(THREAD) Please RETWEET this thread for anyone seeking live coverage of the final 48 hours of Michael Cohen’s testimony at Trump’s trial on 34 felonies in NYC. The author—a NYT-bestselling Trump biographer and former criminal defense attorney—offers critical context and analysis. 
1/ This thread builds off three prior threads from this author on Michael Cohen’s historic testimony in Manhattan.
Here is the first:
Here is the first:
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1790010249086206263
2/ Here is the second:
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1790443317169103068
3/ Here is the third:
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1791200413749817367
4/ The situation today—Monday, May 20th—is dramatically different for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, however.
The consensus among legal experts is that the second day of cross-examination for the defense was a triumph for Trump and devastating for Cohen and the State.
The consensus among legal experts is that the second day of cross-examination for the defense was a triumph for Trump and devastating for Cohen and the State.
5/ The result is that the re-direct of Cohen by the State today—and, depending on how long that goes, the beginning of the defense’s re-cross—may determine the fate of the prosecution of Trump.
Should it? We’ll discuss that. But that’s certainly how many think things stand now.
Should it? We’ll discuss that. But that’s certainly how many think things stand now.
6/ Prior to the second day of Cohen’s cross, it was thought that the State was winning this case handily and that Trump might well have to put on an extensive defense to escape a conviction. While that would *not* have involved him testifying—that was never going to happen—and...
7/ ...while any defense (because Trump is dead-to-rights, and beyond any doubt did what he’s accused of doing) would have been limited to (1) expert testimony improperly trying to exculpate him on dubious technical grounds and/or (2) calling loyalist witnesses to lie for him...
8/ ...the risks in doing so—in Trump mounting a serious defense—would’ve been extraordinary. An expert witness testifying as to campaign finance regulations—an expert witness who might yet be called by Trump, even now—would be a constant mistrial danger for a variety of reasons.
9/ No witness in a case is allowed to comment on the final question of fact, or make a determination on a final matter of law—those duties are for the jury and judge, respectively. But you can certainly imagine why the parties in a criminal case would *like* it to be otherwise(!)
10/ If/when Trump calls a campaign-finance expert witness, there will be continued argument—there has already been some, before the judge but outside the presence of the jury—about what he or she can testify to. Trump, who declined an advice-of-counsel defense because it would...
11/ ...have revealed all his conversations with his attorneys (conversations that *undoubtedly* reveal him to be 100% guilty) would *love* to use a campaign-finance expert instead to exculpate him, essentially saying that he acted wholly within the law as to his business records.
12/ But such testimony could be impermissible, depending on its scope.
Alternately, had the second day of Cohen’s cross gone poorly for the defense, Trump might have called one, two or three of three loyalist eyewitnesses who have lied for him and been on his payroll previously.
Alternately, had the second day of Cohen’s cross gone poorly for the defense, Trump might have called one, two or three of three loyalist eyewitnesses who have lied for him and been on his payroll previously.
13/ Those witnesses are his former bodyguard Keith Schiller, who lied for him as part of his job and was handsomely rewarded with a cushy post-employment RNC gig; Robert Costello, lawyer for Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani and a former Trump spokesman; and Allen Weisselberg.
14/ As most of you know, Allen Weisselberg is the former Trump Org executive who has gone to jail *twice* for lying on Donald Trump’s behalf—and for acts committed on Trump’s behalf—and whose post-employment compensation plan aims to keep him from ever testifying *against* Trump.
15/ The State cross-examining these men of low character and base motives could’ve swung the case firmly in the State’s direction.
But it now seems unlikely they will testify; only Costello still might.
Why? The same reason Trump was giddy after the second day of Cohen’s cross.
But it now seems unlikely they will testify; only Costello still might.
Why? The same reason Trump was giddy after the second day of Cohen’s cross.
16/ The general feeling is that Trump lawyer Todd Blanche was effective in a) getting Cohen to get angry (which this author and others said he had to avoid—as it would break his connection to the jury and discredit him), and b) getting him to implicitly admit to selective memory.
17/ Cohen had amazing recall for inculpatory facts about his past conversations with Trump, but was somewhat evasive with respect to questions on events or conversations that would cast him in a bad light.
This is regrettable in part because it was a wholly unnecessary self-own.
This is regrettable in part because it was a wholly unnecessary self-own.
18/ Cohen has already gone to prison; his reputation is destroyed. He still has a platform because he tells listeners of his podcast and viewers on MSNBC just what they want to hear—not because (as I think ironically would have made him even *more* money) he’s now a truth-teller.
19/ If Cohen had *truly* undergone a post-conviction conversion—if he’d become an actually repentant man willing to admit to *everything* Trump *and* he did over the last 15 years to screw innocents over—he might have lost his MSNBC gig, but he would remain a fascinating figure.
20/ But Cohen continued to believe he could shape the media narrative around him; and MSNBC was willing to dangle fame before him for its own crass purposes; and that clearly induced him to *only* be honest about the parts of his story he believed would sell well with the public.
21/ What is sad about that is that Cohen almost certainly was being *honest* about *those* events: Trump said and did what Cohen said he said and did, which *should* be all the jury cares about in this case.
But Trump made attacking Cohen’s *credibility* central to his defense.
But Trump made attacking Cohen’s *credibility* central to his defense.
22/ The result was that Blanche spent most of his cross focusing not on what Trump did—which was wall-to-wall criming—but on things Cohen did *for Trump*, framed fraudulently as things Cohen did of his own accord and due exclusively to his own moral turpitude. And Cohen blinked.
23/ Cohen blinked by doing all the things he’d been told not to do—surely—by lawyers like me (but in the employ of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office): don’t get angry; don’t be evasive; don’t be confrontational; don’t hide information; don’t refuse to take responsibility.
24/ Arguably, Cohen did all of those things.
25/ He did all those things to retain what he saw as his bankability as an MSNBC guest and podcast host; or at least that’s my read of what he did (and why) from having had multiple conversations with the man in the past (not recently or in relation to this testimony, of course).
26/ Mr. Cohen was particularly incensed about his convictions, which were undergirded by conduct he still does not take responsibility for, something a jury would react very negatively to—and which Cohen surely would have been told in advance to *suck up* rather than argue about.
27/ Just so, Cohen needed to be honest about his engagements with state and federal investigators before and after his convictions; his desire for employment in Trump’s administration; and some unsavory things he did for Trump.
But he wanted to maintain his self-image, instead.
But he wanted to maintain his self-image, instead.
28/ The result was that Mr. Cohen sometimes seemed combative, angry, evasive, coy, misleading and—in consequence—not like a man who *previously* lacked credibility but had since reformed himself but more like someone who *still* should be seen by a jury as lacking in credibility.
29/ The tragedy of that is that (a) everything Cohen said *about Trump* was true (he lost credibility trying to defend *himself*) and had already been corroborated by other witnesses/documents; and (b) almost every sh*tty thing he did that he’s defensive about he did *for Trump*.
30/ Cohen was and is the man he is because he needed to be that man to be successful in the ways he’d dreamed of as a child: and the reason his success depended on acting in such contemptible ways is that his boss—the defendant—is one of the biggest monsters in American history.
31/ There’s *no* component of Michael Cohen’s lack of credibility—not one—that doesn’t redound to the *detriment* of Donald Trump in this trial, because *all* of it reflects back on Trump.
But Trump, his lawyers, and many legal analysts now appear to believe that’s not the case.
But Trump, his lawyers, and many legal analysts now appear to believe that’s not the case.
32/ The result is that the re-direct happening today—which we’re about to move to, following this context for why it matters and what it intends—has to (using a legal term-of-art here) “rehabilitate” Cohen as a witness so that jurors can focus on all that he said that was *true*.
33/ And as noted, the re-direct almost certainly *also* has to go back to some of what Cohen was defensive about that *appears* to relate solely to him and show that (a) it relates very much to Trump also, and (b) Cohen is emotional about these things for understandable reasons.
34/ Mainly, those reasons revolve around the fact that Donald Trump treated Michael Cohen like a *dog* for 15 years—abuse, exploitation, disrespect, and manipulation—and then kicked him to the curb for no apparent reason whatsoever beyond the fact that he could. And is a monster.
35/ Mr. Cohen went to prison for Trump—even as Trump pardoned *every other one of his co-conspirators*—and all Trump did in recompense was launch a campaign to destroy Cohen utterly.
This, despite the fact that Cohen was *far* more loyal to Trump than *any* of his other lackeys.
This, despite the fact that Cohen was *far* more loyal to Trump than *any* of his other lackeys.
36/ The hard evidence shows that Cohen was directed by Trump in his misconduct for years, and mistreated by Trump for years; that is what Cohen has testified to, and it remains uncontroverted on cross-examination.
But Cohen was a pre-White House Trump associate; that is the key.
But Cohen was a pre-White House Trump associate; that is the key.
37/ The difference between Cohen and (say) Bannon, Flynn, Stone, Manafort and others charged with crimes and then pardoned by Trump—a pardon Cohen was denied—is the latter men could aid Trump with his political career, whereas Cohen was useful before Trump gained the White House.
38/ This is why questioning about Cohen’s convictions and his desire for a White House job and his desperate efforts to get himself out of jail using AI-created fake court cases must be of a piece: the story of a man who did everything for Trump and was left to fend for himself.
39/ Bannon, Stone, Manafort, and Flynn didn’t have to do the things Cohen did because Trump helped them rather than abandoning them. And they had access to a massive fundraising machine to help themselves because Trump didn’t destroy their reputation within MAGA but burnished it.
40/ And Trump aided them rather than abandoned them because they could aid his schemes as a politician. In contrast, Cohen was able to aid Trump’s schemes as a *candidate* in 2015-6—to include paying off mistresses and negotiating a Trump Tower Moscow with the Kremlin. As he did.
41/ So if you want to understand Cohen, you must understand this is a man who spent a decade-plus developing unethical methods and practices to aid Trump; found himself in a financial, legal, and media morass; and got abandoned by the man he’d been more loyal to than anyone else.
42/ And to get himself out of that morass, he used the very same methods and practices he had been using in service of this defendant, because they were what he knew and they reflected the man he had become in service of Trump.
