Thread by @stewartbishop

Hello hello, back in NY Supreme Court again for the criminal trial of Donald Trump. This morning, Justice Juan Merchan informed the parties that we are not going to get to the end of this thing until at least next week. Michael Cohen is now back on the witness stand.

Trump counsel Todd Blanche is continuing his cross of Cohen. I don’t know how this is possible, but Cohen looks older than he did last week.

Blanche is asking Cohen about his now former non-Trumpy businesses. Taxi medallions, Florida real estate, etc. Unclear where Blanche is going with this.

As part of his 2018 guilty plea, Cohen admitted that he failed to report roughly $4.1 million of income on tax returns between 2012 and 2016. Of that income, some $3.7 million came from his taxi medallion business.

As we heard last week, it was Cohen who paid Stormy Daniels hush money and was later reimbursed by Trump in installments over the course of 2017 for a total of $420,000, a figure that included the hush money, taxes, and unrelated payments.

Of that amount, $50,000 was paid to Cohen in connection with a tech company called Red Finch that Trump had stiffed. Cohen concedes today that he paid a guy from that company $20,000 in cash in a brown paper bag, but billed the Trump Org for $50,000.

“So you stole from the Trump Organization?” Blanche asks.

“Yes sir,” Cohen replies.

Cohen is asked about his departure from the Trump Org. following Trump’s election in 2016, when he became Trump’s personal attorney. Cohen confirms that he was crowing about it at the time, telling, NYT, TMZ and Sean Hannity

Last week, Cohen said he did about 10 hours of legal work for Trump in 2017. Today, Blanche is asking about Trump-related litigation that Cohen was involved in that year, in what clearly sounds like a challenge to Cohen's claim of doing little to no legal work for Trump.

Cohen previously testified that Trump paid him nothing for being his personal lawyer. Instead, Cohen says he was paid for consulting gigs from companies who were looking for an in with Trump. Blanche is trying to stir up something about this today.

Cohen says he "consulted" for AT&T, Novartis and other companies. Sounds like his going rate in 2017 was around $100k a month, give or take.

As we’ve heard before, when word of the Stormy hush money leaked, Cohen told the press it was all him.

“You had told anyone who asked that President Trump knew nothing about the payment at the time?” Blanche asks.

“Yes sir,” Cohen says.

Blanche is pressing Cohen about where his money comes from. Cohen says he’s made about $4 million since the fall of 2020 from his podcasts and books, all of which have a very anti-Trump theme.

This is the same line of questioning we saw of Stormy Daniels. Team Trump is very eager to point out that Daniels and Cohen have cashed in from their public criticism of Trump.

We're taking a break. I think Blanche is getting close to the end here. He seems to have hit all his main points.

A fair amount of Trump peeps are in court today, including GOP House Reps. Eric Burlison, Andrew Clyde, Mary Miller and Keith Self. South Carolina AG Alan Wilson, former NYPD police commissioner Bernie Kerik and others are on hand as well.

Law prof. Alan Dershowitz as well.

Cohen also confirms that he's considering a run for Congress. For a Manhattan district?

Blanche asks Cohen if he has a financial interest in this case, Cohen says yes.

"I talk about it on my podcast, I talk about it on TikTok. They make money," he says.

Blanche presses Cohen to talk about how he'll benefit from a Trump conviction. No dice there.

“It’s better if he’s not for me, because it gives me more to talk about in the future,” Cohen says.

"Nothing further," Blanche says.

ADA Susan Hoffinger is back up for redirect.

We're getting close to the end of the government's case here. The DA's office is expected to rest once Cohen steps down.

Hoffinger asks Cohen about the extra $30k he pocketed at the Trump Org.'s expense from the Red Finch deal. At the time, Cohen's annual bonus had been cut by two thirds and he was pissed about it, he says.

"It was almost like self-help," he says.

Amid a long sidebar, Cohen sighs deeply and looks down.

Hoffinger tries to cover Cohen’s testimony on cross, when he agreed with Blanche that NDAs -- like the one Stromy signed -- are perfectly legal.

“Were the circumstances of this NDA that you’ve testified to, was that perfectly legal?” she asks.

“No ma’am,” Cohen says.

Hoffinger is taking on Blanche’s Perry Mason bit from last week, when he accused Cohen of lying about an Oct 24, 2016 call he had with Trump lieutenant Keith Schiller, who Cohen says passed the phone to Trump at one point.

Blanche accused Cohen of lying about that call, saying it was actually Cohen asking Schiller about harassing phone calls he was receiving at the time.

Justice Merchan sends the jury out for lunch early as the parties tangle over photos from that day of Trump and Schiller together. Prosecutors want to show them to jurors to refute the defense line about that call.

Or possibly a C-span video of a Trump rally from that day, or stills from it or something. Blanche really doesn’t it coming in. The judge says he’ll address it after lunch.

Back from a break, and the C-span video/pics are not coming in, at least for now. If they really want to bring such evidence in, they'll have to call a custodial witness to do so.

Trump counsel Todd Blanche objects to even that.

The soonest a government custodial witness could testify would be tomorrow morning.

The plan for today was for prosecutors to rest and begin what is likely to be a short defense case. Justice Merchan thinks about adjourning for the day.

