Good evening on what was a blockbuster day in the criminal hutch money trial before the former president, blockbuster because after what has at times been a meandering cross-examination of the prosecution's most important witness, Michael Cohen. Today, Trump attorney Todd Blanche was able to repeatedly raise questions about Cohen's honesty, not just in the past, but his honesty in his testimony before this jury this week. I was in the courtroom this morning, just before the lunch break, Blanche presented text messages to Cohen between him and former Trump body guard Keith Schiller. The messages were from October 24th, 2016, and they appeared to contradict testimony Cohen gave Monday a direct examination that goes to the heart of the alleged scheme to falsify business records.
Earlier the week, Cohen testified about texting Schiller. He said under oath that he needed to talk to Trump originally, and Schiller was always by his side. He testified that he used Schiller's phone to speak to the former president. Cohen told the jury in his earlier testimony that the purpose of the call was, quote, to discuss the stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it.
But today, Todd Blanche did something the prosecutor has apparently not done, or at least not discussed with Michael Cohen. They're questioning him on the witness stand. Blanche read previous text messages Cohen had received shortly before he texted Schiller. And they showed that Cohen was responding to a 14-year-old crank caller who'd been pranking him by phone for days.
Cohen texted Schiller informing him about the prank calls and wanting help from Schiller about the calls, and that appears as why he then called Schiller. Blanche appeared to have trapped Cohen, arguing that the subsequent call between him and Schiller lasted only 96 seconds. In question whether and this quote comes to us from our reporters in the room, you had enough time to update Schiller about all the problems you were having, and also update President Trump about the status of the stormy Daniels situation. It's important to remember that Cohen had never mentioned this 14-year-old crank caller in testimony.
Blanche directly stated that he lied under oath earlier this week about speaking with N. candidate Trump on that day. It was a major moment on a day that saw several other notable developments, including that sources tell CNN the defense may call a former attorney for Cohen, Robert Costello, to continue the defense argument that the one-time fixer for the former president is a liar. Whoever judge also suggested summations could begin next week.
There's a lot to talk to with their panel joining us as Robert Ray, former president's counsel during his first impeachment trial, former federal prosecutor, two-minute scene in Ingrid Abbey Phillip, also three more who witnessed that pivotal moment in court room today, and was seen in Anchor Kaitlin Collins, when after the lunch break, Norm Isan, who was the counsel that was the Democrats during that first impeachment was there this morning, and of course, Monica Karras-Gannell. Kara, was that moment the one that stood out to you? Oh, by far, absolutely. I mean, it was the big moment of the day, and the way that Todd Lanche did it, spent a lot of the morning on these inconsistent statements, drawing out when Michael Cohen may have lied, and then he gets to this phone call, and he begins by saying, you spoke with the former, you testified on Monday, you spoke with Trump on the 24th, Cohen says yes, and he says, do you remember, was it on speakerphone or did Shiller hand the phone?
Cohen's like, oh, I don't remember. So he's setting it up in such a way that you think you're going back to this, and then he says, and what about these text messages? And then goes exactly as you just described, just confronting Cohen with these text messages, and the timestamps that were so close, and that showed, he's Shiller saying to him, Cohen's complaining about this, 14-year-old calling him, she says, Cohen calls him an 802, it's a 96-second phone call. And Cohen then says, well, and Blanch is just building with this crescendo, he is focusing on this on Cohen, and he's like, admit it, you lied, you made up this call.
And Cohen says, I'm not sure that's accurate. Later on, he tried to correct that a bit, and said that the reason why he remembered this specifically was because this was, as he put it, so important, such a critical thing, and so he had in his memory, he's been telling the story for six years. I'm not sure that that did a job though. Norm, I mean, did you believe Michael Cohen in what his response is?
His response, basically evolved into, well, I was doing both. When he was cornered, he could have basically either said, you know what I misremembered this, which would have been devastating, or what he did, which was, I did both. I both talked to Keith Schiller about this 14 year old boy who I wanna get vengeance against, which was bizarre enough. And I had time to tell President Trump this crucial piece of information, which is, I'm going ahead with Stormy Deal and Trump agreed.
And there was a ferocious debate in the courtroom between the people who thought it was a true Perry Mason moment, and some in my row who said, eh, really? Yes, George, our friend George Conway. He said, what is everybody getting so exercised? I don't tell him that, Mr.
Tom, I'll tell him that. I'll tell him that. I think the same debate is erupting as in our row. I'm sitting just in front of Anderson.
