For those who’ve been following New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hush money trial against former President Donald Trump by now, one thing has become very clear even to some of Trump’s harshest critics — this case is not about justice; it’s about a vendetta.
The star witness in the case, Michael Cohen, is a disbarred and disgraced former Trump lawyer who plead guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress, per Fox News.
Pundits, legal experts and even traditionally anti-Trump voices have openly questioned whether Cohen, labeled a “serial perjurer” and “grifter” by some, can be believed.
The credibility of Cohen is crucial for prosecutors seeking to convince jurors that Trump falsified records to conceal reimbursements for a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to adult actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her to remain silent about an alleged tryst with Trump.
The former president faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over this issue and has denied all wrongdoing.
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One commentator, Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School and news contributor wrote on his website that due to the lack of evidence presented by the prosecutors, the Trump case lies “virtually entirely on the testimony of Michael Cohen,” whom he says has “a record of saying whatever serves his interests and those of his sponsors.”
But what happened on Thursday was every defense attorney’s dream scenario.
During a tense courtroom testimony, Trump attorney Todd Blanche caught the former lawyer in a clear lie about his own timeline about when he first raised the issue of purchasing the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Even MSNBC’s legal correspondent Lisa Rubin had to describe it as a “moment of real triumph” for Blanche according to a video clipped by Mediaite.
Will Trump beat these charges?
The pivotal moment came when Blanche was questioning Cohen on his previous testimony that he called Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller on October 24, 2016 specifically to connect with Trump and inform him that a deal had been struck to pay $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims of a past sexual encounter with Trump.
But Blanche destroyed Cohen’s credibility when he revealed that the call in question is about something else entirely, according to the New York Times.
According to Blanche, in the days leading up to the call, Cohen had been receiving prank phone calls from an unidentified teenager.
“You were receiving a bunch of ongoing and continuing harassment phone calls,” Blanche asked Cohen, per ABC News. “Do you remember that?”
Cohen agreed.
Blanche then read from Oct. 24 texts where Cohen asked Schiller: “Who can I speak to about harassing calls to my phone and office?”
According to Blanche, Schiller texted back, asking Cohen to call him at 8:02 p.m.
The call only lasted a little over 90 seconds, according to Rubin. At 8:04, after the call, Cohen texted Schiller the number of the prank caller.
So that makes it pretty obvious what the 90-second phone call was actually about.
“Part of it was the 14-year-old, but I knew that Keith was with Trump at the time,” Cohen responded to the clear allegation.
“That was a lie. You did not talk to President Trump that night,” Blanche replied, raising his voice, according to ABC News. “You can admit it.”
“No sir, I can’t,” Cohen replied. “Because I’m not sure that’s accurate.”
“That. Was. A. Lie,” Blanche replied, articulating every word separately for effect.
Although Cohen continued to maintain that he had somehow managed to talk about a hush money deal and explain to Schiller his problem with the prank-calling teenager all in a 90-second phone call, it was clear that Blanche had made his point.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper called it “incredible” in a clip that began circulating on social media.
“On a cross examination lawyers want to build a box around the witness and then slam it shut. That’s what Todd Blanche did to Michael Cohen,” Cooper said.
A visibly stunned Anderson Cooper calls today’s cross examination of Michael Cohen “incredible”:
“On a cross examination lawyers want to build a box around the witness and then slam it shut. That’s what Todd Blanche did to Michael Cohen.”
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— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 16, 2024
“Michael Cohen not only admitted that he is now ‘less than certain about what got discussed that day and that it could have been both but he’s not positive given the one minute and 30-something seconds of that phone call, but also that in eight years he had never seen that Keith Schiller text and that it was not among the things that the district attorneys office had shown him,” Rubin said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports.”
“That makes the district attorney’s office look sloppy in addition to making Michael Cohen seem like a self-assured either fabricator, liar or forgetful person,” Rubin continued.
“It casts doubt on the veracity of a ton of his testimony and not just about who he did or didn’t talk to on Oct. 24 or Oct 26. It sort of casts lots of his testimony in doubt, given the passage of time, and makes the district attorney’s office look terrible all in one breath,” she said.
It was the kind of Perry Mason or “My Cousin Vinny” moment you usually only see in movies.
MSNBC’s Katy Tur called it a “Grisham moment” — a reference to the famous author John Grisham, who is known for his work on legal thriller novels like “The Firm” and “The Pelican Brief.”
In Grisham’s novels, there are often pivotal courtroom scenes where the defense delivers a dramatic revelation or confronts a witness in a way that turns the tide of the case in their favor.
Trump’s defense has done a masterful job of showing that when you hinge your entire case on a known liar, sometimes you need to let them speak — a lot — first. You’ll inevitably get what you’re looking for: a lie.
But a New York jury has to face their own consciences and decide to make the obvious choice.
Will they be willing to put their prejudices aside and find Trump not guilty?
That would definitely be a surprise ending.
