Discussion by some experienced lawyers:
David French: Let’s start with a big-picture question. I have less trial experience than either of you, but this deep into a trial, I always had a sense of the momentum of the case, of who is winning and who is losing. Who is more pleased with the course of the trial so far — the prosecution or the defense?
Rebecca Roiphe: In my view, the prosecution is happier about how things are going than the defense. They have established the backbone of the case, which is the false records, and they have provided a great deal of circumstantial evidence tying Donald Trump to those records and establishing his intent.
Ken White: When you ask who is more pleased with the course of the trial, remember that Trump is usually pursuing a public relations and political strategy at the expense of good courtroom strategy. In that sense, I suspect Team Trump is happy that he’s getting lots of airtime to push his narrative that he’s a victim of the elites and that the trial doesn’t seem to have had much of an impact on his polling numbers.
If you ask me as a trial lawyer, I agree with Rebecca that the D.A. is doing a solid job proving the elements of its case and telling the story in a way likely to grab the jury. So far, they are hitting all the necessary points.
French: Let’s end with some lightning round questions. First, since the trial has started, in your view has the chance of conviction gone up or down?
Roiphe: Up.
White: Up significantly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/...e_code=1.r00.dKcQ.zzylKfzWDYk0&smid=url-share
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But this week, prosecutors ran out of diversions.
They had to take the gamble of putting Cohen on the stand. Yes, Cohen is a convicted felon and a serial liar, but unless he links Trump to the reimbursements before the election, they do not have a case.
So up Cohen went.
His direct testimony was fine. But on cross-examination, Todd Blanche - Trump’s lead defense lawyer - destroyed him.
Over and over, Blanche showed Cohen to be a liar. The New York Times - yes, the Times - wrote:
"Todd Blanche is demonstrating that Cohen told lies, big and small, over a long period... Jurors might also need to consider a more philosophical question: can a liar sometimes tell the truth?"
“Sometimes tell the truth?” Wow, the standard for a criminal conviction sure has changed! I thought it was “beyond a reasonable doubt,” silly me.
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But the most devastating moment in the cross-examination came relatively early, just before the lunch recess.
Cohen had claimed that on Oct. 24, 2016, about two weeks before the election, he called Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, to talk to Trump and get Trump’s approval for the payments to Daniels.
Blanche forced Cohen to admit that he had actually called Schiller because Cohen was upset he had been receiving prank phone calls and wanted Schiller’s advice in dealing with them. Cohen then claimed he thought he had also discussed the payment with Trump on the call.
The problem for Cohen, and the prosecution, is that the entire call lasted only 96 seconds.
As Anderson Cooper - yes, Anderson Cooper - said on CNN, in recounting the moment:
It was incredible...lawyers want to build a box around the witness & slam it shut--that's what Todd Blanche did to Cohen...it was an extraordinary cross...Cohen was cornered in...a lie.
And not just on any testimony, but on the issue at the heart of the case.
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The case is basically over now.
Blanche will have a couple hours more to cross-examine Cohen Monday morning. Then the prosecution will have to choose whether to try to repair Cohen’s blasted credibility with a short period of additional “redirect” testimony - at the risk of emphasizing how bad Blanche made Cohen look.
The defense indicated it will have few, if any, witnesses, so the jury could hear closing arguments as early as Tuesday.
Over 86 percent of Manhattan voters supported Joe Biden in 2020, so Trump will have few if any fans on this jury. An outright acquittal seems very unlikely.
But will all 12 jurors really convict Trump on the basis of Cohen’s words, after what Blanche just did? If even one refuses, the prosecution will have failed.
Make no mistake, a hung jury would be a huge win for Trump. The case could not possibly be retried until after Election Day, and anything short of a guilty verdict would give him enormous ammunition to attack the prosecution as a politically motivated effort to distract him from his campaign.
And that the blowback would be exactly what the prosecutors who brought this joke of an indictment deserve.
What a difference a day makes huh?