I know, I wanted to grab you and be like, oh my God, Norm, are you hearing this? We had a quick conversation about it. It was a good moment of cross. It was a very professional and powerful moment of cross.
I think if Cohen had been shown those texts by the prosecution on the direct examination, if they had refreshed his recollection, there's nothing implausible about discussing both subjects. But that's what's interesting. I guess it seems like a huge mistake by prosecutors. It was not the best.
It was not their finest. Did they not look at what the text was? It was not their finest moment. My experience has been, it wasn't it was a blow on the chin.
But my experience 30 years of doing this is that it takes more than one punch to knock out a witness. This is a witness that the jury had believed. I was watching the jury at the time. I did not think it was a knock out blow.
But here's the thing, if I'm a juror, and again, it's impossible with these jurors, but if I'm a juror and I've heard, and I've been warned that Michael Cohen lies, the prosecutors have said this, they've said it up, I prepared for that, I'm prepared for, he's lied in the past repeatedly. I don't know if a jury is prepared for, he lied to this jury two days ago, but now he's really telling the truth. I mean, I don't know, does that, does the juror make a difference between, oh yeah, he has old lies, but he's really now telling the truth. The jurors understand it, and he cleaned this up.
In the afternoon, he was stronger after lunch. Memory is not perfect, okay? People do not have perfect recollections. And we are gonna get- Regent.
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Oh, by the way, there's this phone number. It's not. It seems like the 14-year-old boy is the reason he's calling. What they're asking, I mean, you just basically made the defense's case for that.
Memories are not perfect. That is exactly what they're saying to Michael Cohen. That your memory's not perfect, and you don't remember exactly that you even spoke to Donald Trump on this phone call. I mean, his most devastating line after the text of the 14-year-old was, I believe I spoke with Mr.
Trump. He didn't even double down on it after he was pressed on it. And so that is exactly their entire case here that they've been saying, Michael Cohen, how can you not remember this? But then you remember this phone call with Donald Trump?
The best one to cross examination was Todd Blanch's follow-up, which was, the jury is not interested in what you believe. Which he got objective on. It doesn't matter. That's the kind of comment that you make.
You don't care whether that objection sustained. You're communicating to the jury. And he said that, right? Looking at the jury's vote.
Absolutely. Absolutely. As Caitlin said, look, I think the issue with Michael Cohen is that particularly when you have animists toward another person, which they have demonstrated pretty clearly, it is also plausible for the jury to believe that your memory is colored by your desire to see Donald Trump behind bars. And that's why this moment, I think, is so devastating because he is so crystal clear on everything that is bad for Donald Trump's case.
But on everything from the mundane to other things that apparently at the time he was really worked out about, he cannot remember it. And that is both a problem from the case perspective, but I just think in general for Michael Cohen, this is the issue with him, is that you cannot always be sure. Yes, he's been telling the story for six years, but in those six years he's been trying to get Donald Trump convicted of crime. It was also fascinating in the court room today because I must admit I have not listened to Michael Cohen's podcast, Mayacalpa.
But it was shocking. But it was a moment of it was played in the court room today. And it was so fascinating because Michael Cohen's testimony has been very even keeled. Very rational, very yes ma'am, no sir, all this.
And suddenly they played this thing and there's a guy screaming in the room like using the episodes. No, it's just not like a regular. Somebody who does a podcast, I was like, is this his actual normal speaking voice in a podcast because it's literally yelling. And it's clearly written down because he's speaking in a way that's not so he's written down these yells.
Like it's got to be all in caps. I mean, it was shocking. I was like, it was- Between between that, just the volume of him and compared with his very misdemeanor, that was, I also was like, whoa. I mean, it filled the corner.
I don't know if somebody turned up the volume too loud. I was like, is this intentionally too loud? Oh wait, I'm telling you we have a clip of the podcast. Let's play it and play loud because it was quite loud in the courtroom.
I got to tell you. That's all you're saying. I truly hope that this man ends up in prison. It won't bring back the year that I lost or the damage done to my family.
But revenge is a dish best served cold. And you better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family. So yeah, that's what was played in court. I think he's a little biased.
I don't know. But there is, I think a fundamental question about Michael Cohen as a witness, which is, is the jury going to listen to him and the cross and the history of lying and say, the hell with this guy? I mean, just write him off. Or are they going to say, look, you know, he's had this traumatic experience.
He went to prison because he thought he was helping Donald Trump. Let's parse each statement and see whether those statements are corroborated. And this is really, I think, the prosecution's great hope. And this is why they examined him the way they did on direct, which was scaffolding his testimony with test messages, phone records.
