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Posted
29 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I'll freely admit to being prejudiced/biased, but all the evidence and testimony throughout this trial points squarely not just to a guilty verdict but to a fucking guilty one.

Same for me. Not sure how jury will see it but it’s fairly obvious in my opinion 

Posted
54 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I can't remember which article predicted that, if proven guilty, Trump would get at most 4 months (if I recall that correctly) and would likely see zero time inside a jail cell, according to NY State sentencing guidelines. Then, you consider Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison and got out after 2 1/2 for doing all this shit at the behest of Trump.

What's up with the discrepancy in charges (and, therefore, potential sentencing)? And federal versus state?

Cohen was also guilty of tax evasion and a whole host of other stuff with stiff penalties. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)#Conviction_on_campaign_finance,_tax_evasion,_and_other_charges

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Posted
57 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I can't remember which article predicted that, if proven guilty, Trump would get at most 4 months (if I recall that correctly) and would likely see zero time inside a jail cell, according to NY State sentencing guidelines. Then, you consider Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison and got out after 2 1/2 for doing all this shit at the behest of Trump.

What's up with the discrepancy in charges (and, therefore, potential sentencing)? And federal versus state?

The feds are generally pretty draconian. 

But Cohen was convicted of bank fraud in addition to the other stuff and tax evasion I believe. Those are fairly heavy duty offenses. 

This New York crime has almost no analog in the federal system or in most states. Unlike most falsification crimes, no one actually has to be deceived by the falsification,it just needs to happen internally so to speak. 

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Posted
48 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I'll freely admit to being prejudiced/biased, but all the evidence and testimony throughout this trial points squarely not just to a guilty verdict but to a fucking guilty one.

Remember, this is the prosecutions case in chief. In the normal case, the defense case in chief is the opposite and there is a whipsaw effect. Not sure what Trumpco will come up with, if anything, but it's kinda like we've only heard half of the story. 

Posted
Just now, TwiceHorn said:

Remember, this is the prosecutions case in chief. In the normal case, the defense case in chief is the opposite and there is a whipsaw effect. Not sure what Trumpco will come up with, if anything, but it's kinda like we've only heard half of the story. 

Oh, I fully realize that. At the same time, Cohen's testimony showed they do have all the receipts, including all the business records, phone records, and corroborating testimony from other witnesses. It seems their only strategy is to simply smear anyone and everyone who's testified against Trump. Of course, that *may* work, but I don't see it at this point.

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Remember, this is the prosecutions case in chief. In the normal case, the defense case in chief is the opposite and there is a whipsaw effect. Not sure what Trumpco will come up with, if anything, but it's kinda like we've only heard half of the story. 

Yes and know.  Unless the defense has significant additional witnesses they intend to call, the defense may well be presenting their case through their cross of the prosecution's witnesses.  Unless Trump decides to testify, I'm not sure who they'd be calling in their case who hasn't already been on the stand?  That is, when the prosecution rests, the defense may not have much more to put on.

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Posted
10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes and know.  Unless the defense has significant additional witnesses they intend to call, the defense may well be presenting their case through their cross of the prosecution's witnesses.  Unless Trump decides to testify, I'm not sure who they'd be calling in their case who hasn't already been on the stand?  That is, when the prosecution rests, the defense may not have much more to put on.

Beyond trump saying “nuh uh!” With no proof I’m not sure what they will say 

Posted
4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes and know.  Unless the defense has significant additional witnesses they intend to call, the defense may well be presenting their case through their cross of the prosecution's witnesses.  Unless Trump decides to testify, I'm not sure who they'd be calling in their case who hasn't already been on the stand?  That is, when the prosecution rests, the defense may not have much more to put on.

I've wondered almost from the get go if they (the defense) would just rest immediately and just make the argument that the State hadn't made it's case at close.  The prosecution seems intent on going into potential areas of reasonable doubt with their own witnesses, and subsequently debunking said doubt, without giving the defense the chance for "aha" moments on cross.  In the corporate trial the defense rolled out some bullshit power point presentation apropos of nothing relevant to the case.  I doubt they get the same level of lateral leeway in a criminal case, and I can't see there being much in the way of defense witnesses that would actually help them at all.  I don't think the defense really has any play here at all, save hoping for one idiot juror and a hung jury.  If that is in fact their play, why even call witnesses, just make a blustery close and pretend as if its obvious the State hasn't made it's case.  (Of course that is bullshit, but why wouldn't that be their strategy?).  

Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yes and know.  Unless the defense has significant additional witnesses they intend to call, the defense may well be presenting their case through their cross of the prosecution's witnesses.  Unless Trump decides to testify, I'm not sure who they'd be calling in their case who hasn't already been on the stand?  That is, when the prosecution rests, the defense may not have much more to put on.

Definitely.  Was going to add that they may not even put on a case, much like the Carroll trial.  Because there aren't many Trump supporters or allies that can hold up in court.

I was speaking in terms of the normal case.  

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted
Definitely.  Was going to add that they may not even put on a case, much like the Carroll trial.  Because there aren't many Trump supporters or allies that can hold up in court.
I was speaking in terms of the normal case.  

Also…”yes and know?” Was I typing phonetically?
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Posted
1 minute ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

I mean,  they've telegraphed their side so much that we all know the other half.

"Everything those guys said is bullshit."

They are going to quite literally use the Chewbacca defense.  

Posted
Just now, BamaATL said:

They are going to quite literally use the Chewbacca defense.  

I'll call my shot:

The defense won't call any witnesses but will pull a Crazy Ivan to close. Trump will be delivering the closing argument allowing him to make his bullshit case without subjecting himself to perjury or cross examination.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Genco said:

I'll call my shot:

The defense won't call any witnesses but will pull a Crazy Ivan to close. Trump will be delivering the closing argument allowing him to make his bullshit case without subjecting himself to perjury or cross examination.

