Thread by @McAdooGordon

Sussman Trial Day 1. I was at court today except for opening statements. (I had something else that had to get done this morning & I knew the media would generally do a good job on those.) I'm not in the "media" room, so can't type during testimony like reporters.

I'm hoping to go down most days. So, I'll be able to give some info on breaks or lunchtime & then I'll give more details in the evenings. The case is in Judge Cooper's courtroom w/overflow in Contreras' courtroom and a media room also. There were fewer folks as the day went on.

The overflow room is just another courtroom where they've rigged up 2 about 42 inch monitors I'd say divided into four quadrants: 1. Judge, 2. Podium/defense table/front row of gallery/marshall, 3. witness, 4. Exhibits. I will try to sit in the actual courtroom one of the days.

The courtrooms are modified for covid protocol, so way more divided up than normal, with plexiglass dividers. Most participants, including the jury, are wearing masks as the Court's rules still require it. Judge Cooper isn't wearing a mask at any time. Witnesses take theirs off.

The lawyer posing questions also takes the mask off, but not the rest of the trial team. In federal court here, lawyers stand stationary at the podium even when it's not covid times. It has a mic, & otherwise you can't hear people, plus the ethos is not to move around.

I do tend to move around when I'm litigating if possible. Being tied to the podium is limiting & boring for the jury. I am also "soft-spoken" so in most trials, I wear an individual, battery powered mic that picks me up better & gets piped in to the court's system.

Ms. Shaw, who gave the Gov't opening statement has the same issue. Her voice doesn't carry. Unless she's talking directly into a mic, she's hard to hear.The men's voices carry better in the courtroom itself, but in the overflow & media rooms it is hard to hear anyone w/o the mic.

Today there were about 25 folks in the overflow room in the morning, fewer in the afternoon. The main courtroom was pretty full, with some spacing for covid. The courthouse overall is much, much quieter than it was in pre-covid times.

Sussman's table has four Latham lawyers it appears & a couple of others (investigators or paralegals perhaps on the bench next to the defense table.) His defense has got to be running him 20K a day at least when you count all the non-court time each day.

this trial is for 1 count of 1001. I don't think it's an understatement to say it may be the longest and most expensive one count false statements case in history. In a normal case, you'd have 1 or 2 defense counsel & one count would be 3-4 days, maybe more for deliberations.

The amount of resources being spent on this by both parties and the court is really insane. But it's the kind of case that goes to trial. It's hard to get pleas in this kind of case - no big potential sentence; defendant is a professional w/license at stake, etc.

I obviously see things through a defense perspective, but with that being said, I really think it's not going that well for the Govt. At least not as well as it should be. The facts are there, but the presentation is lacking. The case the put on today was not impressive.

The first witness is very important in any trial. The jury is raring to go after hearing both sides' versions of the case. The Govt wants to start strong. To do that, they usually put a significant factual piece on 1st, or a witness who somehow encapsulates the case, etc.

They didn't do that this morning. The first witness was their FBI agent expert who explained how DNS and TOR works, with a power point no less. 🙄OMG, it was boring AF.

Martin seemed nice enough, but he was talking too fast from the getgo & the SC did not stop that. (Eventually Cooper told him to slow down for the reporter.) And he was throwing around a lot of technical terms while buzzing along at high speed. That never works.

He does have really fine credentials. (Maybe that's why they put him up 1st, but still, I think it was a mistake to start that way.) In fact, before he was called, Cooper asked if Latham was going to "voir dire" him (lawyerspeak for "challenge his credentials"). Latham said yes.

The way that works is the lawyer offering the witness draws out the credentials & moves the court to have the person accepted as an expert in a specific field. At that point the other lawyer can object or ask to voir dire - challenge the credentials by asking their own questions.

As a defense lawyer you do this to either show the jury that the person is a weak expert even if they are one, or to try to persuade the judge that they really shouldn't be accepted as an expert. (In federal court that should have been challenged pre-trial really tho.)

Because the judges really really don't want to decide all that shit while a jury is sitting around. So there was no real chance of knocking Martin out as a witness with the voir dire, so Latham's plan was to try to make him look weak. But I don't know how they thought that. 🙄

Because his credentials were amazing really. He's published peer reviewed papers on DNS stuff, he's won FBI awards for it, his education was strong, his experience was solid and long enough, and he has one credentialing in it that only 200 people in the WORLD have.

