Yesterday, Costello behaved so atrociously on the witness stand that Juan Merchan cleared the courtroom to admonish him & the defense attorneys. Costello is due back on the stand
Defense tried to muddy that story on cross -examination of Cohen. But by calling Costello, they have given prosecutors opportunity to reinforce the story, & emails shown yesterday & this morning suggest that they have ample evidence to support.
#Trump has a huge posse today, including #KashPatel; #GerryKassar, a #conservative party leader in NY; #BernieKerik, fmr NYPD commissioner who was imprisoned for tax fraud & false statements; #AlanDershowitz, lawyer who defended Trump during his first impeachment, & #BorisEpshteyn, legal adviser who was #indicted in AZ for attempts to keep Trump in power after the 2020 election.
#Blanche is now asking #MichaelCohen about meeting w/people ahead of his public testimony before a #House panel in 2019. He asks him about meeting w/ #DanGoldman, then a House investigator & now a congresssman in NY. Then he jumps back to Oct 2016 & #StormyDaniels.
Blanche is skipping around again. He started by speaking about 2024, then went back ~5yrs, to 2019, & is now back in 2016, right before he made the #HushMoney payment to Daniels.
Prosecutors argue Cohen was motivated solely by pleasing #Trump. Blanche is suggesting Cohen may have been motivated by his own financial interests. He suggests that one of the LLCs that Cohen said he created to help w/the hush-money may actually have been formed to address an issue Cohen was having in the taxi industry.
#Blanche is trying to confuse the timeline of the #HushMoney payment. On Fri, he questioned #MichaelCohen’s story about the events of 24 Oct, 2016. Now he’s moved on to casting doubt on Cohen’s testimony about the 2 days that followed — the 25th 26th. Cohen wired the payment to #StormyDaniels's lawyer on 27 Oct.
Blanche argues there were alternative explanations for 2 of Cohen’s calls to #Trump on 26 Oct — a possible plot to extort #TiffanyTrump.
#Blanche suggests that #MichaelCohen had said he was singlemindedly focused on the #HushMoney deal, including when he spoke to #Trump that Oct. But Blanche suggests that Cohen would have reported back to Trump about other issues, too, including dealing w/an extortion attempt against #TiffanyTrump.
Cohen sticks to his original testimony: “My recollection is that I was speaking to him about #StormyDaniels, because that was what he tasked me to take care of.”
#Blanche gets #MichaelCohen to testify about having cash “in a brown paper bag.” Then Blanche refers to someone Cohen was dealing w/as “the connect.” Both characterizations are rather seedy / illicit & similar to dog-whistles #Trump uses in his speeches.
Blanche asks Cohen about the complex reimbursements for the #HushMoney payment. Defense noted that Cohen wasn’t repaid $130k, the actual amount Cohen had given to #StormyDaniels. Blanche is digging into that.
#Blanche concludes cross-examination of #MichaelCohen w/ a whimper not a bang. He tries to remind jurors of the most dramatic moment from Thursday's cross: that Cohen may have lied on the stand when he described a conversation on Trump's bodyguard's phone in which he said he briefed #Trump about the payment to #StormyDaniels.
There was “no doubt in your mind” that that was the purpose of the call, Blanche asks. “No doubt,” Cohen replies, standing by his testimony.
#MichaelCohen testifies that #Trump approved his false 2018 statement about whether or not Cohen decided to pay #StormyDaniels of his own volition. As a bonus, Susan #Hoffinger, the prosecutor, has Cohen confirm that one of Trump’s lawyers at the time was aware of the statement & texted him to tell him that Trump was grateful for all he did.
#Hoffinger goes back to how #MichaelCohen was treated by the #Trump team. A complicating factor w/both Cohen & #StormyDaniels is they have multiple motives, & prosecutors have been telling the cleanest versions of their stories which makes it easy for the defense to pick at. However, the Trump team is essentially asking the #jury to believe everyone around Trump was acting shadily except for the shadiest of all – Trump.
#MichaelCohen has suggested several times that he committed #crimes in connection w/ the #StormyDaniels payoff. This is helpful for the prosecution, as they seek to prove to #jurors that #Trump caused the falsification of business records to conceal a 2nd #crime.
IMPORTANTLY That crime doesn’t need to have been committed by Trump — Cohen’s crimes are equally applicable.
Prosecutors play the recording of #MichaelCohen talking to #KeithDavidson, who was #StormyDaniels's lawyer, but are playing more of it than before. It corroborates much of what Cohen’s testimony about the #HushMoney payment, including that he cared about #Trump & that he would not “play pennywise, pound foolish” w/his then-boss.
#Blanche, who now has to contend w/the visual #evidence of #Trump w/his bodyguard, #KeithSchiller, on 24 Oct 2016, tries to address it directly. He asks Cohen to again confirm that he told Trump that day that he had arranged to pay #StormyDaniels the #HushMoney.
Cohen says once more that he spoke to both Schiller & Trump.
#Blanche suggests that the famously frugal #Trump would have been unlikely to overpay anyone — again harping on the disparity between the $130k that #MichaelCohen paid #StormyDaniels & the $420k that Cohen was repaid. “Did he happily write checks to lawyers, for example?” Blanche asks.
#RobertCostello testifies that #MichaelCohen then asked, “What's my escape route?” adding that he had told Cohen then that he could cooperate w/the govt.
“I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump,” Costello recalls Cohen telling him. As prosecutors just pointed out — w/the #jury out of the room — Cohen testified that he lied to Costello at this point about the #StormyDaniels payment.
He testifies that w/respect to #StormyDaniels, Cohen said “numerous times” that #Trump “knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own.”
Prosecutor #Hoffinger objects to many of Emil #Bove's questions, often being sustained by #Merchan.
Costello is ignoring the judge’s rulings, so Justice Merchan warned him directly to wait for a ruling before answering.
Cross-examination of #MichaelCohen resumes, an opportunity for the defense to poke holes in his testimony & perhaps trip up or provoke the state’s key witness. The questioning of Cohen, #Trump’s fmr fixer, is the beginning of the end of Trump’s #criminal trial, which began April 15 & might conclude before Memorial Day weekend at this pace.
#Blanche shows the #HushMoney contract that #MichaelCohen struck w/ #StormyDaniels. He gets Cohen to agree it’s a “perfectly legal contract.” He’s raises his voice for emphasis — trying to make the #jury feel like this arrangement was business as usual.
It may be usual to have NDAs, but this was unusual for other reasons.
Prosecutors now have 3 days to prepare re-direct, when they will seek to build #MichaelCohen back up & refocus the jurors on the most important elements of their case & the actual charges for which they’ve presented mountains of evidence regardless of whether Cohen is a liar or not.