Now, the big problem with today is those text messages came back to bite him, at least in this one exchange. And it's also worth mentioning that, you know, he had years of contact with Donald Trump. It's not a debate that whether he could, you know, whether he was in touch with him. If he's mistaken about this one phone call, one prosecution responses.
So what? No, no, no, no. It was in touch for 10 years. But it's not just this one phone call.
And one, you also remember, there are two attorneys on this jury who were listening to Michael Cohen admit that he agrees it's unethical for an attorney to record their client. They're listening to that. Todd Blanche is trying to catch him in other inconsistencies. He seems like he's about to catch him in another lie on Monday.
This is something I'm watching because he asked about recording conversations with reporters, which Michael Cohen said he did pretty often. But he said he stopped after the 2016 campaign. And then Todd Blanche pressed him on that. He said, I would have to check.
And Todd Blanche responded with this knowing tone. Well, we'll check together in a minute. So it seems like he's just catching up with that. Maybe it doesn't change the actual document, but it could really undermine the credibility.
But Caitlin, you know, this is a controversial view, but attorneys are also human beings. And they understand that sometimes people do stupid things. Sometimes people say when they're things when they're angry and they hold grudges. That doesn't mean every word they say is a lie.
And that's the challenge for the prosecutors to say, look, we know he lied and they brought out a lot of that undirect, unfortunately, for them, not everything. I mean, they certainly should have brought out this whole thing about the 14 year old. But you know, this wasn't a total surprise to the jury. I suspect, obviously, I don't know.
And that's why this case from day one, starting with David Becker and the August 2015 meeting in Trump Tower, where you have Becker agreeing that there is going to be this activity, this catch and kill activity to benefit the campaign and going all throughout the testimony with those corroborating notes in Alan Weisselberg's hand. This is one tile in a mosaic. Even today, Cohen was much stronger in the afternoon. And the jury does not necessarily fixate on that one moment.
Well, it's true, because all during the, I mean, for until the exciting end, right before the lunch break, I kept saying they're wondering, well, all Todd Blanch is talking about is just lies by Michael Cohen about things in general, not anything to do with a document that was signed about stormy Daniels or anything to do with stormy Daniels or anything to do with hush money payments. And to me, it felt very meandering. And you know, I was like, okay, yeah, we know the guys lied a lot and that's that's kind of big deal. And that's another blockbuster area of this testimony, which I think is extraordinary, doesn't seem to be something many people have picked up on.
And that is the following. It is an extraordinary thing in my experience for a cooperating witness to take the stand and admit under oath at a trial that they pleaded guilty to something that they didn't commit. In other words, perjuring themselves at the time of the plea allocation. Now, look, I know there's all kinds of stuff here about replaying the how many times can he be untruthful and how many times is he untruthful under oath.
But I have to tell you, I mean, at least as I learned being a prosecutor, if you have a cooperating witness that can't tell the truth of the plea allocation, that means that witness is basically worthless. He testified, he lied to the judge in this prior case. And then when he was when Todd Blanche asked him, well, what do you think the judge would have thought of you? You know, don't you think the judge would like to have known you were lying?
I mean, don't you think that would have impacted his decision? And it would have. And Michael con was like, I don't know. He said the judge was in on it.
He said that the assistant US attorney was in on it. That's pretty and the top line just cross-examination. So basically whenever you get into a problem, it's always blame somebody else, blame president Trump, blame the judge, blame the justice department, blame the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, blame Congress. I mean, how many places do you have to go where this guy has lied many times under oath, and it's always somebody else's fault.
It's not his fault. I mean, I'll tell you in summation, that's pretty powerful evidence to a jury to say, you shouldn't believe anything this guy says. And if you have to rely on his testimony in any fashion whatsoever in order to convict Donald Trump, i.e., in order to fix Donald Trump's intent, you have a reasonable doubt. You can't have anything else but a reasonable doubt.
And yet in that moment, when Blanche tried to push him and said, so you're not accepting responsibility, he said, I do accept responsibility. He stood up to the facts, but he doesn't accept responsibility norm for the most important thing, which is he's saying that he didn't plead guilty to a crime and coincidentally saying that he's not what he's saying. His words say that he accepts responsibility. He was strong in his actual thoughts, don't seem to accept responsibility, but he uses the phrase, I accept responsibility constantly.
And there can't be any daylight there because if there is daylight, that is a huge problem for the prosecution. We've got to get a break in. We're going to have a lot more carers can help. Thank you so much.