That’s the truth. But it’s not what the jury heard.
That’s the truth. But it’s not what the jury heard.
43/ Much of what I discussed above couldn’t come in as evidence because (a) Cohen would have to say it himself and it’s not clear that hevs willing to do so; (b) it involves other bad acts by this defendant that the court would keep out as irrelevant, even though they are not;...
44/ ...they reveal the complexities of putting on trial a career criminal for the first time in his long life—but not in a way the prosecution (or jurors) would instantly be able to see as helpful. As I have written already, the State generally wants to frame this case as simple.
45/ It is Trump and his defense team who want to frame this case as incredibly complicated, as long as all the complications involved the credibility of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and/or the ability in 2024 to recreate conversations Donald Trump had back in 2015 and 2016.
46/ By not testifying himself, though he certainly could, Trump helps ensure that those 2015 and 2016 conversations—their content and tenor—remain subject to some mystery. In some cases, Cohen has testified to them and others (Hope Hicks, David Pecker) have corroborated them.
47/ But in other cases only Cohen testified to them. It would require Costello, Weisselberg, Schiller or Trump to corroborate them. Had Cohen testified brilliantly last week Trump would’ve needed those other witnesses to attack Cohen’s recollection (Trump won’t testify himself).
48/ But Mr. Cohen’s shaky second day of cross meant that the content and tenor of those conversations had been undermined *without* Costello, Weisselberg, or Schiller.
Which leaves the jury wondering why the *State* did not call those witnesses to corroborate Cohen’s testimony.
Which leaves the jury wondering why the *State* did not call those witnesses to corroborate Cohen’s testimony.
49/ We have reason to suspect the answer to that question: the State did not believe those witnesses would tell the truth, and did not want to call them and be restricted to only a direct examination of them in which leading questions are impermissible and they are in control.
50/ While Trump could still be forced to call some of these men if the Cohen re-direct goes *well* today—which he does not want to do because they will be destroyed on cross-examination by the State—it is more likely that the rehabilitation of Cohen today is only half-successful.
51/ This thread will run 100+ tweets, so this is just a brief mid-thread break to note that while of course this thread and its expertise are free, if you’d like to tip the author for his work, you can do so in seconds, in any amount, at the link below: sethabramson.net/pp
52/ All the foregoing is the essential context for what is at stake today in the redirect of Michael Cohen. Prosecutors must find a way to reestablish a narrative for why Michael Cohen can still be trusted as to the key facts he presented (many of which, again, are corroborated).
53/ And without the benefit of Costello, Weisselberg or Schiller—men who could corroborate (with Trump) the Cohen-involved conversations *not* otherwise corroborated (but all of whom the State cannot or will not call for the reasons noted)—they must firm up *that* testimony, too.
54/ But before any of this—!—Todd Blanche gets to finish up his cross-examination of Michael Cohen today. He will seek *not* to undo the gains he made last week, which led certain high-profile legal analysts to say that if the case ended right now, it would result in a hung jury.
55/ In court today are a number of notable Trump surrogates who’ve aided and abetted his various unethical schemes in the past, including Alan Dershowitz, Kash Patel, Bernie Kerik, and Jonathan Turley. Two of those are lawyers who have destroyed their reputations defending Trump.
56/ Judge Merchan has announced that closing arguments will take place the Tuesday after Memorial Day, as he doesn’t want them broken up across a weekend (which is the correct decision, and consistent with precedent in criminal trials for what I hope are obvious reasons).
57/ But the fact that Judge Merchan has said when closing arguments will take place also suggests that Trump’s team has already given the court a strong indication that it will put on a *very* limited defense. Can it change its mind if the redirect of Cohen goes *very* well? Yes.
58/ Does the defense retain the right to put on a robust, defense? Yes. It only has an obligation to tell Judge Merchan what it *plans* to do based on the evidence as it’s come in *so far*, and based on the witnesses the *State* says it will call (i.e., Cohen being the last one).
59/ But in theory, Attorney Blanche *himself* could ask Cohen a question on cross-examination that enables the State to bring in another witness it did not expect to call, which then could have a domino effect on what the defense plans to do witness-wise (just by way of example).
60/ Or Cohen could give a new piece of information on redirect or recross—due to a door opened by Blanche during his current cross—that wholly changes the game plan for the defense.
So we have to see the closing-argument schedule as still written in pencil, not permanent marker.
So we have to see the closing-argument schedule as still written in pencil, not permanent marker.
61/ What we *do* know from the arguments before the court today and last week—the ones outside the presence of the jury—are that the defense *does* plan to call a former FEC employee to testify as an expert about campaign-finance practices *without* making any legal declarations.
62/ Blanche begins the last stage of his cross today by attacking Cohen’s ability to remember things that happened in October 2016, basically just by presenting him with things that happened that month that Cohen does not recall or imperfectly recalls. This is fairly ineffective.
63/ Blanche’s cross-examination begs the question: is it not possible that Cohen remembers his conversations about Stormy Daniels with Donald Trump in September and October 2016 as well as he does not because he is out to get Trump but because he *knew* that the Daniels payoff...
64/ ...was *essential* to saving Donald Trump’s political career and his presidential aspirations, and indeed Cohen *knew* by the second week of November 2016 that his work had *indeed* helped give Trump the presidency?
Who *wouldn’t* remember the events that led to that result?
Who *wouldn’t* remember the events that led to that result?
65/ This is the sort of testimony the State can elicit from Cohen on re-direct: I remember the conversations about Stormy Daniels in October 2016 because they were among the most important work I ever did for Mr. Trump—maybe the most important. I do not remember my *breakfasts*.
66/ This is one example of Blanche pushing his luck with Cohen—a third day of cross—just to please Donald Trump and appease Trump’s desire for vengeance against Cohen. The fact is, when after your second day experts are saying you’ve avoided a conviction you should probably stop.
67/ Perhaps Blanche thinks this third day of cross gets him to an acquittal rather than a hung jury; perhaps he disagrees with the assessment of cable pundits—as I do—that the second day of cross made a conviction impossible (as the State *prepped* the jury for attacks on Cohen).
68/ But one thing we attorneys who have done a lot of criminal trial work say about cross-examination is that you never “gild the lily”—i.e. once a point has been made on cross, you don’t return to it over and over because you risk starting to get answers you *don’t* want to get.
69/ Blanche made the point last week that Cohen doesn’t remember some things he probably should and remembers some other things he probably shouldn’t, and that the through-line between the two has to do with what testimony hurts Trump.
Does he need to return to that topic today?
Does he need to return to that topic today?
70/ The *way* he’s returning to it might explain *why* he’s returning to it.
To explain: one question Blanche asked Cohen was about aiding Tiffany Trump with a blackmail situation she was allegedly dealing with in October 2016. Can you guess why he asked if Cohen remembers that?
To explain: one question Blanche asked Cohen was about aiding Tiffany Trump with a blackmail situation she was allegedly dealing with in October 2016. Can you guess why he asked if Cohen remembers that?
71/ It’s not because Trump loves or cares about Tiffany, which is (sorta infamously) doesn’t. And it’s not because that work Cohen did directly relates to Trump himself. It’s because it gets before the jury this idea that the Trumps are often *illegally blackmailed and extorted*.
72/ Remember, Trump’s defense is that this is just a case about a *legal* hush-money payment—*not* a case about falsifying business records or election fraud—and in a hush-money situation the *real* bad guys are those getting the money or facilitating it: here, Daniels and Cohen.
73/ So Blanche wants the jury to hear that such efforts were so common with respect to the Trumps that *that same month* (October 2016) the least-famous Trump was dealing with the same thing. But Blanche bringing in this random event obviously opens a door—or even *many* doors.
74/ For instance, if Blanche can ask Cohen about work he did for Tiffany Trump unrelated to Stormy Daniels in October 2016...
...can’t the State now ask about work Cohen did for Trump himself unrelated to Stormy Daniels in October 2016? Like trying to find a tape in Moscow...
...can’t the State now ask about work Cohen did for Trump himself unrelated to Stormy Daniels in October 2016? Like trying to find a tape in Moscow...
75/ ...that *Trump believed existed* and showed him cavorting with prostitutes in the Ritz Moscow in November 2013, which tape a Georgian business associate of Cohen’s told Cohen existed (a claim both Cohen and Trump believed)?
*Sure*—given the Tiffany Trump questions—why *not*?
*Sure*—given the Tiffany Trump questions—why *not*?
76/ Blanche is also spending a *lot* of time asking Cohen about his conversations with prosecutors. Here’s why: a) it reminds jurors of Cohen’s convictions; b) it reminds jurors that Cohen is testifying partly because he has to and was/is trying to help himself; c) it advances...
77/ ...the implicit Trump theory that this prosecution is a massive conspiracy against him that has had way more resources (time, money, manpower) funneled into it than makes any sense—to the point that Blanche is even trying to imply that (now-)members of Congress got involved.
78/ But here again I’d issue a caution to Blanche as a fellow criminal defense attorney (albeit retired): you’re pleasing your client, not the jury. The jury fully understands why Cohen is here and how he came to be here; they expect any criminal prosecution to be well-resourced.
79/ It’s *Trump*—not jurors—who wants to hear more about Cohen’s talks with prosecutors, as *Trump* is angry about being betrayed (by a man he betrayed first) and wants to hammer home that Cohen’s a rat. He also wants to explore his wild conspiracy theories about his prosecution.
80/ Just so, Blanche is trying to establish that Cohen lied *to the Trump Org* about some of the reimbursements involved in the $420,000 Trump paid him in 2017. The problem? Establishing that cost Blanche effectively conceding the $420,000 was an illegal *campaign reimbursement*.
81/ Like I said, if you gild the lily you start presenting new bad facts, opening doors you don’t want to open, giving a witness a chance to fix prior answers that were *helpful* to you, and maybe even allow the State to redirect on lines of inquiry previously foreclosed to them.
82/ Observers in the room say that Blanche may be frustrating the jury by asking questions that do not seem substantive—in other words, they do not seem designed to get to the truth of the matter the jury must decide, but to antagonize Cohen merely for Trump’s viewing pleasure.