Well that transcript should be quite something.  I'm looking forward to hearing the connection to the windmills, MS13, Obama, and how popular he his.  

Posted
2 hours ago, BamaATL said:

I've wondered almost from the get go if they (the defense) would just rest immediately and just make the argument that the State hadn't made it's case at close.  The prosecution seems intent on going into potential areas of reasonable doubt with their own witnesses, and subsequently debunking said doubt, without giving the defense the chance for "aha" moments on cross.  In the corporate trial the defense rolled out some bullshit power point presentation apropos of nothing relevant to the case.  I doubt they get the same level of lateral leeway in a criminal case, and I can't see there being much in the way of defense witnesses that would actually help them at all.  I don't think the defense really has any play here at all, save hoping for one idiot juror and a hung jury.  If that is in fact their play, why even call witnesses, just make a blustery close and pretend as if its obvious the State hasn't made it's case.  (Of course that is bullshit, but why wouldn't that be their strategy?).  

I think they are going to call Melania.  She is going to lie and say Trump admitted doing it all to protect her from the news and he’s so sorry and he bought her something.  

Posted
27 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I think they are going to call Melania.  She is going to lie and say Trump admitted doing it all to protect her from the news and he’s so sorry and he bought her something.  

Can we deport for perjury?  

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Posted
11 hours ago, locodos said:

Rick Scott was one of his submissives

and Nunes, and Jordan, and....ending with every Republican Congressional douchebag that let him off from being impeached.  

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Posted
3 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Just heard on the news that Mike Johnson will be attending the trial in support of Trump today. 

And more

 

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Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Mdhorn said:

and Nunes, and Jordan, and....ending with every Republican Congressional douchebag that let him off from being impeached.  

 

10 minutes ago, Pancho said:

And more

 

 

It's bad enough to get thrown under the bus, but can you imagine waiting line for the mere opportunity to get thrown under the bus?

 

"Oh, please, sir.  Pick me.  I'm ever so pathetic."

Edited by dcbc
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Posted
10 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

I think they are going to call Melania.  She is going to lie and say Trump admitted doing it all to protect her from the news and he’s so sorry and he bought her something.  

Trump's lawyers would have to advise him that calling Melania risks her testifying under oath during cross that her husband does indeed have a very small penis.  

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Posted (edited)

[Note:  court is on break; I'll start a new post with the rest of the morning testimony from Cohen]

Tuesday:  Michael Cohen, continued

It’s worth returning to the key portions of Michael Cohen’s testimony about Trump’s knowledge of the records at the heart of the case. Prosecutors have charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying the records, which pertain to his reimbursement of Cohen for the hush money he paid to Stormy Daniels.

Cohen did not say that Trump personally falsified the records, or even that he explicitly instructed someone else to do so. He did, however, testify that Trump knew the records would disguise the reimbursement as ordinary legal expenses.

Cohen’s testimony was hardly a smoking gun, but it might not have to be for the prosecution to prove its case. Under New York law, the concept of accessorial liability does a lot of heavy lifting for the prosecutors, who need only show that Trump intentionally aided his employees to falsify the records.

It’s become a regular talking point on cable news among Trump's adversaries that the prosecution’s case is going so smoothly that they might not even need Cohen. This is a tribute to the strong documentary evidence that prosecutors have assembled, which helps place Cohen in the room for each of the conversations he says he had with Trump.

But there is little evidence as to what was actually said during these conversations, so Cohen remains an essential witness. And the cross-examination of Cohen, which we expect will begin today, will be one of the most important moments of the trial for the defense.

Michael Cohen ended the first portion of the morning session by saying that it was his understanding that Trump wanted him to refrain from cooperating with the government and “certainly not to provide information or flip.”

At this point in the narrative in 2018, Michael Cohen was looking for reassurance that Trump was going to take care of him. He would soon lose that sense of security, as the Trump Organization started balking at paying some of Cohen’s legal bills.

Michael Cohen is now reading tweets from April 2018 in which Trump defended him and attacked reporters, including Maggie Haberman. Trump says in the tweets that he doesn’t see Cohen lying or making up stories, “despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”

These tweets were also among the potential instances of obstruction of justice that were reviewed by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who at the time was investigating the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

Michael Cohen is now describing the F.B.I.’s raid on his Park Avenue hotel room in April 2018. He says federal agents took his cell phones — including the one with the recording on it that jurors already heard — and many of his documents. He says he was frightened, despondent and angry.

This was a major news event at the time, and now Cohen can reflect on his feelings about it in front of a courtroom full of reporters. He says he received a phone call from the president after the raid.

Cohen testifies that Trump said: “Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK.” He says it was the last time they spoke.

Prosecutors can argue that if Trump knew about the false records and did not stop them, as Cohen says, then he aided the crime. I expect they will hammer this point home in their closing arguments.

Michael Cohen is now testifying that he continued to deal with Stormy Daniels in early 2018 with Trump’s backing and blessing. He says that the president asked him to get a temporary restraining order against Daniels. And he says that Keith Davidson, who had been Daniels’s lawyer up until that point, told him that he was no longer representing her. Her new lawyer was Michael Avenatti.

Michael Cohen says he told David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, that he had been told that the federal investigation Cohen faced would be “taken care of” by Jeff Sessions, then the attorney general. Cohen testifies that it was Trump who told him that.

As Michael Cohen continued his denial tour in regard to the hush money, we are seeing he was texted by Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump. The text says “Client says thanks for what you do.” Cohen leaves no doubt in his testimony that “client” in the text refers to Trump, thanking Cohen for the denials.