Crisis adverted. A C-span still shot is coming in after some off the record talks between the parties.

Blanche indicated that the defense will have at least two witnesses, with very brief testimony. I'd say it's almost certain that Trump will not testify.

Michael Cohen is back on the stand.

“Do you have any doubt that Mr.Trump told you in...substance to work out the Stormy Daniels payment with Allen Weisselberg?” Hoffinger asks.

“No ma’am,” Cohen replies.

Hoffinger asks Cohen what’s it been like since he turned on Trump.

“My entire life has been turned upside down as a result. I lost my law license, my businesses, my security,” Cohen says.

That's it for redirect, Blanche gets back up for recross.

He asks if it was really Trump's fault that Cohen lost his law license.

"Yes, in part," Cohen says.

It's important to note that Cohen pled guilty to a variety of charges, including some that were connected to Trump, and others that were not.

If you're a lawyer and you get convicted of any felony in New York state, you get disbarred.

Blanche gets Cohen to confirm that in the eleven years he worked for Trump, the Stormy matter was the only time he saw his boss pay for an NDA.

That's it for Blanche. Cohen steps down.

"Your honor, the people rest," ADA Josh Steinglass says.

And now for the defense case. Blanche calls one of his paralegals, Daniel Sitko, to the stand. He's here to talk about phone records or something.

Sitko is asked about some phone records he compiled.

The calls involve Cohen as well as the law firm of Robert Costello. He’s the lawyer who was tight with Giuliani and was talking to Cohen after his residence and office got raided by the feds. Cohen thought he was sketchy.

Blanche questions Sitko for like five minutes and sits down. Cross is brief. I think he was just called to get a chart in to use in closings.

Whoa, now Costello is going to testify. I was betting against it.

A long sidebar ensues.

The jury is led out of the courtroom and the parties are going to hash out what Costello can speak to.

ADA Susan Hoffinger says Costello's testimony should be barred in its entirety, or extremely limited.

Trump counsel Emil Bove says Costello will testify that he was told (by Cohen I think?) that Trump didn't know about the Stormy hush money.

“Part of what Mr. Costello is going to do, is explain that certain things Mr. Cohen testified about at this trial were false,” Bove says.

Perjury again, they'll argue.

Justice Merchan takes five to give it some thought.

Costello is going to take the stand after all, but the scope of his testimony will be limited.

Costello is a partner in the NYC law firm of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP and a former federal prosecutor.

He says he met Michael Cohen at the Regency hotel in Manhattan, after his office and home had been raided by the FBI in April 2018. Costello says he and one of his partners met with Cohen, who was freaking out.

"He kept pacing back and forth, left and right," Costello says.

“He said ‘I really want you to explain to me what my options are,’” Costello says. “‘What is my escape route?”

Costello says he told Cohen that he was likely not the target of the investigation, but noted that a search warrant for a law office is tough to get. He gets cut off by objections.

Bove asks Costello what Cohen told him about the hush money paid to Stormy.

“Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments,” Costello says.

Many objections ensue.

"Jesus," Costello says.

Justice Merchan is pissed. The jury is excused.

“I want to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom,” he tells Costello. “If you don't like my ruling...you don't give me side eye and you don't roll your eyes.”

"Are you staring me down?" Justice Merchan asks Costello.

"Clear the courtroom," the judge says.

That’s about as angry as I’ve heard Justice Merchan sound in this whole trial.

After about 10 minutes or so, the courtroom opens up again.

You don't see that every day.

”Did you ever put any pressure on Michael Cohen to do anything?” Bove asks.

"No," Costello replies.

"Did you ever receive any kind of pressure form Rudy Giuliani?" Bove asks.

Costello gets cut off by an objection, but squeezes out a "no."

“During all your interactions with Michael Cohen, did you consider him to be a client?” Bove asks.

“Absolutely, I had to treat him that way,” Costello says.

Cohen stiffed him on legal fees, Costello says.

Costello describes the day in 2018 that he met Cohen at the Regency with his law firm partner Jeff Citron.

"He was suicidal that day," Costello says of Cohen.

"He was putting on quite a show," Costello says of Cohen. "He explained to us that two nights before, he was on the roof of the Regency Hotel and that he was going to step off and kill himself."

The jury is sent home for the day. Blanche gets up to move for a trial order of dismissal.

"There's no evidence that the business records were false," Blanche says.

"There's no evidence that there’s any intent to defraud in connection with these filings," Blanche says.

As they've maintained throughout this case, team Trump says Stormy's story is a lie.

“How is keeping a false story from the voters criminal?” Blanche says.

“There is no way the court should let this case go to the jury, relying on Mr. Cohen’s testimony,” Blanche says.

He’s essentially asking the judge to find Cohen not credible as a matter of law.

ADA Matthew Colangelo is more dispassionate. He says there’s been clear evidence of Trump’s intent to defraud and evidence that shows an intent to deceive government regulators.

There has been “weeks and weeks” of witness testimony, corroborated by texts, emails and other docs that show a conspiracy was entered into and effectuated by unlawful means, Colangelo says.

Justice Merchan, unsurprisingly, reserves decision.

That's a wrap for today. @frankrunyeon and I shall return.