83/ Remember: jurors have a job to do here, and it’s the role of the attorneys to help them do it. If an attorney engages in a line of questioning that pleases Trump but does nothing to aid the jury in its work, that angers the jury—and the *jury* is what Trump should care about.
84/ Blanche is spending a *lot* of time focusing on Cohen’s conversations with Weisselberg, which is actually a landmine-strewn field for Trump.
I will explain why.
I will explain why.
85/ Mr. Blanche assumes that if his questions about Cohen-Weisselberg conversations leave doubts in the mind of the jury, the jury will blame the State for those doubts and acquit Trump. But it’s more complicated than that. Jurors are smart enough to ask the question: if Trump...
86/ ...is sure Weisselberg will disagree with Cohen’s characterization of their conversations in 2016-17, why doesn’t he call Weisselberg as a witness?
Jurors may not blame Trump for not testifying—because he has that right—but they *could* blame him for not calling Weisselberg.
Jurors may not blame Trump for not testifying—because he has that right—but they *could* blame him for not calling Weisselberg.
87/ Technically, the Fifth Amendment means Trump doesn’t have to put on *any* witnesses. But the average juror is less clear on that point than that the *defendant* need not testify. So if the defense positions Weisselberg as helpful but *doesn’t call him*, they might wonder why.
88/ What Blanche is banking on is that jurors will wonder why the *State* did not call Weisselberg, and perhaps they should! Weisselberg, even on direct—though the State might ultimately have been able to get him designated a hostile witness—could have hurt Trump a *lot*.
89/ Weisselberg going to jail multiple times to lie for Trump establishes how Trump expects his people to act, and makes Cohen seem like a truth-teller by comparison. Weisselberg having a compensation deal that evaporates if he testifies against Trump also inculpates Trump.
90/ Weisselberg testifying loses him his compensation, so all he would have left to gain is to *avoid* yet *another* perjury conviction for lying for Trump (even as the State could quiz him on the now-dead compensation deal). So he might decide to start telling the truth, now.
91/ Or, if Weisselberg got on the stand and lied in a way that allowed the State to start cross-examining him as a hostile witness, it’d discredit Trump. All of which is to say Blanche has to be careful not to open the door to the State calling Weisselberg as a rebuttal witness.
92/ Now, if Blanche is not worried about implicitly daring the State to call Weisselberg, it *could* be because he’s savvier than I thought—and already has some reason to know exactly what would happen if Weisselberg gets called by the State. He may even want that, on some level.
93/ But all the pseudo-cloak-and-dagger nonsense aside, the fact remains: the evidence has come in in a way that may cause the jury to wonder why they did not hear from Weisselberg and Schiller, and *each side* needs to make sure that the *other side* is blamed for their absence.
94/ In that sort of tilt the *defense* begins with the upper hand, as it has no burden of proof at all—the burden of proof lies 100% on the State. But things *can* happen which create an implicit promise by the defense to rebut the State’s case with witnesses. If they don’t...
95/ ...that can lead to a jury making adverse presumptions about the defense. For instance jurors may decide that the State didn’t call Weisselberg because it thought Cohen, Pecker, Daniels and others were sufficient—but *Trump* didn’t because Weisselberg would corroborate Cohen.
96/ This thread will run 100+ tweets, so this is just a brief mid-thread break to note that while of course this thread and its expertise are free, if you’d like to tip the author for his work, you can do so in seconds, in any amount, at the link below: sethabramson.net/pp
97/ Blanche has now asked Cohen about the Russia probe—which Trump sees as an amazing topic for him but could *easily* become a horrifying one if the State wants to go there, given what Cohen did in negotiating with Russia for Trump (with Trump’s knowledge) *during* the campaign.
98/ (The State has already gone there of course—but only briefly. Each time the defense raises the issue the door for a more robust discussion of how Trump was using Cohen to hide evidence of adultery that might exist in Russia opens wider and wider, and none of that aids Trump.)
99/ This is such bad lawyering by Blanche. He has just called to the jury’s attention, implicitly, that of *course* Cohen would remember his conversations with Weisselberg because *there were so few of them*.
What an awful cross-examination question.
What an awful cross-examination question.
100/ Blanche is spending a lot of time establishing that Cohen had clients besides Trump, and may have gotten some of those consulting positions because of Trump. Again, which way does that fact *cut*? Trump obviously wants the jury to hear how much his name aided Cohen, *but*...
101/ ...from a *defense-at-a-trial* standpoint, that fact *hurts* Trump because it makes it *that much less likely* that Cohen would ever have betrayed Trump.
Because he needed him so badly.
Remember, Trump’s defense is Cohen was deliberately lying to him and screwing him over.
Because he needed him so badly.
Remember, Trump’s defense is Cohen was deliberately lying to him and screwing him over.
102/ As a former defense lawyer, I can’t understand why Blanche is spending so much time showing jurors that Cohen had *every reason* to be loyal to Trump in 2016, transparent with him in 2016, and communicative with him in 2016. *Helpful* to him!
This cross only pleases Trump.
This cross only pleases Trump.
103/ I agree 100%. The reason to let Blanche go without objecting is to melodramatically confirm that *everyone* is bored by this—and the fault is *100%* with Blanche. The moment you start objecting and make the jury focus on *you*, they think, Oh, you’re part of this idiocy too?
104/ But it’s more than that.
When a party-opponent asks questions it’s already asked, it can make them look incompetent *and* make them look anxious (like they don’t think their argument is being believed, and so it has to be laboriously repeated to brutalize the jury with it).
When a party-opponent asks questions it’s already asked, it can make them look incompetent *and* make them look anxious (like they don’t think their argument is being believed, and so it has to be laboriously repeated to brutalize the jury with it).
105/ Asking the same witness the same questions over and over also builds sympathy for and empathy with *the witness*, even as it invites jurors to question whether the repeated questions were actually *worth* repeating. Suddenly they ask, “Was that question even a *useful* one?”
106/ And as a defendant, you *don’t* want the jury disliking your attorney *or* wondering whether that attorney really has probative questions to ask of a witness.
Moreover, if the State is smart, it can use the desperation of the defense to focus on Cohen as a means to imply...
Moreover, if the State is smart, it can use the desperation of the defense to focus on Cohen as a means to imply...
107/ ...that Trump and his team focused on Cohen so feverishly and repetitively because they *didn’t* want to put on their own witnesses or defense. Obviously that *cannot* be said outright—Trump has no obligation to present a defense—but the fact remains, here, that there are...
108/ ...witnesses the jury will not hear from—but who it has heard a lot *about*—and it is going to be deciding, whether the parties like it or not, who to blame for not hearing from those witnesses. And the more Blanche’s questioning begs the question, “WHERE IS WEISSELBERG?”...
109/ ...the more the jury *expects* that Blanche is focusing on Weisselberg because he plans to *call* him to rebut Cohen, which then—when he doesn’t—makes the jury implicitly (not consciously, as they’ll be instructed not to) cast a suspicious eye on Trump for not calling him.
110/ Indeed, this is the rare case in which *both* parties might want a jury instruction telling jurors to only judge the evidence before them, and not decide the case based on evidence they *wish* they could have heard.
(That’s a complicated jury instruction, for many reasons.)
(That’s a complicated jury instruction, for many reasons.)
111/ It’s complicated because the State has the burden—so if a juror is thinking a witness *should* have been called, technically that *has* to be blamed on the State. But the State has a basis here to note to the court that *Trump* made decisions that made witnesses unavailable.
112/ Trump gave Weisselberg a compensation deal that induced him to go to prison rather than tell the truth about Trump. Keith Schiller left Trump’s employ but then was given a *fabulous* amount of cash by the party Trump runs during a period that he *could* have been subpoenaed.
113/ On the other hand, a judge has every right to say to the State in response to this, Well—you could ask them about that, and you could use their answers as a basis to request that I grant you the right to treat them as hostile witnesses. If you don’t call them, it’s on *you*.
114/ But then the *State* could say, Judge, if we call them just to introduce new bad acts by the defendant as part of our *introductory questions* in their questioning, the defendant will object and move for a mistrial!
So it’s arguably sort of a catch-22 for the State, here.
So it’s arguably sort of a catch-22 for the State, here.
115/ There’s an argument to be made that Blanche has undone the good work he did last week, and has undone it simply to please a sociopathic client who cares more about embarrassing Cohen than winning his case, because he’s pathologically *incapable* of imagining losing his case.
116/ The exchange below is narratively incoherent. Why is Blanche asking this question of this witness? Either Cohen is a liar or he isn’t. Blanche says he *is*. So why is he acting like Cohen denying Trump knew was Cohen telling the *truth*? The jury would assume the *opposite*.
117/ Remember when I said, in an earlier thread, that a good cross is based on chaptered questions and a narrative arc? And when I said this is manifestly *not* that? We’re seeing why you *don’t* do a cross like this: you end up repeating yourself and asking unhelpful questions.
118/ Because the Trump defense is literal nonsense—where it can be understood at all, that is; it is *mostly* throwing spaghetti at the wall and (in the lay sense) defaming people—it has no narrative arc. Therefore this cross has no arc. Therefore it undermines itself repeatedly.
119/ I’d argue that Trump has his defense lawyers so turned around—normally a defense attorney would’ve pleaded out this case short of trial, as the client is guilty and there’s no reasonable defense—that even *they* don’t know why they’re asking Michael Cohen certain questions.
120/ But juries are smarter than people realize—more focused and committed to their job than people who have never been before one realize—and they are unlikely to miss that Trump sometimes wants them to see Cohen as honest and sometimes not, and that that discredits.... *Trump*.
121/ The other thing to think about is what the defense wants from Cohen. They wanted him angry, unreasonable, and deeply unlikable.
They got that.
Last week.
*Now* they’re just tiring him out with repeated stupid esoteric questions... so he’s likely to sound tired, not angry.
They got that.
Last week.
*Now* they’re just tiring him out with repeated stupid esoteric questions... so he’s likely to sound tired, not angry.
122/ This is *another* sign that this cross-examination is designed to appeal to Trump’s sadism—a defining trait of his for decades—and *not* provide anything that the jury needs or wants from this cross to help them complete the very important and difficult task before them.
