohen has since pleaded guilty to numerous crimes and has become openly hostile toward his former client in the years since his plea.
Cohen’s crimes are one example of the topics around which prosecutors and…