Cohen testified a few minutes before that that he had shared his misleading statement about reimbursements with Sekulow.

We are seeing evidence of Cohen texting our own Maggie Haberman — sitting in the courtroom — as he seeks to spread the news that he made the hush-money payment himself, and that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a part of it. He also said that he was not reimbursed for the payment. He says that he had planned to give Haberman the statement first, and that he had received approval from the “big boss.” “I will call you soon,” Cohen’s text to Haberman says.

We noted in coverage of Cohen's statement at the time that he wouldn't answer follow-up questions. Now, years later, he is testifying that the statement was misleading.

We are now seeing text messages showing that Michael Cohen was trying to get Stormy Daniels booked on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program on Jan. 18, 2018, to deny that she had an affair with Trump. Cohen and Hannity were longtime friends and Cohen had even offered legal advice to Hannity.

These text messages from Cohen to Keith Davidson, Daniels's lawyer — which said things like “please call me” and “c’mon” — demonstrate Cohen’s relentlessness and zeal on behalf of Trump.

Cohen is now being asked about the complaint letter he received from the Federal Election Commission about his payment to Stormy Daniels, which was filed by a good-government group after The Wall Street Journal published an article revealing the payment. He says his response to the commission was not false, but it was misleading.

As Cohen continues to testify about Daniels’s statements to the press at the time the hush-money payment became public knowledge, he has admitted to lying a number of times — he just said he knew one of the statements was a lie because he helped “craft it.” This could be helpful to the defense once cross-examination starts. But of course, Cohen has long admitted that he was lying for Trump.

Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, brought up the joint defense agreement that Michael Cohen was part of, which meant the lawyer defending him was aligned with Trump’s lawyers. She makes sure Cohen tells the jurors it was an advantage for Trump, as well as for Cohen.

Cohen is now testifying about the statement by Stormy Daniels in which she denied having had a “sexual and/or romantic affair” with Trump. Her lawyer at the time, Keith Davidson, testified that this statement was technically true, because they didn’t have a full affair. Prosecutors have apparently decided not to take that line: They just call Daniels’s statement false.

Cohen said that he made sure to tell Trump that he got the denial from Daniels “to get credit that I was continuing to ensure he was protected.” He wanted Trump to know that he had “stayed loyal.”

Michael Cohen, in text messages he is reading aloud in court, instructed Keith Davidson, who was the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, to “write a strong denial” from Daniels, saying that she had not had an affair with Trump. This is a statement that jurors have seen many times — and that Trump was fined $1,000 for posting on social media about in a violation of his gag order.

At this point in the trial, much of this evidence is familiar to jurors. Prosecutors are hoping that Cohen brings it all together for them. He just sighed and shook his head in the direction of the jury box, in seeming disbelief.

Michael Cohen has reached the part of his story where news of his payment to Stormy Daniels has broken into the public sphere. This was the beginning of the end for Trump and Cohen. All of Cohen’s previous testimony has concerned a time when they were still allies. I’ll be curious to see if his demeanor changes now that he’s heading toward the break in their relationship.

Michael Cohen says that he was under a “tremendous amount of pressure” when he lied to Congress but that he was happy to have a lawyer paid for by the Trump Organization. This is a useful line of questioning for prosecutors, who are dealing with unfriendly witnesses here, some of whom are also still loyal to the Trump Organization. Cohen could help underscore what prosecutors hope the jurors will understand as those witnesses' mixed motivations.

Trump’s three lawyers are all furiously taking notes right now as Cohen admits to lying multiple times to protect Trump.

Michael Cohen is now being asked about his House testimony in connection with the Russia investigation. This is going to head toward questioning about his lying to Congress about discussions around plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen has said before this trial that he did it to protect Trump, and he’s poised to talk about it here.

Cohen notes that the Trump Organization was paying for his lawyer, and that he was part of a joint defense agreement. Cohen testifies he felt he “needed” the protection of the sitting president at the time.

Trump looks directly at Cohen on the witness stand as he says that he lied for Trump “out of loyalty and in order to protect him.”

Susan Hoffinger is now walking Michael Cohen again through his testimony from yesterday about “monetizing” his role as Trump’s personal lawyer by using it to attract other clients. Cohen confirms he did. Much of this feels like inoculation against what Cohen is going to face during cross-examination.

Trump turns and whispers to his lawyer Emil Bove as Cohen talks about how much money he made by monetizing his relationship with him. Trump clearly mouths “four?” And Bove clearly mouths back: “$4 million.”

Michael Cohen is being asked about some additional work he did for the Trump Organization, some of it legal work, including for the Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten. Cohen is saying he didn’t expect to be paid for that work and did not send invoices for it. Trump’s lawyers have indicated that they may argue that Cohen was doing real legal work, and was being paid for that. So this may be an example of the prosecution seeking to air an argument before the defense can.

Cohen is asked to estimate how many hours of legal (or quasi-legal) work he did for Trump in 2017. His best guess? “Less than 10.”

Cohen is now saying he did some legal work for Trump in 2018. It was in response to Stormy Daniels wanting to go public, and Trump wanting an arbitration action filed against her over her nondisclosure agreement. He says he was contacted by Eric Trump, as well as by Trump himself.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Speaker Mike Johnson just accused prosecutors of advancing a “sham” trial against “one president to provide cover for another.” His comments came a week after Johnson put down an ouster attempt by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who had criticized the speaker of not doing enough to defend Trump.

“I came here again today, on my own, to support President Trump, because I am one of hundreds of millions of people — and one citizen — who is deeply concerned about this,” Johnson said.