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124/ Why does Donald Trump *presume* this evidence (below) aids rather than hurts him? Besides his well-documented malignant narcissism? It shows that he turns on his friends; commands resources to destroy and terrify them; and *that monstrousness* causes them to turn to the law.
125/ Blanche is doing as good a job as the State at eliciting sympathy for Cohen—at least on paper. Were I the State, I’d spend time in closing focusing on evidence the *defense* harped on and showing how it advances the *prosecution’s* case about who Cohen and Trump both are.
126/ If Cohen was making so much money off Trump and Trump knew it and Trump is *cheap*, as everyone agrees—including the witnesses in this case—doesn’t it beg the question of *why Trump paid Cohen $420,000 in 2017*? It must have been something *important* Trump *had* to pay for.
127/ Yet Blanche *harps* on how much money Cohen made off Trump (here, post-2018, but he’s covered this for *all* years). The State can easily present this as evidence Trump *knew* he *had* to pay Cohen in 2017, as this was a *special* situation unlike Trump had been in before.
128/ Nor is the jury likely to fault Cohen—*at all*—for trying to rebuild his life post-prison, *including financially*, using the only bankable asset he had after he had been disbarred and lost his taxi business: his story of what he did for Trump. It’s all so... understandable?
129/ Again, because Trump hates Cohen, he *assumes* all of this will be taken to permanently and totally discredit everything Cohen says. And maybe it will be; beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard, and there is plenty of reason to doubt Cohen’s *integrity*. But here...
130/ ...the doubt at issue does not have to do with Cohen’s *integrity* but what he has *said*. Plenty of evidence has come into this case that would make you doubt Pecker’s integrity, Cohen’s integrity, Trump’s integrity, and so on.
But what *matters* is the evidence presented.
But what *matters* is the evidence presented.
131/ And Blanche is so focused on integrity and character—in a case where that is sort of a wash because no one involved really has much of any (Daniels has come out the best so far)—that he is not seeing that much of the *evidence* of Cohen’s low character *supports* conviction.
132/ For instance, MAGAs will make hay over Cohen appearing to have admitted today to stealing $30,000. But again, that merely underscores who he needed to become to work for Trump, the atmosphere of graft *Trump built* within his milieu, and—not for nothing—Cohen’s candor *now*.
133/ In closing, we would expect the State to say something like, If Michael Cohen came before you intending to do *anything* but tell the truth about his past misconduct—and that of the defendant—he would’ve *hid* the money he stole, the lies he told, the man he was *for Trump*.
134/ But he didn’t. He let you see exactly who he was as a Donald Trump agent, and what he did to try to please Donald Trump, and what Trump demanded he become to please him. He let you see the sort of person Donald Trump surrounds himself with because such people reflect *him*.
135/ This is actually all rather standard stuff for a criminal trial—as in *many* cases a conviction is sought using a witness who’s deeply damaged from their own past misconduct, and who has since signed a deal with prosecutors. MAGAs are just upset because the defendant here...
136/ ...is a rich white man they adore, not the sort of poor nonwhite defendant they *expect* witnesses like Mr. Cohen to be used against in a criminal trial. But the truth is this: today—this very day!—witnesses like Cohen are being used in *hundreds* of cases *across America*.
137/ And in almost none of those cases does the State have the simple and obvious rebuke to the defense claim that the witness is tarnished beyond repair: that almost every bad act he engaged in was done *for* the defendant *or* inspired by the ethos *he* advanced in his milieu.
138/ Trump is the ultimate example of the trope below:
139/ Seconds later, a man comes up to the gendarme in the GIF above and hands him his gambling winnings.
140/ So on re-direct, we have to wonder how much of what I am discussing here the State now feels the door has been opened to. Can Cohen say that he stole $30,000 from the Trump Org because (say) he thought that sort of zeal for illicit acquisition would actually *impress* Trump?
141/ Can Cohen say he stole $30,000 because he’d spent so many years watching Trump steal, he didn’t think Trump would mind? (Evidence the State would seek to admit not for the truth of the matter but just to establish Cohen’s thinking, but which the jury would use as it liked?)
142/ Can Cohen say, on redirect, that he stole $30,000 because Trump had been stealing so much free labor *from him* and broken so many agreements *with him* (and with others) that he felt entitled to that stolen money?
Can he say Trump *expected* those who work for him to skim?
Can he say Trump *expected* those who work for him to skim?
143/ This is what I mean when I say that Trump has sent his lawyers into a minefield.
144/ So you’re now going to call Robert Costello to the stand in Mr. Trump’s defense, right, Mr. Blanche? To confirm that Michael Cohen is hiding things about his chats with Costello that would *help*—not hurt—this defendant?
That may well be what the jurors are thinking, now.
That may well be what the jurors are thinking, now.
145/ You have to remember. jurors have *no* access to the chatter about the case we see (or aren’t *supposed* to). So they have *no* idea if Trump is putting on a defense, though candidly they would *presume* he is and probably—now—presume Costello and Weisselberg are part of it.
146/ Cable pundits are different—they’re giving you a lofty, academic, 10,000-foot view. The Marquess of Queensberry Rules for trial advocacy—or what law-school students would call blue-book answers. They’re pointing out that Trump doesn’t *have* to put on a defense. That’s true!
147/ But if you’re sitting in that room as a juror who knows nothing about the law and the defendant’s lawyer is going on and on and on and on about Weisselberg and Costello and implying over and over and over again that they might contradict Cohen, it’s the *defense* you will...
148/ ...hold accountable for calling (or not calling) those witnesses, no matter who bears the burden of proof and no matter what instructions you get from the judge. You will wonder why the defense wanted you thinking about these men if it wasn’t going to let you hear from them.
149/ And the reason it will not let you hear from them is because they would be *destroyed* on cross-examination—possibly far worse than Cohen, because unlike Cohen they would try to present themselves as upstanding men, when in fact they are just more unscrupulous Trump lackeys.
150/ Indeed, put Schiller or Weisselberg or Costello on the stand and you will see just how *refreshing* and worthy of admiration Cohen’s candor is.
151/ Apparently others are having the same thoughts. Just saw this:
152/ Again, I ask everyone reading this to just be honest with yourself, whether you like or dislike Trump, believe in rule of law or (like MAGAs) despise it: if you heard Blanche spending an hour asking questions like this, how pissed would you be if he did *not* call Costello?
153/ And just before the lunch break, a dispute over a photograph of Trump and Schiller—a sign that Blanche is now going to bring *Schiller* (another witness he really cannot afford to call, for Trump’s sake!) into his cross of Cohen. I really question the strategy of this cross.
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155/ I agree with those saying that the prosecution should call Allen Weisselberg (at a minimum). If the court balks because the prosecution previously represented Cohen was its last witness, it can easily argue the re-cross of Cohen opened the door to testimony from Weisselberg.
156/ I would also argue that no judge is going to deny a party a witness it is entitled to call, no matter how annoyed he is at it, because that is a great example of reversible error.
Especially when it really is true that the re-cross of Cohen opened a door, here, and bigtime.
Especially when it really is true that the re-cross of Cohen opened a door, here, and bigtime.
157/ I understand that the theory the prosecution is advancing under is that it does not want to call any witness clearly motivated to lie for Trump who it must then question under direct rather than cross-examination. But there is a problem with that theory, candidly. A big one.
158/ The problem is that it has already repeatedly called witnesses favorable to Trump who gave testimony favorable to Trump. Madeline Westerhout. Rhona Graff. Hope Hicks. Even David Pecker would arguably qualify here, as a former Trump friend who does not want to anger him, now.
159/ All of those witnesses should have established for the prosecution what any Trump biographer already knows: when he is committing crimes, which is mostly what he is doing both in politics and business, he surrounds himself with people who he trusts to advance his interests.
160/ So Madeline Westerhout helpfully testified that Trump often signs things without looking at them. And of course that is undoubtedly true–but he does *not* sign over $420,000 to a man he does not respect (Cohen) without knowing he is doing it.
And Westerhout knows that, too.
And Westerhout knows that, too.
161/ By the same token, another Trump sycophant, Hope Hicks, managed to get into evidence that Michael Cohen spent most of his time working for Trump cleaning up messes that *Cohen* made—essentially a recitation of the Trump defense here. It is also abject nonsense, as she knows.
162/ So the claim that one of the most talented prosecution offices in the country is unable to deal with a witness who is sympathetic to the defendant is ridiculous. The MDAO has called such witnesses in *this case* and found ways to deal with them.
(Imperfectly, but still.)
(Imperfectly, but still.)
163/ And of course the difference with Weisselberg is that he is far easier than those other witnesses to discredit even on direct examination, even as he is also far more central to the prosecution case than either of those other pro-trump witnesses were. And let me explain why.
164/ He is easier to discredit because the prosecution can make clear through its approach to him how little it respects him–it does not have to burnish his credentials. It would be calling him to show what sort of person stays loyal to Donald Trump and what the consequences are.
165/ But obviously matters are *significantly* more complicated than that. The reason the prosecution needs to call this man is that he was the one working with Donald Trump post-2016, when Michael Cohen was being reimbursed. He was present for conversations that Cohen was not.
166/ Of course that would cause you to think that he could get on the stand and just lie about those conversations. But you must remember, this is an elderly man who has already gone to jail twice for lying for Trump. If he goes again, it would probably be a much longer sentence.
167/ There are also lies he could tell on the stand that would open the door to the State calling additional witnesses to contradict him. For instance, if he says Trump was never closely involved in the finances of the Trump Org, many people could easily establish that as untrue.
168/ By the same token, the prosecution is in possession of all sorts of documents that Weisselberg cannot run away from and must admit to. And any story he tells that lacks credibility will be undercut by his history of lying for Trump and his current financial motive to do so.
169/ Indeed, putting him on the stand now gives the prosecution the opportunity to go through the compensation package Trump arranged that was clearly—even melodramatically—inspired by a fear Weisselberg would go before a jury.
That is damning no matter what Weiselberg now says.
That is damning no matter what Weiselberg now says.
170/ People have asked me why I focused so much, in past threads, on how major media coverage of this case influenced prosecutors.
