Why are we talking about the Buffalo Bills?published at 20:44 British Summer Time 24 October 2023

20:44 BST 24 October 2023

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

A recurring character keeps popping up at this hearing: the American football team the Buffalo Bills.

The team hails from a city in Upstate New York and is known for its extremely dedicated and cold-resistant fan base.

Donald Trump tried to buy the team in 2014, an effort that blew up in a spectacular fashion and even dragged the rock star Bon Jovi into the mess.

His attempts to purchase the team is now central to a line of questioning by prosecutors, who are trying to prove that Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his business assets.

The Bills were up for sale about a decade ago, and Trump entered into a three-way bidding war between himself, the owner of Buffalo's professional hockey team, and a group of Canadian investors using Bon Jovi as their frontman.

It got nasty very quickly. A group of anti-Bon Jovi activists tried to stonewall his group's bid. Trump reportedly hired a Republican political operative to try and scuttle his rivals. The New York tabloids had a field day.

Trump did not ultimately wind up buying the Buffalo Bills, a point that his lawyer, Chris Kise, brought up when he objected to the prosecution's line of questioning. He's argued that the Bills aren't relevant to the overall fraud case.

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

At one point during the prosecution's questioning, Trump's lawyer Christopher Kise asks why the NFL team the Buffalo Bills is being brought up if the deal never went through.

The state was asking about a meeting with Deutsche Bank regarding the potential football deal.

The judge says: "I think we can all agree that Mr Trump never owned the Buffalo Bills."

Trump bid $1bn for the Buffalo Bills in 2014 but lost out to Terry Pegula, the team's current owner.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Image source, Reuters

Eric Trump, the former president's son and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, is wearing a grey suit and sitting in the audience a few feet behind his father.

Though he's remained mostly silent and expressionless, at a few moments, he appeared frustrated with Cohen's testimony.

At one point Cohen seemed to imply that Trump's adult children - Eric, Ivanka, and Donald Trump, Jr - worked on some of Trump's assets.

Cohen seemed to imply that they were aware of how those assets were inflated, but later acknowledged under more detailed testimony that he never directly saw them work on such a thing.

Eric Trump shook his head as Cohen answered questions, though he said nothing.

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

We're hearing Cohen give examples of how he would inflate assets for the Trump Organization.

He tells the court in 2013, there was a journalist for a New York real estate magazine called The Real Deal who was writing a feature on Donald Trump's net worth.

When the journalist came to see Cohen at his office, he says he presented her the document, which she could take notes of but not take, in order to write story about how much Trump was actually worth.

The prosecution asked if he could think of another example.

Cohen said when Trump wanted to buy NFL team the Buffalo Bills, they used that financial statement with inflated assets to show Trump's ability to purchase the team.

Trump's bid for the Bills was unsuccessful.

As Cohen continues to give evidence, here's the latest scene inside the courtroom where Trump's civil fraud case is taking place.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Just before Trump stepped back into the courtroom, he was asked about his concern of Covid after a recent outbreak on the prosecution's legal team.

Trump told reporters: "What they did with Covid in the courtroom was a disgrace and they should apologise".

At least four members of the Attorney General's team got Covid in the last week, the court was told yesterday.

Trump's team protested that court shouldn't have been in session today, and said the attorney general knew of a Covid case on their team as early as last Wednesday but didn't notify Trump's team and the court until Saturday.

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

Image source, EPA

Cohen is back on the stand and says that Trump's executive assistant would usually call him and direct him to visit Trump's office.

Cohen tells the court that when he arrived, Trump would say "I’m not worth $4.5bn, I’m really worth more like $6bn".

And then Cohen, along with CFO Allen Weisselberg would go back to Allen’s office until they reached Trump's "desired goal”, Cohen says.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

The court is back in session, the judge is at the bench, Donald Trump is at the defence table.

Prosecutors will resume their questioning of Michael Cohen shortly.

Image source, Getty Images

While we wait for court to resume after the lunch break, we've got a little detail that might explain why today's setting looks familiar.

In this same court building in the 1990s, a famous scene was unfolding.

But this one belonged on cinema screens.

Martin Scorsese's iconic gangster movie Goodfellas used the New York City County Courthouse to film a pivotal scene.

It's where *spoiler warning, but also this film is from 1990 so you've had plenty of opportunity to watch it* Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta) snitches on the mob bosses.