It’s worth noting that Trump, minutes after the vote had actually taken place, had encouraged House Republicans on social media not to oust Johnson — at least not yet. “We’re not in a position of voting on a motion to vacate,” his post said. “At some point, we may very well be, but this is not the time.”

We’re continuing to see the series of documents that prosecutors say are false, and continuing to think about yesterday’s testimony. When Cohen was describing the January meeting with Allen Weisselberg, he testified that Trump had heard Weisselberg say that the monthly payments would be a retainer for legal services. It is that single line from a witness — the word “yes” — that most directly attaches Trump to the alleged crimes.

Prosecutors are arguing that Trump’s sign-off on the repayment plan, along with his knowledge that Cohen would be falsely reimbursed for “legal services,” indicates that he approved of what they say was a crime.

There’s mountains of documentary evidence that Cohen was paid for legal services he didn’t actually provide, and that these were reimbursements. The question of what Trump knew relies mostly on Cohen’s testimony.

Michael Cohen is going through check stubs for the first two checks and saying the descriptions of them were “false.” Cohen says both Eric Trump, who is sitting in the courthouse, and Allen Weisselberg signed the first two, from the former president’s revocable trust account. At some point, it switched to Trump’s personal account.

Cohen is now testifying about checks Trump started signing himself, from his personal account.

The jurors seem to be listening, with some following along with documents shown on screens in front of them.

Cohen is being asked about the invoices one by one. “Is that a false record,” he is asked over and over.  “Yes ma'am,” he typically responds.

One of the prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, asked prospective jurors during jury selection whether they could believe that a person could be guilty for a crime even if they did not commit the crime themselves: He used the example of a husband hiring a hitman to murder his wife, and asked jurors whether they believed the husband would be just as guilty as the hitman.

So what prosecutors are asking jurors to believe is that Trump, by signing off on the repayment plan and showing some knowledge of it, is the person who ultimately commissioned the crime, even if he did not execute it.

And this is why Cohen is so important. This all relies on his word. The defense is likely to attack his credibility and call into question whether he can be believed about what happened in these two conversations.ed with their questioning.

Michael Cohen is now explicitly testifying that the invoices he was sending, which he has sought to tie to Trump, were false documents.

He is going over the monthly invoices he created, which described him as having been paid for “services rendered,” and testifying that they were false records. He stresses they weren’t valid legal fees, but “reimbursements.”

Michael Cohen confirms that in response to the false invoices, he received 11 checks in 2017 totaling $420,000.

Prosecutors have now moved on to questioning Michael Cohen about how Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, responded after the repayment plan was created. Cohen has tied Trump to authorizing the plan, but what we'll hear about the two meetings in which he purportedly did so will come entirely from Cohen’s testimony. We’ve seen documentary evidence that shows he had those meetings. But we can’t know, other than by trusting Michael Cohen, what was said.

Cohen is now explicitly testifying that the invoices he was sending, which he has sought to tie to Trump, were false documents.

That was a really key piece of testimony — as we said before, in prosecutors’ own statement of facts, this is the only time that Trump is actually said to have confirmed the repayment plan, which prosecutors say involved the payments being illegally disguised. But that meeting slid right by during the testimony, with Trump only explicitly acknowledging to Cohen, it sounded to me, like he knew about the two checks that Cohen would receive in January and February.

Michael Cohen is now describing meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in February 2017. He says that Trump asked him if he needed money, and that he said no, he did not need any extra. He then said Trump asked him to “deal with Allen,” meaning Weisselberg, who had arranged the repayment plan for the hush money. Trump also said, Cohen testified, that he’d receive a check for both January and February.

Now, prosecutors have posted a picture of Cohen visiting the White House at the time. Jurors have already seen the picture — but now they know its import. At the meeting, Trump showed direct knowledge of the repayment plan, per Cohen’s testimony just now.

Susan Hoffinger, one of the prosecutors, has returned to questioning Michael Cohen, asking him about meeting with Trump in January 2017 and discussing getting reimbursed for his payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen is being shown an email sent a month later by Jeffrey McConney, the Trump organization's controller, about the “invoices.”

These invoices were shown in court as part of McConney’s testimony. They were for $35,000 a month, over 12 months, totaling the $420,000 that Trump allegedly paid back to Cohen after Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels. The sum included a bonus and tax-related gross ups, plus $50,000 for tech services.

The judge is on the bench and we are set to begin.

As we await the judge, it’s a good time to offer a preview of this morning’s testimony. We don’t know exactly what Michael Cohen is going to say. But we know the contours of the prosecution’s case: the former fixer is expected to testify that he met with Trump in the Oval Office in February 2017, and that Trump signed off on what prosecutors say was a crime: the plan to disguise the reimbursements to Cohen as payments for legal services.

While anything is possible when Cohen is on the stand, I’m expecting him to drill down on that Oval Office meeting, and the importance of that testimony cannot be overstated. He is the only witness expected to offer direct evidence that Trump was involved in falsifying the records.

Cohen’s testimony, if the jury finds it credible, could give prosecutors exactly what they need to tie Trump to the records he is accused of falsifying. The case could hinge on today’s testimony.

The other party to that meeting — Allen Weisselberg, who was the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization — is unlikely to appear at the trial for either the defense or prosecution to corroborate or deny any details. That’s because Weisselberg is currently serving a jail term on perjury charges from a separate legal case related to Trump. And it seems at this point as if the jurors will not get much of an explanation for why they won’t hear from Weisselberg.

Trump is seated at the defense table and has been whispering back and forth with his lead lawyer Todd Blanche, who is expected to begin cross-examining Michael Cohen as soon as today.

