LogFAQs > #980426044

Trump NY Criminal Trial:

Cohen on cross-examination all-day and still not done.

The day started off with the defense repeating the same, "Cohen is a liar. Mr. Cohen, will you please admit to the jury that you are lying to hurt President Trump now?" tactic. However by the afternoon they finally seemed to come up with the closest thing I've seen to an actual argument beyond just attacking Cohen directly.

So, as I understand it, right around the time Cohen was setting up the shell company to pay Daniels, he (testified that he) called Trump (through Trump's bodyguard Schiller) to check in with him on it again. (This is separate from other known audio of Trump and Cohen discussing the matter personally but the prosecution noted this was a phone call made like immediately before Cohen went ahead and did it.) The defense showed text messages between Cohen and Schiller in the leadup to this call showing Cohen discussing a prank call he got from a 14-year old and advanced the theory that instead of Cohen talking to Trump about Daniels as he alleges that he was instead talking about this prank caller. Cohen replied that both matters were discussed and refused to back down when Trump's lawyer tried to get Cohen to say he lied.

https://twitter.com/TylerMcBrien/status/1791148662980215189

Now, personally, I'm willing to believe Cohen could bring up both matters and find the defense claim that it would somehow be impossible for Cohen to bring up both in a 1m 37s call as if that's somehow not enough time to talk briefly about two topics, particularly when the Daniels one wouldn't really take that long given we know they had discussed the matter previously and this would just be a check-in like "k, i'm at the bank" rather weak but it's something I suppose.

Once more though, I think some of the most interesting stuff came after the jurors were excused and the lawyers and judge talked about some procedural and scheduling matters. First, Trump's lawyers wanted to have their expert witness testify that Trump did not break election law (essentially having their expert witness be an attorney who is an expert in the law) - to which Merchan basically went "lol no."

https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1791199799791768038

Then they moved onto scheduling and it looks like we may be a lot closer to the end here than I anticipated. Cohen was known to be the prosecution's final witness (that weirdness with Weisselberg I described a bit earlier aside) so we were clearly approaching the prosecution resting but the defense seems like it's going to be super quick... though admittedly they basically have zero witnesses lined up - mainly just the potential of Trump testifying which I highly doubt they'd dare try. Blanche said he expected to wrap up Cohen's cross-examination before the morning break on Monday and the prosecution said they expect redirect will be under an hour so that should be it for the prosecution's case.

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1791200431986627005

Furthermore, with Trump's lawyers saying they still don't know whether Trump will testify, Merchan asked both sides to be ready to deliver closing arguments Tuesday. We might see this go to the jury next week based on that.