So, Latham after hearing all that in front of the jury, thought better of trying to make him look weak (because that wasn't going to happen and would have instead made them look dumb), so when Ms. Shaw offered him as a witness, they did NOT object and did NOT voir dire him.

You gotta roll with how stuff plays out when you're in trial, even if it differs from what you planned. But there was a small indication to me in this process that signaled that the govt presentation might not be tight as a drum.

When Ms. Shaw offered Martin as an expert, she didn't say in what field. She just said "as an expert." Cooper waited but she didn't say anything else, so he finally asked her "in what field?" If you're offering the witness, you have to say; he's not an expert in everything.

This is basic trial presentation. The rules of evidence presentation are formulaic because it creates clarity. The language for offering an expert is standardized. It's something you learn in moot court or a clinic or as a young prosecutor.

When I do this in trial, I prepare for it pretrial by copying a page from a treatise I've had for 25 years that says exactly what the formulaic language is for moving in the expert & I put that page in that witness' trial folder so I don't have to remember it on the spot.

This is a small thing, but it's a little detail that caught my attention. It's their first witness. A trial is a marathon & by the end you are wrung out & frazzled. Day 1 should be a model of trial lawyering by comparison, not a day where you see easily prevented stumbles.

The jury probably wouldn't notice something like that. But they might. Jurors could've been expert witnesses in a case or they have a spouse who is a lawyer and who's told them about the expert stuff. You never know. Plus, juror pay close attention to EVERYTHING the judge does.

Then they proceeded to bore everyone to tears w/the DNS slide deck. Literally the first questions after Cooper told them he was an expert were about an exhibit (number 1700!) that is explaining computerese with more computerese. They needed to explain this, but not w/Witness 1.

I bet at least one juror was thinking "Exhibit 1700! Are you kidding me? We have 1700 exhibits to go through?!?!"

More on that later.

Ms. Shaw lead this witness alot. Another sign the govt team is not strong on technique. The witness is supposed to testify in response to open questions from a prosecutor. Eg., what color is your tie? Not leading questions that have the answer in them: Your tie is red, correct?

Some leading is okay, like when you're doing some background or setting up a series of questions & you need to orient the witness first. And when you cross-examine the other side's witness, you are allowed to & should lead - their witnesses are hostile to you.

But when an expert is explaining something to the jury, a lot of leading questions from the lawyer shows that the lawyer doesn't know how to ask open questions that brings out the information the expert is supposed to be explaining. They lead instead out of frustration.

But the problem is not with the witness; it's with the lawyer. You should understand the material well enough to ask the expert simple, direct questions that build up to the conclusion the expert will offer. That process also educates the jury. But it takes time & patience.

And you really have to know the material. And you really have to prep with the witness. A lot.

Done right, direct exam of an expert is not boring because the jury (& the judge) are learning from you & the expert from each question.

Ms. Shaw got better as she went along a bit. And the defense did not object to her leading (I would have.) And eventually his explanation of the DNS process came across, but I'd bet money a lot of the jury did not get much of it.

An example: she asked Martin a leading question along the lines of: "So, it's like when you order a pizza for delivery to your house; you have to look up the pizza place's phone number first." Martin agreed, but that analogy would have been more powerful coming from him, not her.

She did a good job getting him to confirm the DNS lookup didn't establish any substantive connection between the 2 IP addresses, but then she started talking about what else could trigger a lookup. It's too early in this case for the jury to have any use for this distinction.

She also asked about the meaning of "visibility" in this context for example. And gaps in the data logs due to lesser visibility. My God, the jury must be thinking: WTF? Finally, she had him explain TOR & using it for anonymous online activity with no context at all.

It became clear to me later that the Govt had Martin explain that to them to show that data is too obvious and that there were easy ways to hide the supposed connection to Russia if there was one, but the presentation through this witness gave them no idea why TOR is relevant.

On cross, the defense (Bosworth) drew out that Martin knew all this stuff (they ignored TOR) because he's SO qualified and expert! The implication being that Sussman is not (like the jury), which they will use later in argument.

Bosworth then tried to gild the lilly too much and get Martin to agree that anyone who wasn't law enforcement wouldn't have been able to get more info about the situation to evaluate it (implying that taking it to FBI was the right thing to do.) Agent Martin dinged him on this!🤣

Bosworth said: "I couldn't get those (meaning a search warrant or subpoena for more info)." Martin said basically, "Well, as a lawyer you would be able to." Ha! He pointed out that even in civil cases lawyers could get a court order to make other companies give up data. 🤣

Bosworth had to agree with him so as not to look like a total dufus in front of the jury.