And *this* is why.
I believe prosecutors are cutting their own case short partly in response to political and media pressure about how much time...
And *this* is why.
I believe prosecutors are cutting their own case short partly in response to political and media pressure about how much time...
171/ ...this case is “entitled” to take up in the presidential campaign news cycle. Prosecutors have been told by unscrupulous pundits *for years* that this case is overcooked/underweight. Or they’ve been told the charges are not that serious in light of all Trump’s other crimes.
172/ That is the only explanation for them making premature promises to the court about how many witnesses they have left, when they would be entitled to reserve comment on that question until they see how the Michael Cohen testimony comes in (and it is still ongoing, of course).
173/ A desire to look expedient is likewise the only explanation I can think of that *really* makes any sense—and it doesn’t make much sense—for not calling witnesses who every pundit admits *Trump* should not call because they are *bad* for him: Costello, Weisselberg, Schiller.
174/ It’s almost like this is a game of witness-list chicken—and Trump is on the verge of winning it because the State will blink first.
It should not blink first.
While trial advocates do often regret witnesses they call, you are *more* likely to regret the witness *uncalled*.
It should not blink first.
While trial advocates do often regret witnesses they call, you are *more* likely to regret the witness *uncalled*.
175/ At least if you are the prosecution.
I would say *defense attorneys* are just as likely to regret the witness who is called as the one who goes uncalled—which also happens to be the case here, should Trump call Robert Costello or any of the others I have been writing about.
I would say *defense attorneys* are just as likely to regret the witness who is called as the one who goes uncalled—which also happens to be the case here, should Trump call Robert Costello or any of the others I have been writing about.
176/ Alina Habba is—as usual—lying. She knows the decision about whether or not to testify is one of the *only* decisions that *by the rules of professional conduct* the defendant has 100% control over. Trump does *not* have to listen to his lawyers. He doesn’t *want* to testify.
177/ Trump is making the decision almost all wildly guilty defendants make: not to testify (this is not the same thing as saying that all those who do not testify are guilty, which is not true).
But he must *sell* to his cultists (and undecided voters) that him not testifying...
But he must *sell* to his cultists (and undecided voters) that him not testifying...
178/ ...is the fault of someone else. This is his solution to *all* his problems—whether financial, political, or legal: blame someone else.
No one despises personal responsibility more than Trump.
So first he blamed the judge—falsely. Now he’ll blame his lawyers. Also falsely.
No one despises personal responsibility more than Trump.
So first he blamed the judge—falsely. Now he’ll blame his lawyers. Also falsely.
179/ Trump is exercised about ensuring America *falsely* believes he was willing to testify because he’s *likely* to rest without putting on much of any case whatsoever, and selling anyone but MAGAs on the idea that he made that decision from a position of strength could be hard.
180/ Of course, an acquittal forgives everything in the mind of casual observers—but Trump has to prepare for every eventuality: including a conviction without jailtime that puts him back on the campaign trail trying to explain away the fact that he’s now *officially* a criminal.
181/ And certainly the re-cross from Hoffinger—which feels a *bit* half-hearted (a lot of getting Cohen to simply say he’s sure about certain facts, which is necessary re-cross work but not particularly substantive or considered in the way that we would expect at this point)—...
182/ ...does suggest the State is going to stick to its unwise plan of resting after Cohen—its most controversial witness!—rather than a witness who might leave a better taste in the jury’s mouth *or* so turn on its head what jurors might have thought about Trump that it matters.
183/ (Correcting typo: I wrote re-cross when I meant re-direct. Hoffinger is doing the re-direct of Cohen for the State.)
184/ One reason to limit the scope of redirect is to limit the scope of re-cross—and asking Cohen mostly if he’s sure about things he testified to keeps the scope for re-cross narrow. But the problem is that if you don’t like where your witness was left after cross-examination...
185/ ...you actually want and need to *match* the scope of the cross in your re-direct, even if that means the scope of the re-cross will be broader than you would like (I know this may seem a bit confusing). I think the State is either wrongly happy with the Cohen cross *or*...
186/ ...is making a mistake here if it keeps the redirect narrow. Because the cross was so broad in scope that it gives much leeway to the State to shape the last witness it’s going to present in terms of what the jury gets from him. But it may be making a different calculation.
187/ If you really believe a cross *so* bored *and angered* the jury that an extensive redirect will make you complicit in that boredom-production and therefore anger the jury yourself, you *might* opt for a quick redirect. But I just think that’s a huge risk in a case like this.
188/ *Some* of the redirect questions are good.
For instance, Blanche focused Cohen on *one* conversation he had with Trump that Schiller was present for. The *redirect* establishes that Trump had *20* conversations with Cohen about Daniels—defusing the focus on that *one* call.
For instance, Blanche focused Cohen on *one* conversation he had with Trump that Schiller was present for. The *redirect* establishes that Trump had *20* conversations with Cohen about Daniels—defusing the focus on that *one* call.
189/ The State needs the jury’s focus to not be on that one call because it *doesn’t* want to call Schiller—as it apparently believes he would lie for Trump under oath (a very, very, very reasonable fear). Meanwhile, Trump is in the odd position of wanting to focus on Schiller...
190/ ...but *also* not call him to the stand—as it believes he’d be destroyed on cross-examination (a very, very, very reasonable fear). You see now how confusing trial advocacy is—and how much I must have had to learn in doing it for 9 years (1999 – 2007)! It was a monster task.
191/ I wholly agree with those saying the Hoffinger clean-up on redirect was efficient and included some very good work. As to whether a *tight* redirect makes sense *in this case*... that will depend on whether the jury was feeling good about the case (for the State) post-cross.
192/ And without being physically close to the jurors that is hard to say. Heck, it’s even hard to say even being close to the jurors—as juries are notoriously harder to read than many attorneys want to think. Were they visibly bored by Blanche’s third day of cross? Yes. *But*...
193/ ...*that doesn’t equate to a conviction*. I can’t stress this enough. Jurors are as likely to be bored by a line of questioning because they’ve decided the witness *was already destroyed* as they are to be bored because they like a witness or feel ground was already covered.
194/ Sometimes you do a tight redirect because you think the jury is with you when they’re not; sometimes you do a redirect that matches the scope of cross because you think a jury *isn’t* with you when they *are*.
There’s so much guesswork involved, and few clear right answers.
There’s so much guesswork involved, and few clear right answers.
195/ Todd Blanche is now re-crossing Cohen for Trump.
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197/ One last note on the State’s redirect: I think Attorney Hoffinger wisely tried to stay as close to the *documents* as she could, rather than reopening the credibility question by asking Cohen to play the world’s smallest violin for himself—as there was no way that’d go well.
198/ To the extent I imagined a possibly broader redirect, it wasn’t to reopen the credibility question but to show that the State isn’t afraid of discussing the topics the defense addressed with Cohen and in fact is eager to ask questions on them (I think all are bad for Trump).
199/ For instance, the defense was very interested in tracking the work Cohen was doing in October 2016 and whether he could remember it. That is... a pretty wide open door. I think perhaps the State is too worried about a mistrial due to the Trumpist appellate judges out there.
200/ That said, the State *was* clearly concerned, during its re-direct, about the specific *ways* Costello and Weisselberg were brought up by the defense—i.e., it worried they were brought up in a way that would cause the jury to blame *them* (the State) for not calling them.
201/ So in one of the most genius moments of the redirect, Hoffinger got Cohen to say he didn’t work formally with Costello because he didn’t trust him and believed him to be a noxious Trump agent—which served beautifully as a *proxy answer* for why the State *will not call him*.
202/ Essentially, the State got Cohen to imply (not that Cohen said these words, of course), Listen jurors, if you think I have questionable credibility you wouldn’t *believe* how compromised the men *Trump* wants you to hear from are. I was convicted; now I can tell the truth...
203/ ...but *those* mugs—Weisselberg, Costello, Schiller—are still beholden to Trump like *I* used to be, and see potential benefit to staying in his good graces as *I* don’t (because the blinders have come off for me, hallelujah!), so anything they would tell you would be false.
204/ And please don’t think this is 4D chess—this is *exactly* the way a prosecutor working a redirect must think in terms of the content they get from Cohen. They want to use Cohen to offer an opinion of Costello, because Cohen is a friendly witness and they won’t call Costello.
205/ The Blanche recross was quick—and designed to do one thing: remind jurors of why they probably dislike Cohen, namely by getting him to complain about his lot in life and attribute his misfortune to Trump rather than his own choices. It’s such a tragedy, the blindspot he has.
206/ If Cohen could simply say, I made terrible choices, and yes Trump induced them but I am an adult human male with a family and responsibilities and (once) a law license and I should have resisted the manipulations of a man like Trump and kept my honor and integrity... but no.
207/ Cohen’s Achilles heel is his bitterness toward Trump—and the simple fact that he should be directing a lot more of his anger toward *himself* than he does (ironically, one sign of a confident person is that they tend not to beat themselves up; but that can be taken too far).
208/ Blanche has finished and the State immediately rested.
We will see if that was a mistake.
We will see if that was a mistake.
209/ The defense has called a witness, and it’s *not* (yet) the campaign-finance expert who may not be able to testify to all that they’d wanted him to testify about after a prolonged outside-the-presence-of-the-jury debate with prosecutors and the judge. Instead, they called...
210/ ...the equivalent of a defense investigator: a paralegal who did research for them on this case. Defense teams often use both investigators and paralegals to investigate cases in ways they can then testify about in court. When I was 19, I was a federal criminal investigator.
211/ I testifed in federal criminal cases in D.C. in 1996 in the same way this person, Daniel Sitko, is now: telling the finder of fact what my investigations on behalf of the defendant revealed. The aim is to have the evidence found be impeccable research that can’t be gainsaid.
212/ Really the only cross you can do of someone like this—assuming the research is tight, as mine always was and I suspect Sitko’s is—is to imply they are motivated by a desire to please their employer. The problem? Either the evidence is accurate or not. Motive is immaterial.
213/ The direct was short—intended to establish the number of Cohen-Costello calls. But since Sitko also did research on Cohen-Schiller calls, on cross the State was able to implicitly attack the credibility of Blanche for misleading slightly on how often Cohen spoke to Schiller.
