Damning emails reveal pressure campaign on Michael Cohen from Trump’s inner circle: ‘He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet’

Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial have seen a series of damning emails that appear to show Rudy Giuliani-linked attorney Robert Costello urging Michael Cohen to keep quiet about the former president while his one-time “fixer” was under federal investigation.

After Cohen’s office and home were raided and phones were seized by federal agents in April 2018, Mr Costello suggested that Cohen would retain him as counsel, in what Cohen previously testified was part of a “pressure campaign” to keep him close to Mr Trump to prevent him from “flipping” against him.

On Tuesday, after Mr Costello was nearly tossed out off the witness stand not even 24 hours earlier, emails shown to the court in Manhattan showed him calling on Cohen to “get on the same page” and reminding him that he has “friends in high places.”

On 22 June, 2018, two months before Cohen reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Mr Costello emailed his associate to complain that Cohen “continues to slow play us and the president.”

“Is he totally nuts?” Mr Costello wrote. “What should I say to this a******? He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet.”

“That email certainly speaks for itself, doesn’t it, Mr Costello?” asked Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger.

“Yes, it does,” Mr Costello replied.

Mr Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records for a series of invoices and checks to Cohen in 2017 that reimbursed him for his hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecutors allege Mr Trump unlawfully covered up potentially politically damaging information about his affairs to boost his chances of winning.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Cohen – who was then-President Trump’s personal attorney during the investigation – had testified to and emails shown in court show an attempt from Mr Costello to open a “back channel” of communication, via Mr Giuliani, to Mr Trump.

In his testimony last week, Cohen described what he felt were Mr Costello’s “sketchy” attempts to strong-arm him into his service.

“This is part of the pressure campaign that, ‘everyone is lying to you, that you are still regarded, the president still supports you, do not speak, do not listen to what the journalists or anyone is saying, and stay in the fold,’” Cohen said last week. “’Don’t flip, don’t cooperate.’”

Cohen didn’t trust him, he said, yet he remained “loyal to Mr Trump.”