They even said that if Trump is acquitted, it will all tie back to Cohen's testimony. LMAO if that happens - Cohen will be the most hated man in America by both sides after riding the dragon of both shitlibs and trumpmos for years.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47667936)

has there been any testimony on exactly why cohen traded in his meal ticket so that he could be hated by both sides? i just assumed her got caught perjuring himself so flipped on trump to save his own ass. when he should have just followed the advice even a cooley grad like him should have known and stfu.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47667946)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQpvQTgVWmE

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47668100)

https://twitter.com/_johnnymaga/status/1791163774960816421

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47668135)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYX1655sy-E

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47668986)

A Former Prosecutor on the ‘Incredibly Strong Case’ Against Trump

May 16, 2024

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By Andrew Weissmann and Patrick Healy

Produced by Jillian Weinberger

Donald Trump’s onetime fixer Michael Cohen takes the stand again Thursday in the hush-money trial of his old boss. In this interview, Andrew Weissmann, a law professor and former prosecutor, argues that Mr. Trump’s lawyers are dropping the ball in building an alternative narrative.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of the audio piece. To listen to this piece, click the play button below.

Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion, and it’s no surprise that the story I’m paying attention to the most this week is Trump’s trial in Manhattan.

And like everyone else, I’m trying to read the tea leaves on whether this will be the first jury to convict an American president. But I’m also curious about what will come after. We know that in the presidential race, some swing voters could be swayed by a Trump conviction. So this trial may play an influential role in the election this November.

And what I want to know at this point in the trial is, how effective has the prosecution been? And what will and what should Trump’s defense do next?

Andrew Weissmann is a law professor and former prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation of Donald Trump.

Andrew, thank you for making this a New York Times day for you out of court. We really appreciate you doing this and coming in.

Andrew Weissmann: A day off from court.

Healy: You’ve been in the courtroom this week. Take us all into the courtroom. Who is the most interesting to watch for you? The witness on the stand, the jury, the judge or Trump?

Weissmann: Not Trump. I know from outside of the courtroom, obviously there’s a lot of reason to think about him. I think the thing that really struck me, and I wish people could hear it, is Justice Juan Merchan. His voice is so calm. It’s quiet authority. He is so clearly the adult in the room, and he’s controlling that courtroom. I think the reason you’re not seeing shenanigans on one side or the other is because of that aura that he has and the demeanor. The way in which he carries himself is really impressive.

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Healy: Andrew, the prosecution is expected to finish up this week, but first, Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen has been on the stand, and you recently wrote a piece for Times Opinion about what you were listening for in Cohen’s testimony: detailed and direct evidence of Trump knowingly going through with the cover-up.

How do you think Cohen’s testimony so far has measured up, and is it conviction-worthy testimony?

Weissmann: Going into the calling of Michael Cohen, one of the things that struck me was how strong the case was, and I think surprisingly strong, both on the campaign election interference part and on the cover-up. I thought the state did a really masterful job in the way it was presented and the layers of proof and corroboration that were coming out.

The last hour of his direct testimony was a sort of remarkable moment at the trial. He is very close to the jury box. The witness stand and the jury box are right next to each other. Donald Trump and the defense table are much farther away. And for the last hour, when he’s talking about his crimes and why he did them and what he did for Donald Trump, he was talking directly to the jurors. He was looking straight at them. And the jurors were looking straight at him. I’m not saying that that means he’ll be believed or what their assessment is, but it was striking in terms of their ability to assess him as a witness.

What Michael Cohen brings to the table and has, I think, delivered, if believed, is direct proof.

Healy: As a former prosecutor, you’ve had cases that have relied on critical witnesses like Michael Cohen. As you listen to Cohen’s testimony, is he giving the kind of testimony that you as a former prosecutor would say: This is really helping my case? This could lead to a conviction in the case that I’m prosecuting?

Weissmann: So the short answer is yes. Whether it is putting Salvatore Gravano, the underboss of the Gambino family, on the stand; whether it’s Rick Gates, who cooperated against Paul Manafort; this is a well-known phenomenon of having insiders testify up to somebody who is alleged to be more culpable.

Michael Cohen gave a real bird’s-eye view and then a detailed view as to the scheme and how it was carried out. So I’m pretty sure that the prosecution is very happy with his direct testimony. When you’re a prosecutor, you’re always on tenterhooks on cross-examination, but I think there’s no question that the direct testimony, I think they have to be very pleased with.