214/ The defense wanted it to seem like Cohen spoke to Schiller often, likely to further raise a question in the mind of jurors as to why the State didn’t call Schiller. But the State established that many of the supposed calls were calls that went to voicemail—not conversations.
215/ The defense has now called Costello.
I have a lot to say about this.
I have a lot to say about this.
216/ So much of my threading about this trial has focused on my work as a Trump biographer and what it taught me about *who Trump is*—and how that can be brought to bear on understanding what Trump will do in this trial and *why* he will make the decisions that he does make here.
217/ Those who haven’t studied Trump said the defense would rest right after the State. I said they wouldn’t because Trump couldn’t live with not putting on a defense; it’d offend the core of his being, which is a conflagration of anger and bitterness nothing on Earth can quench.
218/ I also said Trump would want witnesses who could *attack the people Trump hates*. Daniel Sitko couldn’t do that. A campaign-finance expert couldn’t do that. But a Trump agent Trump has enriched? Who’s lied for Trump? Who represents Trump co-conspirators Bannon and Giuliani?
219/ That’s what Trump wants—human weapons. You’ve heard of human shields? Trump certainly believes in them—for years Cohen was a human shield Trump used the way a career criminal or terrorist might—but Trump, an obsessive manipulator of others, a man who treats others as dogs...
220/ ...is equally comfortable with using human *weapons* as he is human *shields*. Robert Costello—like Weisselberg, like Schiller, like so many other Trump agents in the past and still (think Alina Habba)—is a weapon Trump holds in his hand so it can be pointed at his enemies.
221/ Judge Merchan is now deciding whether he will allow Costello to testify. He is worried that Costello will make impermissible statements about what Cohen was thinking; the defense insists he will only testify about things Cohen said and did. It is hard for me to imagine...
222/ ...Costello being kept out. I think the only question is what instructions Merchan will issue about the questioning. The defense is *correct* that Costello can be called to testify about events he was an eyewitness to—that he *could* say improper things doesn’t keep him out.
223/ The reason for this is that the attorneys are officers of the court, and if the court says they must handle the Costello testimony a certain way, they must. You do not preclude testimony because it could go off the rails, you instruct the attorneys to make sure it says *on*.
224/ And it appears Costello is indeed testifying now, as expected.
225/ Candidly, the cross of Costello should be vicious—he is a punk who the jury would likely like *less* than they do Cohen if he is properly seen, as he is a man who will say anything for anyone and has made himself a lawyer to the leading insurrectionists in the United States.
226/ But it will not be vicious.
227/ This examination will be limited and maybe brief, despite the interest the defense has in Trump firing this weapon—i.e. Costello—wildly around the courtroom in a fusillade of disinformation, and despite the interest the State does have in destroying Costello’s credibility.
228/ It is limited testimonies like this that make me really nervous as a court-watcher, because the danger is that the judge lets in everything the defense wants from Costello and then precludes the State from doing a proper cross-examination—leaving Costello seeming credible.
229/ And Costello is a 100% *untrustworthy* witness. He’s a Trump agent willing to do anything for the cause, in my estimation. There’s no insurrectionist he won’t aid if that aid will aid Trump, who clearly Costello sees as a meal-ticket in the very same way Mr. Cohen once did.
230/ The State *has* to have great leeway to discredit Costello. If Judge Merchan treats Costello as a reasonably neutral, disinterested defense witness—like, say, a Daniel Sitko—he’ll be making a *grave* error. Costello is being brought in as a ringer to win this case for Trump.
231/ My God, this testimony... it is horrifying.
It is just as I expected.
It is just as I expected.
232/ Costello has arrived in court like a missile determined to do one thing: say over and over that he knows for sure Trump knew nothing about the payoff to Stormy Daniels. Which is a bald-faced lie that *at best* (and I do not believe this for a second) Costello believes...
233/ ...because it’s a lie *Cohen* told him to protect Trump.
Yet again we see Blanche asking jurors to believe the Cohen of 2016, 2017, and 2018 *when what Cohen says suits Trump’s current needs as a criminal defendant* and consider him a *pathological liar* at all other times.
Yet again we see Blanche asking jurors to believe the Cohen of 2016, 2017, and 2018 *when what Cohen says suits Trump’s current needs as a criminal defendant* and consider him a *pathological liar* at all other times.
234/ What the defense is banking on is that the State is *so confused* about how to handle Cohen that it will insist he is a *truth-teller*... even in situations where saying that enables and bolsters testimony like Costello’s about Cohen *supposedly* exculpating Trump privately.
235/ And here is where I *so hope* you all read my prior threads about Cohen, including the *seeming* tangent I went on—which may have seemed opaque at the time—about the State needing to make Cohen like a *discrete document* before the jury, specifically business card reading...
236/
“I AM THE MAN DONALD TRUMP WANTED AND NEEDED ME TO BE”
See now why framing Cohen that way to the jury is *essential*? It explains that when Cohen told Costello—*if* he did—that he had nothing on Trump, he was doing several things at once.
One of them? Protecting the Boss.
“I AM THE MAN DONALD TRUMP WANTED AND NEEDED ME TO BE”
See now why framing Cohen that way to the jury is *essential*? It explains that when Cohen told Costello—*if* he did—that he had nothing on Trump, he was doing several things at once.
One of them? Protecting the Boss.
237/ But he was *also* trying to send a signal to a man *he knew was a Trump agent*—remember, the State just got this testimony from Cohen on re-direct—that he was loyal to Trump.
Cohen knew anything he said to Costello would get back to Trump, so he gave Costello Trump’s lies.
Cohen knew anything he said to Costello would get back to Trump, so he gave Costello Trump’s lies.
238/ That’s why Hoffinger had to get that testimony from Cohen on redirect. Because the State apprehended this was coming—this Costello bullsh*t. Which comes from a man who was pretending to work for Cohen at a time he was really working for Trump.
Which angers me beyond belief.
Which angers me beyond belief.
239/ Costello is one of a group of Trump mouthpieces—candidly, Cohen *used* to be one—who are nominally attorneys but have helped *destroy* the already withered reputation of my profession with their willingness not just to defend the guilty (which is fine) but aid and abet them.
240/ Jurors *must* understand that the presence of Costello in the courtroom; and what he’s saying; and what he did in 2018; is a *confirmation* rather than a refutation of the State’s case: Trump is a cheap, micro-managing, disloyal career criminal who orchestrates illicit acts.
241/ Trump was manipulating Costello to act deceitfully, unethically, and *possibly even illegally* in the same way he manipulates *all* his lawyers—including, once, Cohen—to do so, because he “wants his Roy Cohn” (the late, disbarred, career-criminal attorney-cum-Trump mentor).
242/ Well, this has become the circus Trump’s defense was always going to be.
243/ This thread will run 300+ tweets, so this is just a brief mid-thread break to note that while of course this thread and its expertise are free, if you’d like to tip the author for his work, you can do so in seconds, in any amount, at the link below: sethabramson.net/pp
244/ As if to *prove* he’s in court for the reason I said—as an unscrupulous Trump partisan willing to do anything for Trump—Costello just had to be implicitly admonished by the court for muttering under his breath during a State objection.
That is *monstrously* unprofessional.
That is *monstrously* unprofessional.
245/ Costello is—for now, at least—an attorney, so you can’t imagine how stunned Judge Merchan is at seeing him act like a non-lawyer on the stand. Maybe he’s better understanding, now, what so many of us do: when you become a Trump lawyer you basically cease to be a real lawyer.
246/ Of course the question is, is the *jury* getting that message?
247/ Can the State smartly *springboard* off the Costello testimony by saying to the jury in closing, You *saw* what an unreformed Trump lawyer looks like—it was Mr. Costello. And you *saw* what a reformed Trump lawyer looks like—*imperfectly reformed* from all the damage done...
248/ ...by trying to please Donald Trump—and that is Mr. Cohen. Yes, Mr. Cohen did bad things; yes, he is still bitter about what happened to him; yes, he is struggling to come to grips with his own responsibility for it. But he is *trying*. He got out from Mr. Trump’s grip.
249/ The State can then compare this to Mr. Costello, who acted in ways no lawyer should act—violating attorney-client privilege, pretending to work for Cohen when he wasn’t, trying to tamper with Cohen when he was a witness before Congress. That’s who Cohen *used* to be, jurors.
250/ In other words the State must destroy Costello on cross, then show the jury in closing exactly how and why Donald Trump overplayed his hand here—asking the jury to hate a man who got out from under his thumb and admits his mistakes and *believe* a man who didn’t and doesn’t.
251/ The question now is whether Judge Merchan is allowing in hearsay under the guise of the defense rebutting the testimony of Michael Cohen. This case has become a total evidentiary minefield for a judge and I do not envy Merchan his current task at all. He’s really in it, now.
252/ What did I say: a circus.
Merchan has excused the jury and is *livid* at Costello.
Merchan has excused the jury and is *livid* at Costello.
253/ I want to believe what is happening here is like a Greek tragicomedy, and Trump is going to get what is coming to him *explicitly* because of his fatal flaw. Calling Costello was *extremely* dangerous, and Trump should be punished for it with a conviction because this man...
254/ ...lacks credibility at a level well beyond any credibility issues Michael Cohen had—and the State *must* underscore to the jury that it what it saw play out before it is the difference between a man who got caught up in Trump schemes and got punished for it and is trying...
255/ ...to find his way back to respectability, and a *similar man* who is *still* mired in that desire to please Trump, spreading tales that only serve to benefit Trump and make no sense and fly in the face of all the other testimony. *Call out* Trump for making this a circus.
256/ Tell the jury that it’s the vanity, venality, and hubris of Donald Trump that led to this case; that created Michael Cohen as he used to be; that created Robert Costello as he is now; that’s crafted a defense that’s candidly nonsensical and designed only to spread confusion.
257/ The jury mustn’t see any of this as disconnected: who Michael Cohen is; who Robert Costello is; how this trial became about everything but *documents*; how the 75 one-act plays Trump staged suggesting Cohen is deceitful paint the portrait of who Cohen was *for Trump’s sake*.
