Robert Costello, a former legal adviser to ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen, said the judge in former President Trump’s hush-money trial “totally overreacted” while scolding him for his behavior in court during testimony.
Costello pointed to several instances during his time in the Manhattan courtroom when Judge Juan Marchan appeared to target him, including in one case when the judge allegedly accused a witness of trying to glare at him.
“I guess I just muttered, ‘Whoa,’ and then the judge started yelling and yelling and I had to turn to my right to look at the judge,” Costello told hosts John Catsmathidis and Rita Cosby on “The Cats and Cosby Show” on Friday. “That’s what you normally do when someone talks to you.”
He continued, “He immediately said, ‘Are you trying to stare at me?’ [I said]”I said, ‘No. Can I explain?’ and he said, ‘No. This is not an argument.’
Mr Costello added that the judge also alleged that Mr Marchan was rolling his eyes, but Mr Costello argued that Mr Marchan could not have seen that.
“A: I don’t think so, and B: even if he did, there’s no way he could have seen it, because he was behind me to the right and I was looking at the jury box to the left,” the witness said Friday.
At one point, Marchan dismissed jurors from the courtroom and scolded Costello for his decorum on the witness stand.
He recounted the scene the day after Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Manhattan hush-money case, which involved payments to adult film actresses to cover up allegations of extramarital affairs that the former president denies early in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Costello said he expected the verdict to be a no verdict but was “fooled.”
“I gave them more credit than they deserved…Judge Marchan set them on that path. [to a conviction] “His accusations were totally absurd,” he said.
When asked by Cosby what he thought of Marchan, Costello said he thought the judge’s treatment of him had to do with testimony he gave before the House Judiciary Committee before the Trump trial began. During the committee hearing, Costello asked why Marchan was involved in so many Trump-related cases.
“My guess is that he saw it, was probably upset that I’d said that, saw an opportunity and seized it,” Costello said. “But he totally overreacted.”
The co-host suggested that Trump’s defense team may have decided not to call additional witnesses because of Marchand’s attitude toward Costello, the only defense witness.
“This was an unfortunate event that occurred because a nervous judge overreacted,” Cohen said, “but he may have done it on purpose, because a rational judge would not have acted in that way.”
He added: “I’ve been a lawyer for many years. […] Even though he was responsible for two-thirds of the charges, never once did a judge reprimand me like that and say, ‘Your conduct is contemptible,'” he said.
A judge has set Trump’s sentencing trial for July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention, where he is scheduled to be formally nominated as the GOP’s presidential candidate. The former president is expected to appeal his conviction.