Blanche is in the chair closest to the lectern, which signifies that he will be the one to cross-examine Cohen. It’s a really big moment for Blanche, who has fashioned his current career around representing Trump, but who has never been a defense lawyer in a trial like this.

Trump walks into the courtroom, trailed by Doug Burgum, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Eric and Lara Trump, in addition to two advisers, Boris Epshteyn and Alina Habba, and the actual lawyers on the case. Speaker Mike Johnson, who’s set to speak outside the courthouse in less than an hour, doesn’t appear to be here.

Word has gone out to Trump allies over the past few days that Trump wants to see a bigger show of support inside the courtroom. The cavalry has arrived, led by J.D. Vance yesterday. Vance’s appearance in court has generated an incentive for others who hope to be Trump's running mate to get to Manhattan fast.

Trump's entourage is big enough today that they are having trouble arranging themselves in the two rows of seats set aside for supporters of the defense's side.

The prosecutors walk in, laden down with just one box today, as well as bags and folders filled with documents. One of them, Susan Hoffinger, is expected to resume her questioning of Michael Cohen this morning.

Trump has been rolling heavy with support from Republican elected officials this week, which we expected for Michael Cohen’s testimony. Today, Trump will be joined by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, as well as North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, a contender to be Trump's running mate. Also present will be Representatives Byron Donalds and Cory Mills of Florida, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who was one of Trump's primary rivals this year. Both Donalds and Ramaswamy are longshot hopefuls to be Trump's running mate.

This show of force is significant given that the cross-examination of Cohen by Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche is expected to start today, and the Trump team hopes that Cohen will unravel on the stand.

The lines to get into court today were crazy long, and tensions were running high in the public line. People started queuing Monday night, hoping to get one of the coveted spots in the courtroom. One woman outside said she paid $750 for a line sitter. “It’s better than a Broadway show,” she told me. Trouble started early though, when a few people butted into line, sparking some tense exchanges. Then a man at the front of the line sold his spot to two people, purportedly for $2,000, causing further consternation.

The members of the public who were jostling for prime spots in line outside just started filing into the overflow room at the courthouse. Some have sleeping bags and pillows, which are now tucked under the wooden benches.

Good morning from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, where today Michael Cohen is expected to return to the stand. On Monday, he testified that in 2016, while a candidate for president, Trump had directed Cohen to pay hush money to a porn star to bury her story of having had sex with Trump a decade earlier. After he was elected president, Trump signed off on a repayment plan, Cohen said.

Today, he is expected to testify about what prosecutors say is the actual crime: the falsification of business records that were used for the repayment. And then, the defense lawyers may start cross-examining Cohen, and they will likely seek to make him look like a liar who is out for revenge.

Here's an illustration of the courthouse layout (spoilered to make the post shorter)

 

Spoiler


Screenshot2024-05-14080159.thumb.png.ba1c6b37e3292b8ee9cba2f7a9b577a9.png

 

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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Posted
31 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Trump's lawyers would have to advise him that calling Melania risks her testifying under oath during cross that her husband does indeed have a very small penis.  

As if she would know.

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Posted

Super religious conservative Mike Johnson supports cheating on your wife with a porn star and paying her to shut up and then covering it up and lying about all of it.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Super religious conservative Mike Johnson supports cheating on your wife with a porn star and paying her to shut up and then covering it up and lying about all of it.

"He's just like us."

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Super religious conservative Mike Johnson supports cheating on your wife with a porn star and paying her to shut up and then covering it up and lying about all of it.

Yeah, but he and his teenaged son use an app that tracks each other's porn viewing, so it's all good.

Posted

These are "emotional support politicians."

“‘People close to Mr. Trump have worried about whether long days in the courtroom have had an effect on his mental state.’ The care and feeding of a narcissistic sociopath and keeping him on a relatively even emotional keel is difficult—and sometimes impossible—even on a good day, and so Trump’s team has resorted to extraordinary measures to soothe him during this trial.”

I would post the article but it's paywalled. 

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Posted
22 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Super religious conservative Mike Johnson supports cheating on your wife with a porn star and paying her to shut up and then covering it up and lying about all of it.

It's the Christian way.  

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Posted

I like the part where Cohen asks about Melanie, and Dotard responded with basically “Who gives a shit? I’ll just go buy another wife.”

I wonder if Mike Johnson liked that part too.

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Posted
20 minutes ago, The Dog said:

I would post the article but it's paywalled. 

Spoiler
The New York Trump Case Is Kind of Perfect

I thought this trial was a sideshow; I now think I was wrong.

[Image: Picture of Stormy Daniels]

Louis Lanzno / AP
May 13, 2024, 4:43 PM ET

This is The Trump Trials by George T. Conway III, a newsletter that chronicles the former president’s legal troubles. Sign up here.

Not all that long ago, I thought that the trial currently being held in The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump would be the last one I’d want to see as the first one tried against the former president. It seemed the least serious of the cases against him. Here’s a man who tried to overthrow American democracy by launching a coup to stay in power. A man who allegedly stole dozens of boxes of classified national-security documents from the White House, some containing secrets about other countries’ nuclear-weapons capabilities, then lied about the documents, concealed them, and obstructed a federal investigation about them.

I thought I would have strongly preferred the cases about those matters to have gone first, particularly the secret-documents case, which substantively would be a lock, were it not for the judge overseeing it. But I feel the need to admit error. The truth is, I’ve come around to the view that People v. Trump is, in at least some ways, the perfect case to put Trump in the dock for the first time, and—I hope, but we’ll see—perhaps prison.

