Former President Donald Trump’s defense team stunned viewers in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday with a shocking cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
President Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to a non-disclosure agreement he signed with adult film star Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) in 2016. District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to investigate the case because the statute of limitations on misdemeanor charges under state law had expired. It’s a way to charge Trump with a felony. He claimed that President Trump falsified his records to hide a federal crime, but prosecutors have not told the court what that crime was.
Mr. Cohen testified earlier this week that Mr. Trump instructed him to falsify records regarding payments to Mr. Daniels, and that Mr. Cohen paid for them with personal funds. Cohen testified that Trump repaid him through a misleading legal representation agreement to avoid reporting the payments to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
(Neither the FEC nor federal prosecutors have alleged that Mr. Trump committed any wrongdoing. Perhaps he did so to protect his personal reputation, as previous attempts to prosecute politicians over similar payments have failed.) (This is probably because it is difficult to prove that the confidentiality payments received were primarily campaign expenses.)
Cohen, who has already been convicted of lying to Congress, made the revelations on the witness stand Thursday as defense attorney Todd Blanche attacked key details of his story.For example, Cohen testified During direct examination Tuesday, prosecutors argued that they discussed payments to Mr. Daniels in an October 2016 phone call. But that claim fell apart when Blanche showed him text messages and call records that suggested the call was about something else.
Even CNN’s Elie Honig and Anderson Cooper (no Trump fans) thought Cohen’s credibility had been eroded.
Anderson Cooper said of Michael Cohen: “If I were a juror in this case, I would think this guy was making things up in the middle of his story.” pic.twitter.com/4Pfp5MQctG
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) May 16, 2024
“If I were a juror in this case, I would look at this case and think this guy is cheating because he’s going so well,” Cooper said.
Defense attorneys also urged Cohen to testify that the non-disclosure agreement was “non-public” in nature and that there was nothing illegal about the agreement itself.
It also undermined Cohen’s claim that Trump instructed model Karen McDougal to write a check as part of a separate non-disclosure agreement.Cohen had testified that Trump’s use of the word “cash” was referring to cutting a check, but Blanche’s cross-examination produced Some respondents said that “cash” simply refers to payments made without borrowing money, such as in real estate transactions.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of a new biography, Rhoda: “Comrade Cadderly, you are abnormal.”. He is also the author of a recently published e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