As always everyone else is going to stay here. So to come, we just received the image, the defense used of that Tex cone, since it's a trailer about the crank collar. We'll show you that plus John Berman is going through today's transverse. I'm Dr.
Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What if I told you that our hair is more than what we see in the mirror? It's something that can actually tell us a lot about our health. Hair is so core to our identity.
It's part of how we see ourselves. It's how we present ourselves to the world. And in evolutionary biology, hair is a sign of vitality of health. Dr.
Marianne McCrittas-Senna, she's a board certified dermatologist and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in hair and scalp health. We're going to talk about the different types of hair changes, share some practical tips for keeping your hair and scalp healthy. And my personal favorite, we're going to bust some pretty big hair myths that you have probably heard. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast, Terms of Service. Tell me if you've ever felt this way while sitting at your desk at work. Eyes burning, back and shoulders curled up like a boiled shrimp and feeling cranky.
That is how journalist and podcast host Manusz Zomorodi describes the experience of working at a desk in front of a laptop all day in her new book. Today, on average, information worker, most of us are information workers. 90% of our time is spent. It's wild.
It increases the possibility of diabetes, obesity, all sorts of chronic health issues. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service, wherever you get your podcasts. Short time ago, we received images of that text exchange between Michael Cohen and then candidate Trump's bodyguard Keith Schiller, the defense attorney's show today. Again, it was approved their assertion that Cohen did not ask to speak to Trump about Stormy Daniels as he testified earlier in the week, but he wanted to talk to the bodyguard, actually, to Keith Schiller about a crank call, or a series of crank calls.
This is the key moment, quoting Cohen's text, who can I speak to regarding harassing calls to my cell in office that don't forget to block his call on one of them? The call was both these calls were allegedly by 14 year old. After that, Keith Schiller texts Michael Cohen saying, call me. And shortly after a minute, a second, there's a call from Michael Cohen to Keith Schiller, which he had previously testified was called to get to Trump to tell him important news that he was moving ahead on the payments to Stormy Daniels.
He claimed that Trump had agreed with joining out by John Berman, who is more on this moment, although with the full text of this cross-examination that would so momentous is not out. We have almost all of today's transcripts except this part, as you can imagine, which is very frustrating. But, as you can imagine, it's a great job explaining it. Based on what you and others have reported from inside the courtroom, look, he, Todd Blanche, went after Michael Cohen on this.
Michael Cohen basically said, I know that Keith was with Mr. Trump at the time, and there was more potentially than this. In other words, more potentially than me just talking to Keith about the kid. Maybe I talked to him about something else.
Then he said, I always ran everything by the boss immediately. And in this case, it would have been saying everything's being taken care of. It's been resolved. And then he ultimately had to win.
He goes, based on what was going on, based on the text message and so on, based on the other text messages about Stormy Daniels matter, that is how he came to the conclusion that he talked to Trump about Stormy Daniels on this phone call. It was all the other things. Blanche challenged Cohen to confirm that his trial testimony was based on materials prosecutors, showed him in preparation for questioning. Right, this was an important moment because then Blanche is saying, well, wait a minute, so you're only testifying to this phone call because prosecutors showed you a call log that had this phone call, and you're claiming that that basically jarred your memory of this crucial phone call.
This is the setup to the cross-examination to follow. And he said, yes, that refreshed my recollection. But it didn't refresh his recollection of the 14-year-old caller. Can I ask a question?
What is the ultimate significance of, let's assume he just lied about all this, but does this mean that Donald Trump didn't know that he was reimbursing? No, but what is he's claiming this was one of the examples. This was a key moment when he directly told Donald Trump, I'm going ahead with these payments, and Trump approved it. Okay, but we have abundant proof, including Trump's own words in a tweet in a financial disclosure form from the White House where he says, I reimbursed Michael Cohen.
So why is that in the end? You have additional communications the next day with Cohen, Davidson Howard and Pekker, and then you have two direct calls on the 26th at 8.26 AM and 8.34 AM. And that was when he was making the transfer. And I actually had the transfer to that call two days later where Cohen is asked, did you call Mr.
Trump before you went upset at the account to make the transfer? He goes, yes. What in substance did you discuss with him on these two calls? Cohen said, in direct, I wanted to ensure once again he approved of what I was doing because I required approval from him on all of this.
I should also point out earlier that morning, I guess, before that, he texted Keatshiller back, pursuing the family of the 14-year-old caller. He was very obsessed on this vocal. I was saying, please don't do this. I'm 14 years later.