Because this case really captures Donald Trump. The legal commentariat have been engaged in an odd debate about what to call it. “The Stormy Daniels case.” “The hush-money case.” “The porn-star-hush-money case.” (Personally, that’s always been my favorite, and I think it sounds even better in German—Pornostarschweigegeldrechtsfall.) The more legally precise would like it to be known as “the New York business-records-falsification case,” because that’s what the New York penal code says it is. Some high-minded people I know prefer “the New York election-interference prosecution,” because it involves the concealment of a matter that might well have affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

All these locutions work, but what the case is really about is Trump’s modus operandi—lying. He’s a matryoshka doll of mendacity. He lies, usually lies some more, and then often lies about the lies he’s previously told. He told at least 30,573 lies while president, by The Washington Post’s count. He lies almost whenever he opens his mouth, even when truth would better serve him. To be sure, his other criminal cases involve lies—lies about the 2016 election, lies about the military secrets he stole. But the alleged lies in People v. Trump strike at the core of his moral putrescence—and Trump knows it. They are lies allegedly meant to cover up a tawdry man’s tawdry behavior. The case truly embodies Donald Trump. And for that reason, I think, it deeply disturbs him.

That’s what stood out to me last Thursday as I sat in court watching the second day of the cross-examination of the prosecution’s witness, Stormy Daniels, who had taken the stand to testify that she’d met the defendant at a celebrity golf tournament on the south shore of Lake Tahoe in 2006, that he invited her to his room at Harrah’s hotel and casino there (ostensibly as a prelude to dinner), that she (rather unenthusiastically) acceded to his advance, that they then (rather briefly) had sex, and then that, 10 years later, days before the defendant won the 2016 presidential election, she was paid off by the defendant’s fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, to keep her mouth shut about it all. (Trump denies having had sex with Daniels, and he also denies having falsified records in an effort to suppress reports of the liaison.)

Strictly speaking, Daniels’s testimony wasn’t necessary—particularly the details about the sex. The case is about whether Trump caused the falsification of business records at his business, and whether that falsification was intended to cover up another crime (among other offenses, violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act). Daniels has absolutely nothing to say about the Trump Organization’s business records, and the fact that she was ultimately paid the hush money isn’t in dispute. The sex strictly doesn’t matter: If Daniels and Trump didn’t have sex—as Trump maintains—but the facts alleged by the New York County District Attorney’s Office were otherwise the same and proved, Trump could still be found guilty of a Class E felony under the New York penal law.

But as we have so often seen over the past nine years, Trump’s instinctive, narcissistic mendacity came into self-defeating play once again—this time by making Daniels’s testimony more significant than it had to be. It’s hard to imagine that many sentient, honest human beings could believe Trump’s denials of having congressed with Daniels. Yet Trump continues to insist on denying it—not only in public, but in court. And not only is sex not an element of the crime, but his strongest defense—the one he could actually skate on—will be to argue that there is insufficient evidence that he knew his people were falsifying business records. This defense faces many problems—including that Trump personally signed (on the Resolute desk!) some checks (made out to Cohen) in packets with false backup attached. Still, Trump would have been best off having his lawyers focus their efforts on the question of his knowledge and intent regarding the payments.

As usual, though, this defendant just couldn’t help himself. The prosecution was entitled to put on evidence of the sex to establish Trump’s motive for the payoff and cover-up. The defendant could have had his lawyers not dispute the point, even stipulate to it. What’s the harm? His political supporters stand by him even though he’s already a civilly adjudicated sex offender, so why would they care one whit about what he did consensually for a couple of minutes with an adult-film actor once upon a time in Stateline, Nevada? Had he not insisted on contesting the point, Daniels might not have had to testify, or at least she might have been on and off the stand in a flash. Because, again, what ultimately matters in the case happened mostly in New York City in 2016.

Trump’s insistence on pointlessly contesting Daniels’s veracity entitled the prosecution to draw her account out even more than it otherwise could have—not only to establish a record on why Trump would have been motivated to hush Daniels up (because sex), but to bolster her credibility with detail of her recollection (about sex). As Justice Juan Merchan later told the defense counsel in denying their motion for a mistrial:

Your denial [of a sexual encounter] puts the jury in a position of having to choose who they believe: Donald Trump, who denies there was an encounter, or Stormy Daniels, who claims there was.

Although the People do not have to prove that a sexual encounter actually did occur, they do have the right to rehabilitate Ms. Daniels’ credibility and to corroborate her story, which was immediately attacked [by the defense] on opening statements.

The more specificity Ms. Daniels can provide about the encounter, the more the jury can weigh to determine whether the encounter did occur and, if so, whether they choose to credit Ms. Daniels’ story.

The result, thanks to the defendant, was the introduction of more evidence that made him look like a duplicitous clod. There were limits, to be sure. Merchan warned the prosecutors before Daniels took the stand that “we don’t need to know the details of the intercourse.” (The universe thanks you, Your Honor.) Accordingly, and in contrast with how some characterized it, Daniels’s testimony wound up not being very “graphic.” As the prosecution later pointed out to the court, “there was not a lot of detail elicited” about “the actual sexual encounter,” which was the subject of only a handful of questions put to the witness. Not just that, but the judge also sustained objections or struck testimony on what position Daniels and the defendant were in, whether she touched his skin, and how Daniels, as they coupled, “was staring at the ceiling … trying to think about anything other than what was happening there.”

In the end, the only somewhat lurid detail about the sex that actually got into the record was that the former president (in contrast with performers at her prophylactic-mandatory then-employer, Wicked Pictures), didn’t wear a condom, which concerned her. And that small factoid got in solely because the defense counsel inexplicably failed to object. (The judge later observed, “For the life of me, I don’t know why [the defense counsel Susan] Necheles didn’t object. She had just made about 10 objections, most of which were sustained. Why on earth she wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom, I don’t understand.”)

