DONALD TRUMP’S criminal trial is nearing its denouement at last. The prosecutors’ star witness is due on the stand imminently, at which point their tale of the former president’s duplicity will start to cohere. In 11 days of testimony other witnesses have skewered Mr Trump, flattered him and revealed his predilections, including his habit of signing cheques in Sharpie pen. But none has yet implicated him directly in the charged crimes. That is up to Michael Cohen, his former lapdog lawyer who, after going rogue six years ago, has been busy writing books with the subtle titles “Disloyal” and “Revenge”.

Manhattan’s district attorney accuses Mr Trump of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, a porn star, before the 2016 election. (He denies it.) In two days of charged testimony Ms Daniels described having sex with Mr Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament, when she was 27 and he was 60. She arrived at his penthouse suite at Harrah’s casino in Lake Tahoe for what she took to be dinner and a chat. Ever the businessman, he asked her important questions: Are porn actors unionised? Do they get residuals? Ms Daniels alleged that he then disrobed, giving her a “jump scare”. “I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there,” she said of the sex, which was brief, consensual and unpleasant. Afterwards, Mr Trump called her “honey bunch”. Later, they met a few more times, and he dangled the possibility of making her a contestant on “The Apprentice”.