Martin said he had met Joffe previously but didn't "know" him. He agreed Joffe was a DNS expert.

Martin balked though when Bosworth tried to get him to agree that Joffee was "respected" in the industry. He said Joffe was "well known." He also didn't want to say FBI had "relied" on Joffe.

Bosworth was frustrated with that and asked if Martin knew Joffee had been a CHS for FBI. Martin said he found that out "after the fact."

Then they danced around the materiality issue a little.

I think the defense strategy on materiality is a bit muddled. Bosworth was pushing with "if you cared about the value of the data, you'd want to know the provenance." Martin wasn't fighting him on that. But since Martin didn't do the analysis it only went so far.

Martin agreed that he did not know Sussman (had maybe met once) and didn't know what Sussman knew about DNS and he wasn't part of the Crossfire Hurricane team, nor was he in the meeting wi/Baker or any followup.

So this is competent, but not spectacular cross. That being said, cross of experts is one of the more difficult things for a trial lawyer to do. The expert almost certainly knows their field better than the lawyer. Establishing what the expert doesn't know is good technique.

But, Bosworth asked too many questions he didn't know Martin's answer to or for which there weren't only a few logical answers. That's why Martin scored points on him about the subpoenas & was able to deny Joffee was "respected." That's an opinion Bosworth couldn't be sure of.

On re-direct, Ms. Shaw did a good job. You can lead a little more on re-direct because you are challenging the other lawyer's topics. And she asked crips questions that addressed the issues Bosworth raised, like: wouldn't people at the passive DNS companies have access also?

And, if you were trying to get a warrant, wouldn't you want to know the reliability of the source of the information given to the Bureau in order to tell the judge about it? Of course, Martin says yes.

Then she lowered the boom (or tried to anyway), asking if Martin knew if Joffe was still a CHS (he didn't). She then asked: "Are you aware" that Joffee was "closed for cause" as a source? Martin didn't know that either.

And for fuck sure, the jury has no idea what that means.🙄

There were two other lawyers in the overflow room with me who had no idea what it was. This is a flaw with prosecutors (and can be with civil lawyers too). They forget that jurors don't know all the cool buzzwords that cops and agents and lawyers use.

The closed for cause point was a strong one - it undermines that Joffe is a reliable, Good Samaritan type in this case, but since the jury has no idea what the phrase means, it's not actually making that point for the jury, unless one of them independently knows what it is.

In normal process, the person offering the witness asks them questions (direct), & then the other lawyer asks questions (cross), & then the first lawyer asks more questions (re-direct), but re-direct is only supposed to cover things that were asked about on cross. Nothing new.

Sometimes, the judge will permit re-cross by the 2nd lawyer, especially if the 1st lawyer DOES ask about something new. And then usually the judge then lets the 1st lawyer ask any final questions on that limited topic. Because the lawyer offering the witness gets to go last.

And sometimes a judge will ask a question. Cooper asked one question today. He asked Agent Hellman to briefly explain what cybercrime and intellectual property crime are because he said those were the areas he typically investigated in his current role at FBI.

But in general the jurors are not allowed to ask questions, so they couldn't ask what the hell "closed for cause" was. 🙄

Later when the jury took a break, the defense brought this up with Cooper.

They don't want the SC to convey to the jury that Joffe was terminated as a confidential source (surprise!). It's disingenuous because they definitely DO want the jury to know that he was one. The SC (DePhilipis) objected, but Cooper ruled it out.

He said what matters is what the status quo was (what people knew about Joffe and his CHS status at the time of the events, not what happened later). Which strictly speaking makes sense, except the defense is using the CHS status as proxy for his character, which isn't static.

DePhilipis said in the argument that his understanding from the Bureau was that Joffe was terminated as a CHS because of how he handled himself in this case, that the Bureau thinks he should have taken his info/concerns to his FBI handler (gee I wonder why he didn't?), not Baker

I gave the highlights from the next witness (SA Hellman) earlier today so I won't do so again. But there were cracks in his direct also. DePhilipis didn't ask him to explain to the jury what "equity" was in this context (that cybercrime division didn't see a case in its area.)