So the testimony wasn’t all that sexy, in the literal sense. Still, because of the defendant’s denial of what happened that night at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, the testimony ended up being deeply embarrassing to Trump. To bolster Daniels’s credibility, the prosecution’s questioning went into great detail about what led up to the fleeting fornication—essentially, her conversations with Trump beforehand. And that brought out some memorable, and highly believable, testimonial gems that perfectly capture the lowbrow, hyper-self-absorbed 45th president of the United States. There’s Trump telling Daniels, “You remind me of my daughter because she is smart and blond and beautiful.” And him admitting that he and his wife, Melania, “actually don’t even sleep in the same room.”

And there’s him repeatedly interrupting Daniels to talk about—whom else?—himself: “He would ask me questions and then not let me finish the answer. He kept cutting me off, and it was almost like he wanted to one-up me, which was just really hilarious when you think about it.” And there’s how, when the self-consumed future defendant asked, “Have you seen my new magazine?” and pulled out an issue with his face on it, Daniels called him “rude, arrogant, and pompous,” and said, “Someone should spank you with that. That’s the only interest I have in that magazine. Otherwise, I am leaving.” And there’s how, when finally faced with the prospect of Daniels walking out, Trump rolled the magazine up and gave it to her.

In that Nevada hotel room that night, Daniels said, she rose to the challenge:

“I took it from him and said, turn around. And I swatted him.”

Where?

“Right on the butt.”

The alleged spanking hardly could have rent Trump’s rump in 2006. But given his extreme vulnerability to narcissistic injury, the story surely had to have inflicted acute trauma upon his most delicate ego when Daniels told it 18 years later.

We need not speculate. The day before, Merchan had ruled on the district attorney’s third motion to hold Trump in contempt for violations of the court’s gag order, which restricts the defendant’s ability to make public statements attacking witnesses. And for the tenth time, Merchan held Trump in contempt. But more important, Merchan gave the defendant a warning. The legal maximum of a $1,000 fine for each count of contempt, the judge observed, had failed to deter Trump from violating the gag order; “therefore, going forward, this Court will have to consider a jail sanction if recommended.” He addressed the defendant directly, in open court: “The last thing I want to do is to put you in jail … But, at the end of the day, I have a job to do, and part of that job is to protect the dignity of the judicial system and compel respect … So, as much as I do not want to impose a jail sanction … I want you to understand that I will, if necessary and appropriate.”

That was where matters stood the next morning, when Daniels testified about the spanking: Trump was so very close to—perhaps just one more contumacious act away from—incarceration. And yet when he heard Daniels say she had spanked him, he almost landed himself in lockup. Not long after that testimony, the court took its regular midmorning break. The jury was excused, and Merchan immediately called the lawyers to the bench. He told the defense counsel that their obviously “upset” client had been “cursing audibly” and “shaking his head.”

Trump had done that, in particular, the judge said, “when Ms. Daniels was testifying about rolling up the magazine, and … smacking your client.” Quelle surprise.

“That’s contemptuous,” said an angry Merchan. “It has the potential to intimidate the witness.” Even without a gag order, and 10 prior violations of it, swearing at a prosecution witness is the kind of conduct that, before some judges, could quickly land a defendant in jail. Merchan commanded: “You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that.” And so the lawyers remonstrated with their client during the break. It was all a bit reminiscent of a moment in the second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, when, within earshot of the jury, Trump had muttered that the trial was a “witch hunt” and a “con job.” The presiding federal district judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, threatened to eject Trump from the courtroom. “I would love it. I would love it,” Trump responded. To which Judge Kaplan replied, “You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.”

In Merchan’s courtroom last week, whether Trump could control himself had once again become the question; and once again a judge gave him a break. But the struggle continues, and it’s being waged behind the scenes—largely by Trump’s legal and political teams. Another person battling to maintain his freedom would probably remain focused on that battle, but Trump remains distracted by his petty obsessions and resentments, including of some of the faces he sees in the gallery. A couple of weeks ago, he glared at me. I had smiled at him. He didn’t like that. He also seems to have a particular distaste for the MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell.

Trump’s many grievances pose a problem for him. As Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times reported last week, “People close to Mr. Trump have worried about whether long days in the courtroom have had an effect on his mental state.” The care and feeding of a narcissistic sociopath (see my exposition on that subject five years ago here in The Atlantic) and keeping him on a relatively even emotional keel is difficult—and sometimes impossible—even on a good day, and so Trump’s team has resorted to extraordinary measures to soothe him during this trial.

A key player in the current effort is apparently a young aide named Natalie Harp. Her job—no joke, this was in the Times—is to schlep around a portable printer “so she can quickly provide Mr. Trump with hard copies of mood-boosting news articles and social media posts by people praising him.” Last Thursday, after Daniels’s testimony, team Trump apparently found another use for this device. During the lunch break, Trump posted on his Truth Social account pictures of … me … from Election Night 2016. Alas, in one of the shots, I was, confessedly, rather inebriated. I had tears of joy in my eyes, was wearing a “Make America great again” hat, and was hugging my then-wife, the campaign manager whose remarkable talents had astoundingly just elected a buffoon. “Mr. Kellyanne Conway celebrating my Victory in 2016!” Trump’s post read. (Yes, Donald, supporting you was indeed a low moment in my life. Damn, you sure know how to hurt a guy.)

Now, I mention this not (just) because it is insane, hilarious, and involves me, but because it also makes my point about Trump being his own worst enemy. His uncontrollable pique at his plight, a plight caused by his own poor choices, leads him to make even more poor choices—and here, to impose those choices upon not just his political aides but his lawyers to boot.

