Okay, so we’ve now wrapped Week Five of the trial of former President Donald Trump in Manhattan for allegedly falsifying business records. (Court will not be in session on Friday, in part to allow for Trump to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.)
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The day began and ended with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, on the stand under cross-examination from defense attorney Todd Blanche. Descriptions of how well it went for the defense vary, depending on the source, but what appears to be a key moment in the trial came about as Blanche questioned Cohen regarding an October 24, 2016 phone call. Previously, Cohen testified that he had called Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, in order to speak with Trump regarding the deal with Stormy Daniels. However, as Blanche, using phone records, walked Cohen through the sequence of events, it became apparent that Cohen’s earlier characterization of that call wasn’t exactly the case.
Blanche has been showing text messages and a call log that he says indicate Cohen was asking Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller for help with harassment he was receiving — not calling Schiller in order to speak with Trump about Daniels, as he testified Monday.
Cohen insists that while “part of” the correspondence was regarding the harassment, “I know that Keith was with Mr. Trump at the time and there was more potentially than this.”
Blanche asks skeptically whether Cohen really “had enough time to update Schiller about all the (harassment) problems you were having and also update President Trump about the status of the Stormy Daniels situation, because you had to keep him informed.”
“I always ran everything by the boss immediately, and in this case it would have been saying, ‘Everything been taken care of — it’s been resolved,'” Cohen says, maintaining his composure.
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Those in Trump’s camp were clearly pleased with the exchange.
CNN, while describing the exchange above, also made a point to characterize Blanche’s demeanor during the exchange thusly:
Donald Trump attorney Todd Blanche raised his voice and flailed his arms at Michael Cohen, wailing at the prosecution’s star witness and accusing him of making up a phone conversation with Trump just before he sent $130,000 to Stormy Daniels’ attorney in October 2016.
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“Flailing” and raised voice notwithstanding, CNN’s own analysts appeared to view the exchange as problematic for the prosecution.
Even Anderson Cooper was flummoxed by the development, as our Ward Clark reported earlier.
Cohen then testified, according to Cooper, that Keith Schiller had directed Cohen to call him — this was supposedly the call in which the discussion about going ahead with payments to Stormy Daniels took place, which seems an odd juxtaposition.
More from Cooper:
It was an extraordinary cross-examination by Todd Blanche, and, you know, Michael Cohen’s, throughout the day, when Michael Cohen was cornered when he found himself in a corner, he suddenly has a pattern of not understanding the question that’s being asked, continuing, I mean, one might say he’s trying to buy time, trying to figure out how he wants to answer, but he definitely starts to, you know, have Todd Blanche repeat questions, “I don’t understand what you mean,” and “I’m confused by the question,” but this time, Michael Cohen was cornered, in what appeared to be a lie, I think to many in the room, and had to adjust his memory of what he had just testified to on Tuesday.
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The bottom line is this: The prosecution needs Cohen’s testimony to make their (already highly suspect) case against Trump. But not only is Cohen a known and proven liar with an unmistakable axe to grind, he was caught playing fast and loose with the facts in this very matter. He’s the person least deserving of being cut any slack. Will that matter to the jury?
We may find out sooner than expected. As things wound down on Thursday afternoon and the attorneys advised the court of what witnesses and evidence they have left, it became apparent that evidence may be concluded as early as Monday. The defense expects to finish its cross-examination of Cohen on Monday morning. The prosecution will have a brief redirect and does not plan to call any additional witnesses for its case-in-chief. The defense has not made a final determination as to whether Trump will testify (and, in my view, they’d be utter fools to put him on the stand given how things have gone). Their only definite witness is an expert regarding the Federal Election Commission — and his testimony will be significantly restricted per the court’s prior rulings. Judge Juan Merchan advised the attorneys to be prepared to present their closing arguments on Tuesday if the testimony wraps on Monday.
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