If experts inside and outside the courtroom are to be believed, Manhattan’s criminal case against former President Trump hinges on the testimony and cross-examination of Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen. I do not agree.
Cohen, once a personal attorney, Trump’s closest employee and greatest ally, left Trump’s inner circle after being convicted of lying on Trump’s behalf and has since become one of Trump’s biggest tormentors. former president after spending time in federal prison.
His ad hominem diatribes against Trump are well known. Many have gone viral. Cohen, for example, is solely responsible for the popular term “Vonshitzinpants” applied to Trump, which has given rise to numerous memes on social media.
Trump’s defense team has tried to harness this anger and encourage Cohen to indulge in this grandiloquence in the courtroom, but has so far failed. According to reporters in the courtroom, Cohen remained calm, admitting his anger but showing none of it from the stand.
Defence lawyer Todd Blanche upped the ante Thursday, deliberately raising his voice as he engaged in cross-examination of Cohen. Blanche described Cohen as a prolific liar with a bone to pick against his former boss and tried to get him to show his anger as he “undertook an aggressive attempt to undermine the credibility of Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen,” ABC News reported.
All of this might be true, but it doesn’t prove that Cohen wasn’t telling the truth about Donald Trump. And therein lies the enigma. Fortunately, as Norm Ornstein, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said Thursday on the Mary Trump podcast, we shouldn’t rely solely on Cohen’s words. “I believe it because of the receipts, records and hard evidence,” Ornstein explained. Jen Taub, professor at Western New England University School of Law, Also speaking on Mary Trump’s podcast, she said she believed Cohen’s testimony. She once invited him as a speaker in a college course she teaches and found him credible – and open about his past indiscretions.
On the stand, Blanche tried to antagonize Cohen over discrepancies between his testimony and what previous witnesses had said about his desire for a cooperation agreement, a presidential pardon, a White House job and ‘a phone call that may or may not have been about paying former adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
“Have you told people you’d like to become attorney general? » Blanche asked Cohen.
“I don’t remember,” Cohen replied.
According to people in the courtroom, Blanche’s voice rose as he questioned Cohen with phone recordings and text messages about Cohen’s claim that he had spoken by phone to Trump about the silent payment from Stormy Daniel. It was, many say, the hardest moment for Cohen and the best for Trump of the entire trial.
The theory, brought up by others and suggested during the exchange, is that it was Cohen idea of paying the porn star for Trump and that he lied about telling Trump about it. Who came up with this idea, the fact is that there is a paper trail proving that Trump refunded Cohen, and it is a significant factor in at least one felony charge related to the IRS report regarding this refund.
CNN Anderson Cooper, however, was apparently unimpressed with Cohen’s performance during Thursday’s cross-examination, calling it “severely detrimental” to the prosecution’s case. “If I was a juror in this case and I looked at this, I would think ‘this guy is making this up as he goes along, or he’s making up this particular story,'” Cooper added.
Stephen Collinson agrees, writing for CNN Digital that “Donald Trump ultimately had a good day in court” following Cohen’s cross-examination on Thursday.
Longtime Republican lawyer George Conway, on the other hand, an eyewitness in the courtroom, posted on “X” that: “This cross is notable today because it does not address Cohen’s testimony at all in this case nor any of the facts of this case. . This is an overly long and ineffective review of everything *except* this case.
Finally, former White House ethics chief Norm Eisen, also an eyewitness in the courtroom, wrote in his court diary: “Like a heavyweight boxing match, blows were carried and the defense scored points – but in my opinion, Cohen stayed on his feet. He was shaken by a blow to the chin, but there was no punch.”
Ultimately, the only opinions that will count will be those of the jury members. So I don’t care that Cooper was unimpressed with Cohen’s performance and thought it was completely stupid to tell me what he would think “if I were a juror.” He is not one.
When I ran a reporting team, my rule was that journalists observe the jury and report their reactions to key testimonies. Only Eisen suggested this to me regarding Blanche’s cross-examination of Cohen. “I observed the jury throughout the day,” Eisen said, “and particularly when the cross-examination was most intense, as on this point. Their scrutiny of Cohen and Blanche was as intense as the questioning itself, at least in its most heated moments Unlike previous points where their attitudes seemed more transparent – like when Cohen frankly. spoke directly with the jurors Tuesday, about his regrets for the things he did out of loyalty to Trump – I couldn’t read what they were thinking today.