Which brings us back to Daniels on the stand.

When prosecutors completed their direct examination of her on Tuesday afternoon, the cross-examination by Trump’s most competent lawyer, Susan Necheles, began. A Yale Law School graduate, she’s the one member of Trump’s current legal team who appears to be universally respected, and with good reason. By all accounts, and from my own limited observation, she’s extremely smart, highly experienced—and an excellent cross-examiner. As a woman, moreover, she was the obvious choice to be the one who cross-examined Daniels before a jury. Necheles started doing a disciplined and seemingly effective job of that on Tuesday afternoon. But she didn’t finish the examination, because it was too late in the day. Court adjourned.

The next day was Wednesday, a day off from the trial—the day each week that Merchan handles his other cases. Normally, when even a small hiatus like that occurs during a witness’s cross-examination, that’s a very good thing for the cross-examining side, and a very bad thing for the witness. The cross-examiner gets the chance to go back through the transcript of the witness’s direct testimony, tighten her lines of cross, focus them on the most important points elicited by the other side, and otherwise sharpen her knives.

But that didn’t happen here. When Thursday’s proceedings began, but before the witness returned to the stand, you could see the dynamic: Trump, sitting at counsel table next to poor Necheles, was talking animatedly into her ear, at length. Watching this, I imagined that the defendant had spent the day off stewing about the spanking. It couldn’t have been much fun for his lawyers.

And the result wasn’t good for the defense. Necheles’s resumed cross-examination was bad, not because Necheles was a bad examiner, but because the examination, for a reason we can all take an educated guess about, became overlong, and overdone. It became too argumentative, too focused on badgering the witness and on attacking trivial aspects of her account. At one point, Necheles absurdly engaged in cross-examining Daniels on the geography of the Stateline, Nevada–South Lake Tahoe, California conurbation, the idea apparently being to challenge Daniels on whether she had actually taken a cab around town instead of walking in her high heels.

The cross also forayed into archaic, even nonsensical, slut-shaming. Sure, the witness made a living engaging in sex on camera for money. But does that really mean she shouldn’t have been horrified to see Donald Trump suddenly take off his clothes? And was there any logic at all in seemingly trying to show that the sex the defense said didn’t occur was consensual because Daniels wanted it? The defense’s cross-examination made Daniels appear more sympathetic than any prosecutor’s direct questioning ever could.

Worse yet, it emboldened Daniels. She’s a smart woman—and she’s clearly strong-willed, with a sharp, quick-witted tongue. Normally it’s not a good idea for witnesses, even smart and tough ones—perhaps especially smart and tough ones—to fence with lawyers too much on cross-examination; witnesses tend to lose credibility when they do. But the belabored and argumentative nature of this cross-examination gave Daniels some running room. And she took every inch of it.

At one point, for example, Necheles asked a question about Daniels’s history of writing porn scripts containing “phony stories about sex [that] appear to be real”—obviously implying that Daniels’s story about Trump in the hotel room was fake, like the scripts. Daniels’s devastating retort: “The sex in the films, it’s very much real. Just like what happened in that room.”

At another point, Necheles attacked Daniels for selling merchandise about Trump’s indictment.

Necheles: Again, you’re celebrating the indictment by selling things from your store, right?

Daniels: Not unlike Mr. Trump.

And then, this jewel of an exchange, in which Necheles got zinged once again, and, by unsuccessfully moving to strike the zinger, drew more attention to it:

Necheles: Okay. Even though you tweeted and celebrated about him being indicted, you have no knowledge of what he was indicted for?

Daniels: There was a lot of indictments.

Necheles: Your Honor, I move to strike that.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger: It is responsive, Your Honor.

The court: It’s responsive. Overruled.

I’m pretty sure I saw some of the jurors struggling at times to suppress laughter, as I was. Simply put, Daniels wiped the floor with Necheles. But I don’t blame Necheles. If I had to guess—and I admit I’m speculating here—I’d say that a lot of what Necheles did on Thursday was against her better judgment. To my mind, the cross-examination would have been orders of magnitude better had it been confined mostly to two of the questions Necheles asked toward the end of it: “You know nothing about the business records, right?” “You know nothing about what [the defendant] does or does not know about the business records, right?” At the end of the day, those were the questions that most mattered, to which Daniels’s answers had to be, and were, no, and no. But that testimony got lost in the mix with everything else—thanks to Trump’s easily bruised ego.

 
George T. Conway III is an attorney and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

 

  • Hook 'Em 6
Posted
16 minutes ago, Red Five said:

I like the part where Cohen asks about Melanie, and Dotard responded with basically “Who gives a shit? I’ll just go buy another wife.”

I wonder if Mike Johnson liked that part too.

Wait, that actually happened? 

Posted
2 hours ago, dcbc said:

It's bad enough to get thrown under the bus, but can you imagine waiting line for the mere opportunity to get thrown under the bus?

"Oh, please, sir.  Pick me.  I'm ever so pathetic."

All these Republicans are either hoping to be his VP pick, or hoping he’ll send them a few bucks from the RNC coffers (he won’t).  

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted
7 minutes ago, locodos said:

Is Mike Johnson sitting on a stack of bibles or a phone book?  I'm conflicted about which option a godly manlet would choose.

It's a portfolio of all the porn stars they can't watch. And it's all females. 

  • Haha 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Red Five said:

Super religious conservative Mike Johnson supports cheating on your wife with a porn star and paying her to shut up and then covering it up and lying about all of it.

Maybe he’s only attending so he can explain to his son that he was only checking out Stormy’s movies as part of his job. 

  • Haha 1


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