Robert J. Costello, Esq., Should Be Trump’s Defense Witness No. 1

President Donald J. Trump’s trial lawyers should open his defense with a bang. Their lead witness in the unfolding ledger-entry case should be Robert J. Costello, Esq.

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s former attorney would explode a MOAB of reasonable doubt over the jury and blast Cohen’s lies to smithereens.

Robert J. Costello, Esq., would enter Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom swaddled in credibility. The Fordham Law School alumnus has been a well-respected civil and criminal litigator since 1973. He was formerly deputy chief of the Criminal Division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York. Super Lawyers recognized Costello in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Freed from his confidentiality agreement with Cohen, Costello provides a completely different theory of this case. Unlike the dog’s breakfast that prosecutors have been spoon feeding the jury, Costello’s coherent story bears the ring of truth.

Unbeknownst to Trump, Cohen used his own money to pay erotic actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to zip her lips about an alleged consensual sexual encounter with Trump that he denies and that she, by turns, has asserted and repudiated. Cohen did this to shield Trump and his wife from humiliation and to curry favor with Trump so as to boost Cohen’s odds of joining a future Trump administration.

(If they do not have them already, Trump’s attorneys should subpoena Cohen’s home-loan records. Documents showing that he, in fact, borrowed $130,000 just before Election Day 2016 would bolster the claim that this fine mess was Cohen’s brainstorm.)

“He [Cohen] thought the story would be embarrassing for Trump, and especially for Melania, so he decided he would take care of this himself,” Costello testified under oath Wednesday morning before the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. “When asked if Trump had any knowledge of this, Cohen said no.”

In his testimony, at a hearing on what the panel called “the use of lawfare tactics to weaponize the rule of law,” Costello recalled this 2018 conversation with Cohen at Manhattan’s Regency Hotel:

He said, “That’s why I decided to take care of this on my own.”

I went back to that several times: “You did this on your own?”

“On my own.”

“Did Donald Trump have anything to do with it?”

“No.”

“Did you get the money from Donald Trump?”

“No.”

“From any of his organizations?”

“No.”

“From anybody connected to Donald Trump?”

“No.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“I took out a HELOC loan against my property.”

I said, “Why would you do that?”

He said, “I didn’t want anybody to know where I got this money. I didn’t want Melania to know; I didn’t want my own wife to know because she’s in charge,” he said, “of the Cohen family finances.”

He said, “If she saw money coming out of my account, she’d ask me a hundred questions, and I didn’t want to answer any of them.”

Costello recalled in sworn testimony how Cohen summed things up: “I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.”

Reflecting the panic that Democrats must feel as their anti-Trump lawfare conspiracy crashes down around them, U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) outlandishly accused Costello of manipulating this case’s jury.

“You know that coming down here [to Washington, D.C.], outside of that courtroom while that witness is on the stand, to try to impeach his credibility and his testimony is jury tampering,” Goldman — as luck would have it, my congressman — told Costello in Room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building. “You know it is unethical. You know that you are trying to discredit a current witness at a current trial.”

Costello would be guilty of jury tampering … if he phoned jurors at home and shared these details with them. Costello, of course, did no such thing. He appeared under oath at the invitation of a Capitol Hill oversight body. It’s tough to tamper with a jury while under bright lights as elected Republicans, Democrat legislators, and the American people look on.

“First of all, I had nothing to do with the scheduling of this hearing,” Costello responded later in the hearing. “Second of all, nobody knew when Michael Cohen was going to testify. The prediction by the media, and also by the prosecutors, was this was going to be a five- or six-week trial. So according to that, Michael Cohen shouldn’t be testifying for another week or two.”

Costello added: “To claim that we’re just doing this to interfere with the jury — that’s been instructed, of course, not to watch proceedings such as this — is ridiculous.”

This morning, Costello continued to dismantle Cohen’s carefully crafted tale. Costello told Fox News Channel’s America’s Newsroom: “He kept on saying, over and over again, 10 to 20 times, ‘I swear to God, Bob. I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.”

After the election, Cohen learned that he would become neither White House chief of staff nor attorney general. Costello testified that Cohen “kept on bringing up the subject that he felt he was betrayed by not being brought down to Washington, D.C.”

Crushed and enraged, Cohen devolved from Trump defender to Trump detractor.

Weeks after the polls closed, when it was too late for Trump to influence any votes, Cohen decided to cover his losses and recoup the cash he simultaneously had used to gag Stormy Daniels and boost his career prospects.

Cohen then invoiced Trump. Using personal, non-campaign funds, Trump paid Cohen’s bills. Trump’s bookkeepers entered those checks to Cohen in their business records as “legal expenses,” which was true, thoroughly routine, and perfectly lawful.

Consequently, Trump knew nothing about Cohen’s payments to Stormy Daniels. He paid Cohen’s legal bills, as always, which Trump’s employees correctly logged as “legal expenses.” Trump was unaware of anything unusual. And, even if he were, these actions were all legal. The only relevant illegality is Michael Cohen’s apparent perjury this week as a witness in Manhattan Criminal Court Room 1602.

Robert J. Costello’s devastating testimony should lead even a jury of Manhattan liberal Democrats to find Donald J. Trump not guilty on all 34 charges against him.

Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.

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