Healy: As I’ve been following this, Trump’s defense lawyer has been spraying a series of fire at Cohen in different ways, including making this personal about the defense lawyer and Michael Cohen. Do you see a strategy baked into that? Is that about ripping Michael Cohen down? Is it about making the jury just come away thinking this is a bad dude? Do you see a method to the madness, so to speak?

Weissmann: I think there’s some method to later parts of the cross-examination, talking about that he’s been making money off of Donald Trump and his relationship to Donald Trump, that he wants to see him convicted, that he has made lots of negative statements about Donald Trump recently, that he previously liked Donald Trump. I mean, all of that’s fair game. Though I agree with your question that it’s been very scattershot.

The personalization, I thought, was a disaster. That’s how the lawyer started the cross-examination. There was an immediate objection. It was sustained. You do not want to have your first line of cross-examination be objected to and sustained.

Jurors generally like the judge. And now having read what the judge said at sidebar privately to the lawyer, I don’t know the tone of voice, but to me it screamed out as, “What on God’s green earth do you think you’re doing? Do not inject yourself personally into the case.”

Healy: Let’s turn to Trump’s defense. At this point, his team isn’t expected to call many witnesses. What’s their strategy here? What do you think of it?

Weissmann: We don’t know yet whether Donald Trump will take the stand or not. I can imagine that his defense team strongly is advising him not to. But just to be clear, the law is, that decision is the defendant’s decision, not defense counsel’s decision.

It is very typical, though, for there to be no defense case or a very short defense case. It wouldn’t be unusual to have them just rest because remember, our system of justice is that the state has the burden of proving each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense lawyer does not have to do anything.

But sometimes the defense puts forth an alternative narrative that they think could create reasonable doubt; to say, it is possible that there is this other way of looking at it. I find one thing that is striking here is there is no alternative narrative that has come out during the trial.

Healy: So what do you think the defense needs to do at this point for the jury — or a single juror, as the case may be — to come back with an acquittal or a hung jury for Donald Trump?

Weissmann: I think they do need to cross-examine Michael Cohen as hard as possible, because obviously if you believe Michael Cohen, I think the guilt will be proved.

I do think the defense may have something else going for it, which is not something that the judge is going to say, which is — because this is the former president, there are jurors who may be looking for that extra piece of evidence that may hold the state to an even higher standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Where some of the jurors are thinking, “Gee, if I’m going to take this step, I want to see extra proof.”

Healy: Andrew, you’ve just identified something that is so on my mind. I’ve really been wondering about this with a jury of regular Americans. It’s that this is a former president who is on trial.

As I was listening to Michael Cohen’s testimony, tell me if I’m wrong — it seemed like even Michael Cohen was saying that Donald Trump didn’t literally say the words “falsify the business records” or “this is a payment to cover you on that money you sent to Stormy,” or something. And if I’m a regular person on that jury, and this is a former president of the United States facing criminal charges or conviction, I think there’s a part of me that wants to hear Michael Cohen or some corroboration that former President Trump said very specifically, “I want you to do X,” and that X is clearly a crime. I’m not sure I’ve heard that. Have you?

Weissmann: I think that is going to be argued by the defense, and it should be argued by the defense. But if I were the prosecutor, what I would say in response to that legitimate concern is that’s not how criminal conspiracies work. And that is not how Donald Trump actually behaves.

When he says, “Just take care of it,” in terms of paying the money to silence Stormy Daniels, you don’t say, “I just want to make sure that you know what I mean is, you need to pay the money.” I mean, for God’s sake, he signed the checks.

We used to say that in organized crime cases that you’re not going to hear that the members of the Gambino family said: “We’re the Gambino family. We’re a RICO conspiracy and this is an enterprise and we’re going to all sign an indenture agreement,” as if it’s a business deal on Wall Street. When you have someone describing a criminal conspiracy, I think you look for that where things are said, in that — I won’t say indirect way — but they don’t have to be spelled out.

They’ve known each other for years. Add in that the jury has heard that he is a micromanager. They have heard that he’s a penny pincher, and they’ve also heard a lot of evidence about how he does not want a paper trail. He wanted plausible deniability. He didn’t sign things because of that. He said, “I don’t want to use email because people go down because they use email.”

The jurors will make a decision. Obviously, you never know what a jury is going to do, but I would be thinking what I’m thinking right now, which is this is an incredibly strong case.

You may be right, Patrick, that they wanted more. We’ll all find out pretty soon.

Healy: We’ll see. Thank you so much for joining us.

Weissmann: Thanks for inviting me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529284&forum_id=2#47670043)