I thought it was clear that this witness was inadequately prepared by the prosecutors. The facts happened in 2016, he was interviewed about them by Durham in 2020 and now he's testifying and has been prepped in 2022. They needed to be clear about what he knew when & they weren't.

That is painstaking work to prep a witness on, but if you don't or you don't do a good enough job, you get what they got today - the witness is truthful but the lack of clarity on timing makes him look - especially on cross - like he overstated his direct testimony or worse.

His testimony was also too conclusory. The SC needed to get him to state conclusions (even though he wasn't testifying as an expert, he did analysis and formed conclusions about the White Paper and data) & then explain why/how he got there. AND then give a rationale or example.

The only topic they did a good job on that was the one about how can it be a "secret" server where the guy's name is in the domain, it's registered to him, & it's a direct contact with no cover? Hellman laid that out nicely. But the rest, not so much.

His testimony on the materiality element, I thought weak. I hope they have another witness on that topic. Their explanation for what the source would matter is basically "because the source would matter." Even when they are saying if would affect the type of investigation . . .

. . . they didn't really say exactly how and why. They described it in general terms and offered no examples to illustrate the differences or how knowing the source and whether the source had bias would affect the decisions about the investigation.

It was clear that Hellman definitely and honestly thinks so, but they didn't make it clear to the jury I don't think. It's like if your spouse tells you he/she loves you, but never shows it in any way, does it really matter if he/she thinks so, but you're in the dark about it?

And the explanation of the different levels was way too cursory. Hellman couldn't remember what the acronym for the FBI regs on this issue (DIOG sp?) stood for. You're not impressing anyone with your "it matters" argument if you don't know the rule book that applies - cold.

Hellman did do a good job making certain discrete points, like if the motives of the source were suspect, it might mean you couldn't open a Full investigation but only a Preliminary one, or none. But they didn't flesh that out & just saying it once goes by a jury too fast.

He had to concede that the technical review of the data would not have been any different no matter what, and that the source ID or bias (my word) would only have mattered for opening a case or not and the steps they would take & even then he said it was a "data point."

He did say that a political motive would clearly have mattered in that regard and also whether the source had a relationship of some kind with the US govt already. He ended on if the source was acting for someone else, he would want to know who & what THEIR motives were.

That was at the end of his direct. It kind of ended on a whimper rather than a bang. The problem wasn't Hellman himself in my view, but rather the underpreparation. His direct seemed too general and conclusory, & then in cross that really showed.

I probably can't say this enough: they needed examples! It's hard for juries to take in and hold on to general concepts without illustrations. We are more visual than auditory, but trials are really really based on oral testimony, so it needs to be evocative.

On cross, the lack of prep really showed. He didn't remember phrases he himself had used in his interviews to describe things. The way to prevent that is to MAKE your witnesses read their statements and anything they have written over & over until they're completely sick of them.

What was worse is that the defense used internal FBI instant messages that he or his supervisor was on that addressed the issue of who had given Baker the info. Hellman said Baker wouldn't say & he Hellman didn't know in his direct testimony.

And nor did his supervisor.

Then Berkowitz (Latham lawyer) showed him messages where a higher up supervisor called the report he was working on the "DNC" report, and one where an admin FBIer told Hellman's supervisor that the info went from "Sussman to Baker to Strzok."

These messages were from 2016 and Hellman said he saw the DNC one in 2020 when he sat down with Durham's team but hadn't remembered seeing it in 2016 and he wasn't on the 2nd one (but the supervisor Batty was & Sussman's name still wasn't in their joint report.)

These are small data points & he had OK enough answers for why despite them, he & Batty didn't know the source, but when the defense brings them up for the first time because the prosecutor did not integrate them into the direct testimony, they seem more important.

DePhilipis needed to prep Hellman on EVERY document in discovery that had Hellman's name on it & put into his direct any document that in any way undermined his points so he could explain it in the context of his govt testimony in a way that is natural & coherent.

You take the "aha" surprise effect out of the other lawyer springing something on your witness that seems to undermine their testimony. Lawyers call this technique "taking the sting out," meaning you yourself deal with any bad issues in your examination instead of the other side.

I just can't see any reason why they didn't do that in this situation. The actual explanation is not bad for them. He either didn't see or didn't take note of the "DNC" reference & he wasn't on the second one at all. No big deal. But Berkowitz made it seem like a big hairy deal.

