Trump trial live: Robert Costello to return as witness

Robert Costello, a lawyer who gave Michael Cohen legal advice, was just scolded by Justice Merchan.

So here is a quick reminder who Costello is and why he is testifying for the defence.

A former federal prosecutor who would later become a defence lawyer, Costello allegedly worked as a back channel between Trump and his ex-fixer – though Cohen never retained him as an attorney.

Costello was closely tied with Rudy Giuliani, and Cohen has alleged that he gained the impression that his legal adviser was more concerned with Trump’s desires than Cohen’s.

The two men had a falling out thereafter, but Costello has not disappeared in the interim.

He has publicly criticised both this trial and Cohen in the intervening years, and he appeared before the grand jury that investigated the former president in this case at the request of Trump’s lawyers.

Last week, Costello told a Republican-controlled congressional panel that “virtually every statement he (Cohen) made about me was another lie”, referring to the ex-fixer’s testimony.

In a separate case, Costello was sued by Hunter Biden – President Joe Biden’s son – who alleged that Costello and Giuliani “dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen.”