So that was, that morning, that moment happened, and then they went to break, which is a great moment for the defense to end on, obviously. Then they come back in the room and Todd Blanche greeted Michael Cohen when he was at the witness again, his voice was barely audible. Michael Cohen's. He said, good afternoon, Mr.
Cohen, and Michael Cohen responded, Mr. Blanche, but you could barely hear it in the courtroom, obviously he's speaking into a microphone. And then the text had not been redacted when you were still in the courtroom, so I don't believe they showed them on the screen. They redacted what they needed to during the lunch break.
So then they put them up on the screen and made Michael Cohen read what he was texting this 14-year-old that when the kid said he was 14, allegedly, Michael Cohen responded, well, you need to tell your parent or guardian that the Secret Service is now responsible for handling this. And it just kind of, you know, it's this movement where the jury doesn't often show a lot, and they clearly were kind of experiencing the same, had the same look that you had when you came back. Yeah, it was a bit of a story. And for obvious reasons, I mean, let's not forget, this is from 2016.
We're in 2024. This is eight years ago. Now, you know, refreshing somebody's recollection with a text message, well, do you really remember that this is what happened? I mean, you know, that's the whole point of the cross-examination.
You basically testified here because the prosecution showed you a bunch of documents and stuff, and you're telling us what you remember. And if you hadn't been showing those documents, you wouldn't have been able to tell anything about anything about anything. But what about Norm's point? That it wasn't just this one phone call.
It was a whole series of phone calls right around this time, at exactly the time he is transferring the money. And the testimony that Cohen put in in his direct about this call was very general testimony. He was not purporting to remember exactly what was said back and forth. I think in the, I understand the mental excitement of that moment of confrontation, but I think in the larger scheme of things, this gigantic mosaic that corroborates Michael Cohen, the lack of any other explanation for what Trump was doing, the later corroborating statement, the long series of witnesses, the many documents, I don't believe the jury is going to seize on it.
One, two, three, four knockout punches. Yes, you want to lay Cohen flat. This was just one. Here's my thing about this statement and also just about Michael Cohen in general.
There's an evidence that Donald Trump knew about such many payments, but that is not the issue here. The issue is the falsification of business records. And from my understanding of the evidence, there's really one key moment where Michael Cohen basically makes the case that Donald Trump understood that it was going to be fraudulently put on the books as legal fees. And that was a meeting that he had with Alan Weisselberg and Donald Trump.
There are only three people who know what goes on there. One of them is the defendant. The other one is not going to testify. And the other one is Michael Cohen.
And so if I'm a defense lawyer, unless you believe Michael Cohen with regard to that, that evidence and the defense is going to make the argument in summation, his testimony is worthless. And these are the examples and he's trying to gild a lily and he's testifying and making it up unless you can believe beyond a reasonable doubt that that conversation happened and there's proof of it. And that happened the way that my court had happened. And the way he said, right, because it's only that way which would prove Donald Trump's intent, there's no way that a jury should convict on that evidence unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt.
And that is why the doubt that is put on the table by Michael Cohen's recollection of a conversation that he describes as being pivotal is, look, I mean, the bar is so low for the defense to just say, to convince one juror that there is not enough evidence. I'm not saying that the preponderance of evidence is that Donald Trump knew what was going on and that there is a common sense view that one could have that he understood that this was not going to be put on the books correctly. But in this court, it takes much less than that to get a juror to say, I don't know if I can believe this guy about this one really critical conversation that has to do with how the records, how the payments restructured so that the records could be falsified. That's the main problem I think right now for the prosecution.
We'll have more transcripts later, thank you so much. Coming up, how the jury may view a potential witness with the defense who testified before Congress yesterday, disputing Michael Cohen's own sworn testimony in that trial, let's say. As we've been discussing, Michael Cohen's credibility came under attack today as Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche grilled him over key text messages on a phone call on October 2016. Well, the prosecution would like to present Cohen as a reform liar.
There are new questions when he raised today about some of the testimony he gave in this trial earlier this week. This also includes Cohen's testimony on Tuesday when he claimed that he was given advice by Attorney Robert Castello in 2018 and that Castello was using his connections to Rudy Giuliani and by extension, former President Trump to pressure Cohen not to flip. On Wednesday, Castello appeared before the House subcommittee on the so-called Weaponization of the Federal Government to dispute that. The story he told yesterday was that Rudy Giuliani and I were somehow conspiring to try and keep him quiet, to try and keep him from flipping.