Berkowitz did a nice job showing that Hellman really didn't deal with the info for that long - a day or so and probably only a few hours with the log data. It implies he wasn't thorough or searching, although whether that's fair or not is left unspoken.

Berkowitz made one significant mistake with Hellman in my opinion though. On materiality, he asked if Hellman would have been assisted by knowing the author of the white paper, would it have assisted his analysis? Hellman emphatically said yes, but he had no ability to do that

That question and answer may have helped the Govt more than Sussman. It let Hellman say again that knowing who the source was would have made a difference. Why would the defense want to emphasize that? But as I said their defense on this is a bit muddled.

He followed up: Did Hellman try to talk to ANY FBI CHS to get an opinion on the data. He asked if Hellman knew that 1 of the Chicago agents had done that & the CHS had said it was plausible to use a direct link (which Hellman criticized as illogical.) Like hiding in plain sight.

Hellmand didn't know about that. Berkowitz asked if Hellman knew Chicago had gotten an independent referral from DOJ about an "anonymous" source making the same allegation about Trump/Russia.

This is a technique to undermine a witnesses own conclusions - that they don't or didn't know things that might make a difference to them. In this case, Hellman's summary said the allegation may or may not be true in fact, but that the data provided didn't support the allegation.

He did get Hellman to say that if it had been made known to him that the source of the info was political, all he personally would have done would be document that in his report which was going with the data to the Chicago office.

Hellman had already testified that the Chicago office (Counter Intelligence Division) opened an investigation - a FULL one. (IMO, this is probably because they had the two "separate" reports/referrals & therefore gave the matter more credence that it deserved.)

If my theory is correct & Chicago relied on their being two allegations, then that would bolster Durham's materiality argument that whether this one was reliable made a difference in how the Bureau treated the case and proceeded. So again, this inquiry may not be helping Sussman.

But, when you're a defense lawyer, it sometimes works to pursue various attacks and theories even if they are not completely consonant with one another because the jury still comes away with the impression that *something* is wrong with the govt's case.

And you can convince some jurors on one theory and some on another in some cases. On defense you don't really care why they vote to acquit as long as they do.

At the end of cross Berkowitz focused on whether Hellman knew there was an election (yes) & that DJT was under investigation already (slightly) (I think he meant Crossfire Hurricane) & who would benefit if the Alfa Bank info was right (the Democratic Party)

Hellman said that last point hadn't occurred to him at the time. Based on the rest of his testimony I would say that was because he had no info at all about who the source was so he wasn't considering that it might be a false politically motivated trick. But he didn't say that.

It was a strong end to the cross - a high point, which is what you want at the beginning and end of your examinations. When you're the other lawyer & that happens, the best technique is to jump on that point right now while it's fresh with the jury as your 1st re-direct question.

DePhilipis should have asked something like: "Why didn't it occur to you?" Go for that issue right now. Don't worry about addressing all the topics in the same order Berkowitz raised them. But he didn't. He started with questions from early in the cross about a 302 report.

After a few other minor points, (1 of which was good - had Hellman ever seen someone give evidence to an FBI lawyer rather than an agent 🤣), DePhilipis got around to the politics question. He asked if Hellman had learned that would he have included it in the report?

Hellman says yes. DePhilipis: why? Hellman: "So the Counterintelligence Division could take it into account."

See this is weak from the point of view of proving materiality. So they could take it into account? That's all you got?

DePhilipis recognized it this time though, so he tried again and this time he asked a better question: If you'd learned it was political, would you have been more/less/or the same skeptical? Hellman - MORE.

That was clear. Finally.

Then, he asked a better question (which was clear because Berkowitz objected): To what extent would political motivation affect the kind of investigation opened. Hellman - it could suggest the data is less than truthful (BINGO). That might not LET you open a FULL investigation.

But see these refinements of the questions presenting the materiality issue should have been done in the conference room prepping, with other SC lawyers playing defense, not being worked out in front of the jury.

DePhilipis tried to fix the timing issues of when Hellman knew what, but it's too late and too confusing by the time you get back to re-direct - which is why you address it in your direct.

He then launched into a discussion with Hellman of CHSs and how they work and how a "sensitive source" which is how Baker (I think or one of the managers anyway) had described the source, which could be like a CHS and maybe that's why they wouldn't say who it was.

This topic did not seem like something that Berkowitz had covered in cross to me and he didn't think so either because he objected that it was "beyond the scope of cross." Cooper let DePhilipis cover it, but then asked Berkowitz if he wanted to ask some questions about it.

