New York, New York - Donald Trump's hush money trial will continue with another explosive episode on Monday as the ex-president's former lawyer turned tormentor Michael Cohen is expected to testify.

Cohen's testimony follows a bruising week for Trump in which porn star Stormy Daniels gave toe-curling detail about their alleged sexual encounter which is at the heart of the case – and bitterly denied by the Republican.

Daniels, who claims to have had sex with Trump in 2006, denied she threatened him if he did not buy her silence for $130,000, a payment that prosecutors say Trump then covered up.

The Republican presidential hopeful is accused of falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer Cohen for the payment on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, when the story could have proved politically fatal.

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Daniels' marathon testimony and cross-examination cleared the way for prosecutors to call Cohen, their remaining star witness.

But jurors have repeatedly heard from witnesses that Cohen was a difficult character who bullied and cajoled others to get his way, while the defense counsel have painted him as a pathological liar and convicted criminal.

"People forget, if they think it's going to be hard for him to keep his temper down, that he testified publicly in 2019 -- and he was in front of 15 partisan Republicans," a source close to Cohen told AFP, confirming he would testify on Monday.

"Everything he says is backed up by documents. He has a high bar to prove his sincerity – but he's proven he can."

Cohen spent just over 13 months in prison and a year and a half on house arrest after he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for lying to Congress and financial crimes.

At a New Jersey rally on Saturday, Trump again bashed presiding Judge Juan Merchan as "conflicted" and the prosecutor in the case, Alvin Bragg, as a "radical Democrat."

But he appeared to heed the gag order imposed in the case and avoided naming any witnesses in the case, including Cohen.

Trump said Thursday that he filed an appeal against the gag order, while on Friday his lawyers sought to have a gag order applied to Cohen – a vocal Trump critic – ahead of his testimony.

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His lawyers also demanded that Trump be allowed to hit back publicly at Daniels' claims about their encounter now that she was no longer a witness.

Judge Merchan denied the request to change the gag order, which Trump has been fined $10,000 for breaking. He also rejected two motions to declare a mistrial.