That's the term we use in the trade for cooperating. That's ridiculous. I asked for a meeting with a district attorney, Bragg, because I wanted to go in there, let him look me in the eye and let me explain all of the stuff that we had on Michael Cohen that showed that he's an inveterate liar. That's amazing.
This guy, he was representing him and he's calling his client an inveterate liar. What's he actually technically representing him? That's pretty, that's certainly what I thought. But Castello emails are like a witness.
By the way, the defense may call him now. Yes. Isn't it weird that they had this testimony to get this testimony out there? Apparently, the privilege was waived.
I don't know exactly how that happened. That's what I might have to ask. It would be pretty unusual to call a witness to impeach another witness on cross-examination. We'll see if the judge allows it.
But Castello, if he comes, his emails to Cohen are the most extraordinary. It's like a cookbook for a witness. It's like a soprano. It's like a soprano.
It's exactly like a soprano. By the way, I forgot to introduce Renato Scaville. I'm very enthralled to the truth. Sorry.
I was just wondering. I was just wondering. Just saying so. I knew it.
I knew it. I know it. I apologize. I'm not going to you.
What did you think of today? Look, I mean, Michael Cohen got absolutely hammered today. But he's a liar is not a theory of defense. We still don't know what is the theory of defense.
You know, they opened, as I've said, that these were legitimate legal fees. There's been no evidence of that. Michael Cohen is sticking to the story that I did no legal work for them. So, hammering Michael Cohen and saying he's a liar.
I think the jury thinks he is a liar. Maybe they have questions about some of these phone calls. But there's other corroborating evidence. And I still don't understand what the theory is.
And we all know you have to have a theory of defense if you want to win a criminal case. That was Jeffrey, your argument all along, which is, okay, the prosecution has put forth a set of, you know, facts, believe them or not. What is the defense argument? Exactly.
And there are certain undisputed facts in this case. The two most important of which are Michael Cohen paid stormy dances $130,000. No one is going to dispute that. The other undisputed fact is that Donald Trump paid Michael Cohen $420,000.
Is there any explanation in front of the jury other than this was a reimbursement for what, for what he paid out? Now, that means that the documents are false. That means that the corporate documents are false. The issue in the case is did Donald Trump know or cause those documents to be false?
That, to me, is the only disputed issue in this case because the rest of it is just proved. And, Jeffrey, you know the other point of that that was raised today, and it'll be fascinating to see how the prosecution handles this, is Todd Lynch grilled Michael Cohen on what he testified recently, was that, you know, in 2017-2018 he was barely doing any legal work for the Trump family, but he never had a retainer. Well, Todd Lynch went back and said, okay, ever since you worked at the Trump organization, when he left his law firm, the day he met Trump and went to try to get a job there, he never had a retainer. Michael Cohen said that was correct.
And Todd Lynch was trying to make the point where you've never had a retainer, so it's not unusual that you didn't have one in 2017-2018. But then the question that I had sitting in there in the courtroom was, well, when Michael Cohen sent those invoices to Allen Weisselberg, they were paid pursuant to a legal retainer. It said it on every check, we looked at all 11 of them. And so the question I would have for the defense there is, okay, well, then, why was he being paid pursuant to a retainer if he's never had a retainer?
Because there was no retainer. Because it's a lie. That was a often juris. That wasn't the issue.
The issue was whether there's a written retainer agreement, not whether or not there's been retained. No, he said he's never had a retainer, period. No, no, no. I was there, Todd Lynch drilled down a certain thing.
Yes, but what he means by that is there was no written retainer agreement. But here's the answer to what he didn't let that retainer be a retainer. It's kind of a side show. It's not like that big a deal, really, you know, in the legal field, whether or not you have a retainer, you should have.
But what legal, I think the defense painted themselves into a corner. What did he do? And what did Donald Trump think that he was writing those $35,000 checks for? What did he think he was paying for?
And we don't have any answer to that. Do you think it was effective for Todd Lynch to push the cross-examination all the way to the end of the day so that tomorrow there's no court and you brought this up in the elevator during the lunch break, you were like, he should push it all the way so that they spend three days ruminating on the lies of Michael Cohen? Well, you can look at it both ways. In some ways, I think I would have gotten him off the stand and ended with him and just been done with him.
Then you get some distance. And then if you're going to put on a defense case, maybe they're going to call an expert. They say, I don't know, some election expert. Then you start fresh on Monday because the prosecution would have had to get up today and do their redirect.
