Trump fixer appears in court

NEW YORK — In a courtroom showdown five years in the making, Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen testified Tuesday he worked to boost the supposed value of the former president's assets to "whatever number Trump told us to."

It was a long-awaited face-to face encounter between Trump and the now-disbarred lawyer.

Cohen eventually ended up in prison and became a prominent witness against his former boss from courthouses to Congress.

Cohen is a key figure in New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit alleging that Trump and his company duped banks, insurers and others by giving them financial statements that inflated his wealth.

"I was tasked by Mr. Trump to increase the total assets, based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected," Cohen testified, saying he and former Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg labored "to reverse-engineer the various different asset classes, increase those assets, in order to achieve a number that Mr. Trump had tasked us." Trump denies James' allegations, and dismissed Cohen's account outside court as the words of "a proven liar" who served prison time after pleading guilty to tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.

The former president and Republican 2024 front-runner voluntarily came to court for the highly anticipated testimony. Cohen previously said he hadn't seen Trump for five years until now.

Judge Arthur Engoron already ruled that Trump and his company committed fraud, but the trial involves remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records.

Trump says his assets were actually undervalued, and he maintains that disclaimers on his financial statements essentially told recipients to check the numbers out for themselves.

Cohen spent a decade as Trump's fiercely loyal personal lawyer before famously breaking with him in 2018 amid a federal investigation that sent Cohen to federal prison. He is also a major prosecution witness in Trump's separate Manhattan hush-money criminal case, which is scheduled to go to trial next spring.

James credited Cohen as the impetus for her civil investigation, which led to the fraud lawsuit and trial.