258/ Robert Costello is now being crossed. It would be wholly reasonable for this cross to be a long one, because the longer it goes, the most Mr. Costello will misbehave and reveal who he is more than he already has (the same theory the defense had with Michael Cohen, candidly).
259/ I have to tell you all that in New Hampshire criminal practice, Mr. Costello wouldn’t even have been able to testify without what is called a RICHARDS hearing—a hearing to determine if he has criminal liability he needs to be advised about by his own counsel *pre-testimony*.
260/ There is reason for the State to be concerned that a robust cross-examination of Robert Costello would force him to admit that he was part of a Criminal Conspiracy orchestrated by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to tamper with a federal witness.
Like... *very* serious stuff.
Like... *very* serious stuff.
261/ Costello coming into court as blustery, arrogant, confident and performative (only for Trump) as he is is actually yet another sign that our criminal justice system is broken, as he *should* be terrified about facing a federal criminal investigation of his own over all this.
262/ Indeed, I find it to be very good news that court has now recessed for the day... *provided* that means that the Costello cross will continue tomorrow, because this man truly requires a lengthy cross. If you think *Sitko* was arguably open to cross-examination over motive...
263/ ...the story of the roles Mr. Costello has served over last few years—*all* of them *specifically* focused on aiding Trump escape criminal liability and many of them involving jumping back and forth between being an attorney and acting as a witness for/against his clients...
264/ ...would make your head spin around. In general terms, Mr. Costello *presents* as a man you would expect will shortly be disbarred or under bar investigation, just like Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Michael Cohen, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Jenna Ellis... noticing a trend here?
265/ I know I am not the only attorney who believes that the list of disbarred and under-investigation Donald Trump lawyers should be *three times longer* than it already is, not to mention the attorneys Trump is paying to quote-unquote represent all his criminal co-conspirators.
266/ What Trump *decided* into bring to court today—after days of whispers Costello wouldn’t be called, and Costello implying he wouldn’t be called, suggesting that (as predicted) Trump made an *emotional* decision to the contrary—is what was previously mostly hidden to America:
267/ Swirling around Donald Trump is a veritable maelstorm of men and women of low or no character, among them many attorneys, whose whole reason for being is to enrich themselves off Trump in exchange for insulating him from the liability as a career criminal he’s richly earned.
268/ I swear, if the State doesn’t help the jury see this—see how *this case in particular* was a two-act play confirming it—it’ll be a devastating misstep. David Pecker, Marc Kasowitz, Hope Hicks, executive secretaries...Trump had a system for doing wrong and not getting caught.
269/ Bringing in a man like Robert Costello to *defend* him is just another indication that Trump faced this indictment believing that he had ample means to swing that system to his benefit yet again. Proxies violating his gag order? Check. Scaring off jurors? Check. Glaring...
270/ ...at witnesses/jurors he deems unfriendly, even muttering under his breath at them? Check. Trying to shake the hands of/compliment witnesses he wanted to ensure stuck with the party line on his culpability? Check. It’s all of a piece—but only some can be argued to the jury.
271/ One of the big questions *now* is whether a man who got where he did by *never learning even a single lesson about how to act in civil society* has learned his lesson about how *not* to defend yourself in a criminal case. Or will be demand Weisselberg testify, too? Schiller?
272/ How much of a circus is needed here to placate Trump’s bottomless ego? How many human weapons does he need to see pay their respects to him in person in testimony—which is basically all Costello (who certainly wants future employment with Trump and MAGA defendants) is doing?
273/ I feel it’s unanswerable. Trump loves loyalty tests; he loves circuses he controls; he loves disinformation; he loves disrespecting rule of law; he loves seeing his enemies attacked...
...but is also a draft-dodging lifelong coward who’d rather flee America than go to jail.
...but is also a draft-dodging lifelong coward who’d rather flee America than go to jail.
274/ So even as a Trump biographer, I cannot guess at how much he will blow up this trial—how much bad money he will throw after...bad money. But I would ask everyone this question: *if* Trump believes the State has *decimated* his only important witness—Costello—what will he do?
275/ Is Donald Trump really going to let his defense rest—with his freedom on the line (which means, really, *everything* on the line, as Trump would rather flee America and give up his political career and citizenship than face incarceration)—if it ended with a sloppy, wet fart?
276/ And that leads to a piece of advice I would give to the State, were I dispensing advice: you *have* to make Trump pay *dearly* for calling a man like Costello. Because if you do, if you really *scare* him into believing his defense was a dud...he will not back down. He will:
277/
1⃣ Call Weisselberg.
2⃣ Call Schiller.
And those are men you can *destroy* on cross. Would Trump also:
3⃣ Testify?
No. Let’s be clear on this: no. Trump knows what he is—a career criminal—and he’s *always* known it. He’s not going to subject himself to live questioning.
1⃣ Call Weisselberg.
2⃣ Call Schiller.
And those are men you can *destroy* on cross. Would Trump also:
3⃣ Testify?
No. Let’s be clear on this: no. Trump knows what he is—a career criminal—and he’s *always* known it. He’s not going to subject himself to live questioning.
278/ I can’t underscore enough what I learned in nearly a decade as a Trump presidential historian: Trump is a performer; he’s performing 99% of the time. But his mask slips often enough in private that it’s *certain* he understands himself to be a career criminal and a bad man.
279/ I fully understand that most Trump fans have sunk far too much of themselves into him to understand or believe this; at this point, MAGAs’ self-identity is so entwined with the idea that Trump is special rather than two-bit scum that their reasoning on this can’t be rescued.
280/ But know this: Trump knows what he is. He might fight every day to retain his self-image as a powerful and successful man—and yes, his lies are powerful enough that *often* he himself believes them—but when he is taping his red tie to his shirt he knows *exactly* what he is.
281/ When he’s accepting back into the fold a politician who he *damn well knows* despises him and spent years and years denigrating him privately, he *doesn’t* think they’ve changed their—100% correct—view of him being two-bit scum: he just thinks that he’s defeated their honor.
282/ He knows he lost the election. He knows Melania hates him. He knows Don Jr. is scared of him. He knows he doesn’t love his children (Ivanka excepted). He knows he can’t be trusted. He knows only corrupt people will have anything to do with him. He knows he turned millions...
283/ ...of Americans into mindless suckers thoughtlessly funneling their last dollar to him. He knows he’s not a billionaire in any way that matters. He knows he has no loyalty to the United States. He may not focus on these items daily—it’d be no use to him—but they’re baked in.
284/ When you are *that guy*, and you are on trial for 34 felonies in a case you *know* you are guilty on and *fear* could send you to jail—in which case you’d have to run far from your home and give up everything you crimed for *decades* to get—how do you orchestrate a defense?
285/ Donald Trump is the classic go-out-guns-blazing villain—with the twist that he will always leave himself *just* enough room at the end of all things to be the *other* kind of villain: the one who throws a gas canister on the ground and disappears forever in a cloud of smoke.
286/ If we get to gas-canister-Trump, it’ll happen on a rainy airport tarmac. For now we’re in a courtroom. There are still cameras. Buzz. Fans. Political aspirations. A family that doesn’t have to make 10 connections on a flight to Dubai to see you. So we’re in circus territory.
287/ But only if the State of New York can make Donald Trump apprehend something for the first time in his life: consequences.
And all the bluster and bravado of Costello—who really should be under federal investigation—is intended to *hide* that he’s the last line of defense.
And all the bluster and bravado of Costello—who really should be under federal investigation—is intended to *hide* that he’s the last line of defense.
288/ Costello’s the last man before we arrive at gas-canister Trump—the Trump we see disappear in a cloud of smoke on an airport tarmac because the alternative is him committed to a cell. (If Trump were *sure* Merchan won’t jail him—which he probably wouldn’t!—it’d be different.)
289/ This thread will run 300+ tweets, so this is just a brief mid-thread break to note that while of course this thread and its expertise are free, if you’d like to tip the author for his work, you can do so in seconds, in any amount, at the link below: sethabramson.net/pp
290/ Side note: My Venmo, for those who prefer that method for tipping, is [@]SethAbramsonTwitter.
291/ So it’s with all this in mind that we consider the fact that Judge Merchan earlier today set closing arguments...
...for Tuesday, May 28, 2024.
Now that could of course change depending on how things go, but... whoa, that could be very significant here. I will explain why.
...for Tuesday, May 28, 2024.
Now that could of course change depending on how things go, but... whoa, that could be very significant here. I will explain why.
292/ So many things about this case have been different because of the media attention, the security issues in play, and the (very much related) identity of the defendant.
In the *average* trial, the prosecution doesn’t feel obligated to *fully* commit itself to who its final...
In the *average* trial, the prosecution doesn’t feel obligated to *fully* commit itself to who its final...
293/ ...witness is, say. Sure, it may say to the judge, “We expect...”, but the sort of assurance—and, candidly, demand by the court for an assurance—we saw here is unusual. So is a judge setting the date for closing arguments... before he knows how long the defense case will be?
294/ Here, too, Judge Merchan can *of course* change his mind. But his declaration is unusual because it seems to establish for the parties what future scheduling scenario would *please* him or make him *angry*. And neither side wants to make him angry (though Trump’s did today).
295/ So you may’ve noticed it’s only Monday; there are 3 more *full days* of court this week in this trial; the parties are midway through what *may* be Trump’s last or second-to-last witness (if Costello is second-to-last, the last would be a quickly dispatched expert witness).
296/ So...what gives? The closings in this case will be long and complex *enough*—almost certainly—that Judge Merchan put them into next week *because* he didn’t want to break them up over a weekend and *if* he starts them *any time this week* there’s a real risk that they would.
297/ But I can promise you that Judge Merchan does *not* want the parties to finish their evidentiary presentations tomorrow (Tuesday, May 21) and then have to tell the jurors they are *off for a week* before closing arguments. That wastes his time and theirs, and even weakens...
298/ ...jurors’ memories of the facts of the case problematically pre-closing—it’d be a terrible look for the court and the orderly administration of justice. All of which is to say yes, Judge Merchan may have set closing for May 28 because Trump signaled he has more witnesses...