Brandon Livesay
Reporting from New York City

Image source, Reuters

It's the face-off five years in the making, but we are yet to see any real fireworks.

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump have been bitter enemies since 2018 when Cohen gave evidence at a congressional hearing.

Part of that evidence is what sparked this current civil trial in New York - Cohen told lawmakers that Trump had inflated the value of his assets.

So far today we've only heard a few introductory questions during Cohen's testimony.

The two men have not had much of an interaction yet, beyond Trump glaring at his former fixer as he took the stand.

Just before the court broke for lunch, Cohen spoke about how he would "reverse engineer" asset values at the direction of Trump.

When the courtroom emptied, Trump told waiting media that Cohen was not a credible witness.

We're expecting a fascinating session after lunch, so stay with us.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

We're very early in the prosecutor's questioning of Michael Cohen. But their strategy is already emerging: to use Cohen's testimony to tie all of the Trump Organization's dealings - both legal and allegedly illegal - directly to Trump.

Under questioning, Cohen confirmed he answered to Trump, and Trump alone.

"Whatever issues he had, whatever created ire for him, he would bring it to me in order to resolve it," Cohen said.

Just before the break, he delivered what may be just the first of several damning accusations: that Trump personally asked him and Allen Weisselberg, the convicted ex-CEO of the company, to inflate his assets "arbitrarily" by a number he had chosen.

Cohen says they did "whatever Mr Trump told us to”.

Court has taken a break for lunch and Donald Trump used the moment to speak with a large group of media waiting outside the courtroom.

He starts off by saying Michael Cohen's record is "horrible" and says his former fixer is "not a credible witness".

The former president also says he wasn't worried about Cohen's testimony, and believed it was "not going to end up very good for him".

We saw Cohen leave the courtroom moments before Trump, but he breezed past the cameras without saying anything.

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

Cohen tells the court that he was tasked by Donald Trump to increase the total assets based upon a financial number that Trump “arbitrarily elected”.

He says his responsibility, along with Trump Organization's CFO Allen Weisselberg, was to “reverse engineer” different asset classes and increase the value of them in order to achieve the number.

The prosecution asked what that figure was.

Cohen said whatever number Trump had come up with.

During court's recess, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social, external, to post old quotes from Michael Cohen.

Neither quotes are accompanied by any comment from Trump himself.

And keep in mind that Trump and Cohen were close allies at the time of these quotes, they had a falling out in 2018.

The first post is from a 2011 article in the Huffington Post, where Cohen said that Trump is worth "substantially more than what's recorded in Forbes".

The second, taken from a New York Times interview in 2016, is complimentary of the former president.

Cohen calls him "a patriarch, a mentor" and says he is "fiercely loyal to him".

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

Michael Cohen starts off by going back to the very beginning, when he first met Donald Trump.

He recalls it was March 2007 when he left his law firm to work at the Trump Organization.

Cohen says he was introduced to Trump through his son, Don Jr.

He says Trump asked him if he would "like to leave that sleepy old firm”.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

Trump assumed his usual courtroom pose of a stony face and folded arms as Cohen entered the courtroom.

Trump appeared to look in his former fixer's direction as he took the stand, but obviously, this being court, said nothing.

As questioning continues in Trump's civil fraud case, here's the tense scene captured inside by court artist Jane Rosenberg.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Right after noon local time, Michael Cohen took the witness stand.

The state begins by asking him to answer why he can no longer practice law.

He recaps by saying his license was taken away because of fraud charges brought on by the Southern District of New York.

Kayla Epstein
Reporting from court

While cross examining William Kelly, one of Trump’s attorneys built a lengthy, and repetitive, wind up to his question. Judge Engoron was not having it.

He repeatedly prodded Trump’s lawyer to just ask the question, which he continued not to do. Trump’s lead lawyer, Chris Kise, complained that their side was always being rushed and interrupted.

There was mild bickering between the bench and the defence table, and Trump’s lawyer began his wind up again. By this time, the dozens of audience members in the court were chuckling.

After all that, Trump’s lawyer wound up not actually asking a question and simply praised Kelly for his integrity.

Chloe Kim
Reporting from court

Donald Trump's son, Eric, is also present at court today.

He walked in after the break and is seated in the first row behind his father.

Eric is the executive vice-president of the Trump Organization and is also a co-defendant in this civil trial.