Apparently the jury, like the rest of the world, is out on who to believe: Donald Trump or Michael Cohen. Unlike the rest of us, they will also be able to review all the evidence before making a decision.
For the record, I spent four years in daily proximity to Trump. I heard him yelling at the staff – from two rooms in the White House. I saw him lie continually. I witnessed his behavior, his anger, his frustration and his bully antics with everyone around him. I heard him call some of his supporters at a rally “idiots” and I know from my interaction with him that he cares little about what others think. His only relationships are purely transactional and the only person on this planet he cares about is himself.
As for Cohen, I spent the better part of a year in close proximity with him researching and writing his latest book, “Revenge,” which was referenced in the ongoing lawsuit against Donald Trump.
One of the first times I spoke with Michael Cohen, I asked him a very specific question: If Donald Trump hadn’t abandoned him, would Cohen still be in Trump’s circle?
“Absolutely,” he said.
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Cohen didn’t skimp on shortcuts. He didn’t hesitate and he didn’t lie to me to make himself look better. He also told me that his dream job was not attorney general, but that he wanted to serve as advisor to the president without being in the White House. “It would be the best of both worlds,” he explained. When I asked him about other White House jobs, he was frank about that, too. “I may have thought about it, maybe even thought I wanted them, but I would be better off in a hybrid role,” he explained. That’s exactly what he said in court when Blanche asked him about it on Thursday – almost two years after he told me the same thing. His story remained consistent.
As I got to know him, I discovered that Cohen was a complicated man. He was haunted by his past and was determined, in light of what he had experienced, to redeem himself. He knew what he had to face, facing his angry former boss and a skeptical press.
I know journalists, some of whom are friends and some close friends, who say that when Cohen was with Trump, he treated the press harshly. “He did me dirty,” a friend said of Cohen. Another said Cohen recorded him without his knowledge on one occasion. I don’t know if Cohen recorded any of our conversations and I don’t care. I know Michael Cohen has never lied to me since I met him.
I wasn’t part of the Manhattan press crowd, so I can’t speak to what Michael Cohen was doing before he went to prison. I can tell you, however, from personal experience, that any time spent behind bars is a humiliating experience. It will change you. I have no doubt that it changed Michael Cohen.
Cohen told me that working for Donald Trump was a dream come true for him. “It was never about the money,” he explained. He had ample opportunity to make a lot of money without Donald Trump. His attraction, he said, was the aura of fame; the chance to go backstage at a Broadway show and meet people he never thought he could meet.
Cohen paid a high price for this opportunity. Donald Trump has never paid the price for what he did his entire life.
Cohen plays a role in trying to remedy this situation. Blanche, doing her best as a defense attorney, tries to avoid the day of reckoning for Trump. Both men do their job. I hold no ill will against the defense and applaud Cohen’s efforts as he continues to attempt to atone for his past indiscretions. “That’s all I can do,” he told me several times.
Ultimately, Cohen accepted a plea deal, having received 48 hours to do so from the Department of Justice (DOJ) before facing the possibility of his wife being indicted along with him. He did the right thing. You could say he was forced into it, but ever since that day, Cohen – as flawed as the rest of us are – has never stopped trying to redeem himself. Like he said, that’s all he can do.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has never had to make amends and everyone who has been part of his entourage has paid dearly for being so close to his venomous and conniving personality.
It doesn’t matter what Anderson Cooper, George Conway, Norm Eisen or anyone else, including me, thinks of the testimony offered by Cohen in the current trial.
The only people who matter are the jury members who heard the evidence and who will deliberate Trump’s fate. Some, notably financier Anthony Scaramucci who served (very) briefly as Trump’s communications director, believe there could be a sympathizer on the jury who could provoke a hung jury.
Maybe that’s the case. But this is a Manhattan jury. Donald Trump has a history of deception well known to many in New York. New Yorkers are used to scammers – it’s part of everyday life in Manhattan.
I have confidence in the jury and I think they will not be fooled by Trump. I believe Michael Cohen. Like Ornstein and Mary Trump, I also believe the evidence is conclusive even if you doubt Cohen, and I sincerely hope Donald Trump decides to testify. It will be his loss.
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