299/ ...but also *might* have set it under the more *normal* circumstance of defense counsel not being able to absolutely assure the court of how many witnesses it will call and therefore how many defense witnesses it has left before being ready for closing arguments in the case.
300/ In the event that *that’s* the situation, boy it’s sure great for the State. In every possible way. First, it gives it license—implicit license from the court—to cross-examine Robert Costello to the moon and back, which as long as questioning is lively is good for the State.
301/ It also creates an artificial caesura in the court schedule that’ll be attributed by jurors to *Trump* if he fails to call enough witnesses to fill the week. Jurors may wonder—what happened to the man’s defense? Why was it cut short? Why do we have an odd extra-long weekend?
302/ *You* may not think about the public optics...but *Trump* will.
He doesn’t want his defense to seem tepid, brief, turgid, limp, or otherwise impotent. He wants his defense to be a robust *exclamation point*.
You can probably see the central metaphor I’m working with here.
He doesn’t want his defense to seem tepid, brief, turgid, limp, or otherwise impotent. He wants his defense to be a robust *exclamation point*.
You can probably see the central metaphor I’m working with here.
303/ So this court schedule also slightly increases the pressure on Trump to either artificially lengthen his counsel’s direct examinations—which will bore and therefore anger the jury—or else to call witnesses he might otherwise not have felt pressured to call, like Weisselberg.
304/ Or Keith Schiller.
305/ Such a thought wouldn’t occur to a responsible defense lawyer operating under their own steam—but that’s not what we have here.
We have a defense team run by a malignant-narcissist sociopath obsessed with public relations who thinks he knows the law better than his lawyers.
We have a defense team run by a malignant-narcissist sociopath obsessed with public relations who thinks he knows the law better than his lawyers.
306/ So it’s for that reason we have to talk about Donald Trump getting performance anxiety as he contemplates his defense this week—and possibly making mistakes he might not have made were he and the jury not facing the somewhat odd, artificial court schedule they both now do.
307/ And lest you think, nah, there won’t be unforced errors in a case like this... friends, this whole *defense* is an unforced error! In a right-side-up world, this case pleads and Trump abandons politics; or he goes to trial with an advice-of-counsel defense; or argues only...
308/ ...on the pleadings at a bench trial, contending that what he did isn’t a crime; or argues for lesser-included misdemeanors—as he still might try to do—being given to jurors for consideration alongside the felonies. Instead, we got this mess of disinformation and defamation.
309/ And that’s only the big picture. The *smaller* one would look at questions Trump had his lawyer ask to score points that may not have been worth it. For instance, was it *worth* it asking Cohen about Red Finch to show he allegedly stole $30,000 from the Trump Organization...
310/ ...when that *also* established that Trump is willing to defraud voters during an election via manipulated polls he personally paid to have manipulated? I’m not so sure that the State has to run from that revelation; after all, it already *admitted* that Cohen is no saint.
311/ So in a sense, that revelation said more about *Trump* than Cohen—and it is *Trump*, not Cohen, who is on trial here and facing jail.
I continue to believe that to some degree Trump is in denial about that fact, and that denial is driving his defense into some dank ditches.
I continue to believe that to some degree Trump is in denial about that fact, and that denial is driving his defense into some dank ditches.
312/ That is just one example of many (e.g., I earlier wrote of how Trump wanted to get the benefit of raising Weisselberg and Schiller as witnesses in the case without having to call them to the stand—though doing this may have created a false expectation Trump would call them).
313/ So tomorrow we’ll have a continuation of the Costello cross, if I understand correctly—and if so, it can and should go for a long time (unless Trump telegraphs a plan to call another horrifyingly bad and embarrassing witness, in which case the State may prefer *that* one).
314/ No matter what, it does seem unlikely we’ll have a verdict in this case before *June*, which if it is a conviction is not ideal for Trump (as it makes it that much harder to, come late summer, claim the trial is old news). With a conviction, we might see a summer sentencing.
315/ I really hope you found this thread illuminating! I’m trying to bring my expertise as a journalist, attorney, and Trump biographer to bear. If you’d like to tip for this 8-hour thread, you can do so at Venmo ([@]SethAbramsonTwitter) or below (PayPal): sethabramson.net/pp
PS/ As expected, the defense moved to dismiss the case today—standard practice after the State rests. Blanche argued Cohen isn’t credible *as a matter of law* (which is an insane claim) and therefore the State has no case. Merchan was dubious; he took the motion under advisement.
PS2/ The defense’s motion will be denied, you can be sure of that. Judge Merchan *isn’t* going to decide a witness isn’t credible as a matter of law, and it’s frankly bonkers that Blanche even suggested it. The credibility of witnesses is *always* a matter for the jury to decide.
PS3/ Other items I wanted to add:
1⃣ Costello’s conduct was even more insane than I intimated. At one point Judge Merchan incredulously asked Costello if he was trying to “stare him [Merchan] down”—which is one of the crazier things I have ever heard of happening in a courtroom.
1⃣ Costello’s conduct was even more insane than I intimated. At one point Judge Merchan incredulously asked Costello if he was trying to “stare him [Merchan] down”—which is one of the crazier things I have ever heard of happening in a courtroom.
PS4/ Merchan threatened to *strike Costello’s testimony and end his testimony*. CNN:
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous,” Merchan said to Costello, according to a transcript. “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.”
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous,” Merchan said to Costello, according to a transcript. “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.”
PS5/
2⃣ The defense appears to have decided *not* to call its campaign-finance expert, as Merchan shot down Trump’s transparent ploy to improperly use the expert to exculpate himself. When trial resumes tomorrow, Hoffinger will be crossing Costello.
There may be more fireworks.
2⃣ The defense appears to have decided *not* to call its campaign-finance expert, as Merchan shot down Trump’s transparent ploy to improperly use the expert to exculpate himself. When trial resumes tomorrow, Hoffinger will be crossing Costello.
There may be more fireworks.
PS6/
3⃣ Cohen admitted stealing the $30,000 from the Trump Org with exactly the line I expected—that he did so because Trump’s own conduct warranted it, even though he knew it was wrong. Sounds pretty bad, right? Well, maybe not: it dovetails with the State’s theory of the case.
3⃣ Cohen admitted stealing the $30,000 from the Trump Org with exactly the line I expected—that he did so because Trump’s own conduct warranted it, even though he knew it was wrong. Sounds pretty bad, right? Well, maybe not: it dovetails with the State’s theory of the case.
PS7/ Trump’s *defense* is Cohen acted out of the goodness of his heart to *unilaterally* pay $130,000 to Daniels on Trump’s behalf—without telling him. No one believes that; even pro-Trump witnesses like Hope Hicks implied Cohen would never do so. Cohen being a thief confirms it.
PS8/ If Cohen would steal $30K from the Trump Org, he’s *not* the sort of man who’s going to—in effect—*give* Trump $130K without telling him about it or seeking compensation.
This is another example of Trump using his lawyers to embarrass Cohen—but in a way that hurts his case.
This is another example of Trump using his lawyers to embarrass Cohen—but in a way that hurts his case.
PS9/ I actually think the jury will *believe* Cohen’s testimony today that he’ll make *more* money if Trump is acquitted. Why? Because it’s self-evidently true! If Trump is convicted and goes to jail, who needs Michael Cohen as a pundit whining about a forgotten, jailed has-been?
PS10/ By comparison, if Trump is *acquitted*—and especially if he’s a POTUS again—Cohen continues to be a marquee turncoat who anti-Trump media will give wall-to-wall air to to continue telling stories about how horrific a human Trump is in private. He may even reveal new crimes!
PS11/ True, Mr. Cohen’s *personal* animus would point toward him wanting Trump in jail—and Cohen might feel he’s in more danger personally if Trump is POTUS again—but (a) the defense has oddly focused more on Cohen’s profit motive (which cuts the wrong way for Trump), and (b)...
PS12/ ...we’ve almost certainly reached the point at which Cohen has so publicly and obviously made himself an enemy of Trump that it’s impossible for anyone to take as real rather than fraudulent any action a future President Trump takes against Cohen—from audits to indictments.
PS13/ And candidly, Trump is facing three other sets of criminal charges—one of them a state set of indictments he can’t wave away even were he to become president again—so Cohen has an opportunity to extend his relevance post-acquittal and *still* see Trump jailed down the line.
PS14/ At this point Trump’s defense might partially hinge on whether 90 seconds was long enough for Cohen to ask Schiller to help him deal with a 14 year-old stalker *and* confirm for Trump—in a sentence—that he’d handled the Daniels matter.
Surely it *was* long enough for both.
Surely it *was* long enough for both.
PS15/ So you wouldn’t want to be Trump here—hanging your hopes on the idea that you weren’t with Schiller on a date and time *a photo admitted into evidence today shows you were*, and that 90 seconds isn’t enough time for Cohen to say one sentence to you and the rest to Schiller.
PS16/ Remember that jurors already heard, from more than one witness, that Trump *regularly* answered calls via the cell phones of his subordinates—*particularly* Schiller!—in part because he was worried about his phone records revealing his conduct. That seems very relevant now!
PS17/ In other words, it’s hard for Trump—especially without testifying—to convince jurors that he’d never talk to Cohen on Schiller’s phone, when witnesses *besides* Cohen have confirmed he *totally* would. And the clear reason was/is to avoid accountability *just* as he is now.
PS18/ I just keep coming back to the same point here: Trump has no actual defense here *except* to imply—but never be in a position to actually *claim*—that some conversations the jury will not hear about because they happened between Weisselberg and Trump in 2017 exculpate him.
PS19/ If Trump wanted *that* defense, he needed to call Weisselberg. Or if he wanted to *establish* that 90 seconds isn’t enough time to do what is *totally* possible in 90 seconds, he needed Schiller. But he felt he could call neither—and may rest tomorrow or Wednesday, instead.
PS20/ I hope you found this thread illuminating! I’m trying to bring my expertise as a journalist, lawyer and Trump biographer to bear. If you’d like to tip for this 8-hour thread, you can do so at Venmo ([@]SethAbramsonTwitter) or the link below (PayPal): sethabramson.net/pp
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