It's a little tougher to do it when you don't have three days to prepare because sure the defense is reviewing the transcript, but guess what? It says the prosecution and they're going to figure out all the things they need to fix on Monday. So what would have been maybe a 45 minute redirect might be an hour and a half redirect on Monday now that you gave them those three days? Yeah, maybe.
But I know if the prosecution had done redirect today, they wouldn't have finished. Can I? It would still have gone over to next. On Caitlyn's very interesting retainer point.
This is one of the most obscure areas of law. The reason- Which makes your eyes spark. It does. I was talking about it in the elevator.
I don't know if it's a cornered you in the elevator. The law of retainer letters. The reason he didn't need a retainer was because he was employed by the Trump Organization. He was in-house.
In-house lawyers don't need a retainer letter. When you leave under New York rules, you are supposed to have a written retainer. So it is proof that he was not actually doing legal work that he didn't have a written retainer letter. That's why Hoffinger closed.
That was one of her last points in the closing. You're saying that when he was working for Trump at the time, he didn't need one. He was in-house. At Trump or- At Trump or- So that was one of the many Todd Blanche lines of questioning that fell flat today.
There were times when the jury was bored. There was a lot of questions too about what Michael Cohen wanted after the election. What position he wanted in the White House. There was a lot of testimony about that which I thought I didn't see it going away.
Did you? It was interminable and it led no place. Michael Cohen kept saying I wanted to be personal attorney to Donald J. Trump which aligned and repeated- I like your impression.
I lost interest in it halfway. They were claiming no you wanted to be special counsel and that was a phrase his daughter had used. I mean it just seemed- I think it would also be a mistake for the defense to try to weirdly convince the jury that this wasn't about the election. I mean that is also one of the things that I think is kind of settled like we know.
I mean look they say they're going to call this election expert. I think the judges going to allow them to call- I think it's Bradley Smith in his order. He said that they can call him to say, you know, this is how the federal election commission works. These are some of the definitions, but there's one definition that I think you need to watch out for and what is a personal expense versus a business expense.
And the election law says, and it's 52 USC 30114, and it says it's a personal expense if you would have made it irrespective of your campaign. And the argument that they've been trying to weave in the defense is that he would have made this payment to stormy Daniels, to protect his family, to protect Melania. So I think they're going to try and argue he would have made this payment irrespective of the campaign, therefore is not a campaign. Finance violation and therefore by the way the federal election commission would have agreed and whether they'll be able to get that it sounds unlikely.
But if you had gone to the federal election commission and truthfully disclosed we want to make this payment to stormy Daniels. We want her to go away. We think that it may have some effect on the outcome of the election. Will you approve this as a campaign expenditure?
The FEC would have looked at them like, what are you out of your mind? So it can't both be what the prosecution is. It can't both be, wait a second. This is a concealed campaign expenditure.
If the people who sort of make those fine judgments are like, wait, no, of course it's a personal expense. I mean, you know, the John Edwards case is essentially proof of that. Exactly. The John Edwards case creates an interesting legal issue.
And I think that's one reason why you strategize to have those two lawyers on there because they're going to be like getting this. Do you think that anything today's proceedings change? What do you think the jury is thinking about this case? And also Todd Blanche got very heated on this.
I mean, he called him a liar. He grabbed the microphone like closely like someone like drunk at a party. You know, grab a mic and his voice was loud in the room. He at one point, you know, said to the jurors like they don't want to hear, you know, whatever.
Do you think is that effective? I mean, it was a tension. You know, you got to pick your witnesses. You can't, you can't just, you know, be able to in a china shop with everybody.
But I think with Michael Cohen, I think it was totally fine. I was a letting singer moment. It was, uh, but not just to be able. Thank you so much.
Really fascinating. Not only did Trump's lawyer type of raise his voice as I just said at times. He also raised his hand with some dramatic player to put a visual on the point. My next guest captured some of those intense moments.
We'll talk to one of the great courtroom artists ahead. In Syrian cross examination Michael Cohen today, Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, grill Cohen on all the times he previously gone under oath raised his right hand and then lied. This was one of those combative moments captured by the ultra talented veteran courtroom, uh, sketch artist Jane Rosenberg. And we're very glad that she's back with us tonight.
Um, you've got to be exhausted. I appreciate you coming in to talk about the day. I mean, to many people in the courtroom, this was an exciting day with the cross examination toward the end of it. You captured this moment of Todd Blanche raising his hand.
That was in his cross examination of Michael Cohen. And he was repeatedly saying, you've sworn in a courtroom, you've raised your right hand. When you saw that, had you already started the sketch, or did you suddenly have to shift and start a whole new sketch of Todd Blanche raising his arm? Did you know this was going to be the moment?