And, oh yes he did, because he plopped down an email from an Agent Heide in Chicago telling Hellman that he'd gotten info about the bank (presumably Alfa) IP address from another agent, Grasso, who was apparently Joffe's CHS handler.

So, he asked Hellman if he knew that Joffe HAD given info about the case to his handler (by implication instead of to the FBI lawyer Baker), which the email seemed to support. DePhilipis didn't try to re-re-direct on this and he should have at least asked Cooper if he could.

Because the date of that email was in October 2016, so the month AFTER Sussman took the info to the lawyer, Baker. So the email only partly refuted the argument that Joffe should have gone to Grasso, not give data to Sussman to give to Baker.

Cooper might not have allowed it, but he might have. But either way, DePhilipis made this problem for himself because he did not cover this CHS issue clearly in his original direct of Hellman.

The last witness who testified was Steve DeJong. His total testimony was about 40 minutes. He worked at Neustar, where Joffe was the CTO. Neustar bought DeJong's company in 2007/8.

He worked with the DNS product that Neustar offered clients and so in 2016 Joffe asked him to search all their DNS data for email domains related to Trump and Alfa, which he said he did w/o question because Joffe was the boss.

So, Mr. "I just followed orders" wrote basically computer programs (scripts he called them) to search their clients' data for this political research project (which wasn't something they commonly did) because this is his day job and he just did what he was asked. OKAY.

And as the scripts retrieved the data for each month long period that he had queried, he sent an email with the data to Joffe. Then later in July 2017, he sent an email describing what he'd done in 2016 for this research project.

And I wish I could tell you who he sent that email to but I didn't catch it because right in the middle of that testimony, DeJong's cell phone Emergency Alert went off while he was sitting there on the witness stand!

Now, I have seen a lot of cell phones go off in court, but never the phone of the witness testifying in federal court in a criminal case. Everyone was dumbfounded.

Cooper didn't even say a word; he was that shocked.

DeJong had clearly been a reluctant witness from teh start, but then Bosworth got up to cross examine DeJong. First he got him to confirm that he's just an engineer, he just pulled data he was asked to and he didn't know if others did so as well.

After that the examination really went off the rails. Bosworth basically converted DeJong into a character witness for Joffe, getting him to agree Joffe was "respected" in the field, that he had a good relationship with the US Govt, etc. He asked about some of Joffe's background

and DeJong literally said the "from his [Joffe's] bio" he knew about them. So, basically, he's admitting on the witness stand that he does NOT know this information from his own first hand knowledge, which should have made it inadmissible. SC didn't object to any of it.

I would have because that whole line of questioning was improper. But, if you don't object, that's that.

Then he ended on how DeJong did not know Sussman or anything about him.

SC didn't redirect him on anything.

And that was it for today. Tomorow, SC has lined up 5 witnesses. That's a laugh. There is almost no way they will get through five. Prosecutors always underestimate the time needed because they have no idea - even though they should - as to how long the defense might cross.

Finally, after the jury went out, Berkowitz raised w/the judge that they want to take Robby Mook's testimony "out of order," meaning he's a defense witness & they want to put on his testimony during the govt case because of a scheduling issue. Mook's leaving Saturday for Spain.

He'll be gone 10 days. Case will probably be over by then. They had approached DePhilipis about it but he wouldn't agree to take Mook's testimony on Friday so they were asking the judge to direct that. This is not that uncommon when a witness has a conflict.

The judges try to accommodate people (if they are witnesses or jurors). So he's almost certain to go along with Berkowitz' request. But DePhilipis whined about it, saying it would "ruin" their presentation. 🙄

And then he made the big mistake of telling the judge that the govt was planning to take Friday off to do more prep because the judge wouldn't be sitting Friday. Well apparently Cooper hadn't actually confirmed that yet and he said so. That wasn't a cool move by the SC.

Cooper took down the information and it sounded like he wanted to rule on it tomorrow. He also told them all that he was still working on some more issues related to Steele that they had briefed or provided to him.

DePhilipis should have just agreed to take Mook out of turn on Friday. The judge is highly likely to grant that request and so you just look churlish and also presumptuous about the Friday being off.

So, finally: overall I'd say the evidence was presented fairly weakly in terms of content and with some procedural glitches and with alot of extraneous details also that just do not matter and only confuse the jury. Not the way a strong prosecution usually launches.