I did not know it would be the moment. And I did start another one with him leaning over the podium like this. He does a lot. Then he raised his hand and I had to switch that.
So, he didn't just erase it. He did it so many times. He raised his hand. You swore to tell the truth then.
What did it mean? In fact, at a certain point, the judge seemed to be like, okay, we got him. Let's move along. But did you have to erase the arm or do you start a whole new sketch?
No, I erased the arm. It doesn't always work. But that's what I did this time. Because I had so much else already in there.
I felt, oh, I think I could just put that arm up. It's there now. You've heard a lot of cross-examination. Did you think, did this one register to you in any particular way?
No. You didn't think it was as exciting. I haven't seen many, so I thought the end was incredibly... Well, of course it's often exciting.
It should be. And lawyers get really excited when they're going to cross somebody. I think that's why they call it the Crucible of Cross-examination. Well, his top lanche is not really well-practiced in a cross-examination.
I mean, he would even acknowledge that. And so today was really a big test for him. And so for him to kind of have this disbelieving tone in his voice as Michael Cohen is answering his questions, raising his hands, raising his voice kind of this high-pitched voice at times to kind of say, no one can believe what you're saying. Your son knows how to like take it time.
Like, are you kidding me? Yeah, he's saying, are you finished now? Please don't give a speech. I understand your characterization, but we just read it.
Nothing on that letter is not the truth. And I'll just say one moment that I noticed today was, after a break, they were walking back in the room. Normally Trump strides in by himself. He said that the front of the room, he comes in alone and then everyone trails him behind him.
He and Todd Blanch are walking side by side, kind of talking to one another. You never really see Trump like that with his attorney walking into the room. No, you're right. He's always behind him.
Todd Blanch should. I will say that in some of those more shrill Todd Blanch moments, including the two at the end where he confronted Cohen, and there was an objection and the objection was sustained. Those were moments. Did you repay?
I thought hard to discern attention. They were very attentive. You couldn't read them. They were visibly annoyed with Blanch.
I saw eye rolling. Looking away. It was too much and it detracted. It shows his lack of experience because it actually detracted from the point he was making.
He would have been better to let the revelation that he had elicited from Cohen breathe rather than being objected to and so loud and unpleasant. It looked to me like the jury was not liking Todd Blanch very much in those moments. Well, editorializing while you're cross examining a witness is usually a bad idea. That's not what you're there to do.
You're there. From a legal standpoint or just from a jury impact? From a tactical jury impact standpoint. The jury is not interested in your editorializing.
They want to try to get to the facts just like every jury wants to get to the facts. But that moment with the hand raised and whatever, I'm sure that you dated your work and probably noted the time too. Someday that will probably appear on Todd Blanch's office wall. I'm sure for a fee.
I love critiquing lawyers as much as the next person. But every time I talk to jurors, almost always what you hear from them is, the lawyers were fine. But the evidence was X. They don't parse the performance of the attorneys as much as we do.
This is one of the great things about the jury system is that I think the evidence actually matters a lot more than the performance of the lawyers. The person who does parse the lawyers is definitely Trump. If our friend Arthur Adalia was here, he would say Trump, his other attorney Susan Nicholas has way more experience in doing a cross than Todd Blanch. But once that moment happened, I was like, okay, that's why Todd Blanch is doing this cross examination.
Trump is a very, he likes to archetype people and just sort of put them in their categories. I can imagine this speculation. I can only imagine him thinking wanting to have somebody with the physicality of Todd Blanch, who is actually a very kind of broad-shouldered type of person, to be able to do that kind of aggressive sort of in your face challenging of Michael Cohen. That Susan Nicholas is an incredible professional, but that's not how she conducts herself in doing her job.
And stylistically, it's a choice. Whether it will matter to the jury, I don't know, but it probably matters to Todd. I think that's a high theater moment. And although Jeffery is correct to point out that it's still ultimately about facts, but high theater moments, people are human.
You know, facts are not everything. People, when it comes to jury deliberations, in my experience, those are emotional moments in addition to facts gathering moments and theater trials are theater after all. Theater matters. Theater matters.
I've seen lawyers without theater and you can go to sleep. That's not a problem with this panel, Jane. Thank you so much. We're always looking at the term Michael Cohen's former attorney and current legal advisor, Lenny Davis, has taken away their his fine, they got hold for himself, they're well for himself, and also they've taken the prosecution, so they're going to final stages of this trial with your idea.
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