Trump's lawyers are about to fall into a 'trap' set by Michael Cohen: legal expert – Raw Story
David joined Raw Story in 2023 after nearly a decade of writing about the legal industry for Bloomberg Law. He is also a co-founder and a commissioning editor at Hypatia Press, a publisher that specializes in philosophical works that challenge religion or spirituality.
Donald Trump's criminal defense team in the criminal hush money cover-up case in New York is likely to fall into a "trap" set by his ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the prosecution, a former prosecutor said on Sunday.
Trump is facing allegations that he falsified business records to hide a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, purportedly for the purpose of quieting her ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The jury is set to hear closing arguments this coming week, with Trump's defense hinging on an argument that his former attorney and "fixer" Cohen is not a credible witness.
But that tactic could prove to be a problem for Trump, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, who calls the dilemma "The hidden trap for Trump’s defense team in Michael Cohen’s testimony."
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"By his own admission at trial, Cohen has lied, cheated and stolen — including from the Trump Organization. That may seem like a problem for the prosecution. Yet in my experience, it is anything but. The very fact that Cohen himself admitted to his prior lies and criminal activity may very well lead the jury to credit his testimony and use it to convict Trump," the expert wrote.
He added that Cohen as "a nearly perfect cooperating witness."
"He was in direct communication with the bigger criminal fish. He even had a covert audio recording that helped prove Trump was involved in the corrupt scheme to hide damaging information for political advantage," Kirschner wrote for MSNBC Sunday. "Cohen testified that he committed crimes at the direction of Trump and, importantly, for the benefit of Trump."
He goes on to describe that a "perceived weakness" of Cohen, namely that he stole $30,000 from Trump while employed by him, is something he "would turn into a strength."
"In closing arguments, defense attorneys frequently fall into a trap of urging the jury to disbelieve a cooperating witness’ testimony that incriminates their client but believe the same testimony when it incriminates the witness," he then added. "The defense attorney likely will tell the jury, 'You can’t credit Cohen’s testimony because he’s a thief, having stolen from the very person he, as an attorney, was supposed to zealously represent.' That argument carries some superficial appeal."
This, Kirschner concluded, is how he would refute the argument.
"Ladies and gentlemen, who is it that proved to you that Michael Cohen stole $30,000 from the Trump organization? It was Michael Cohen himself, in his sworn testimony! And here’s the important part — Cohen’s testimony about his theft was uncorroborated. No other witness came in here and testified about it. There was no audio recording exposing it. There were no business records confirming it," the expert wrote. "So the defense is telling you to credit Michael Cohen’s uncorroborated testimony when he tells you he stole $30,000 from Trump. Yet, when Cohen’s testimony is corroborated by other witnesses — by audio recordings, by phone records, by business ledger entries, and by Trump-signed checks falsely purporting to be reimbursement for legal services — when Cohen is corroborated eight ways to Sunday, the defense urges you to disbelieve his testimony?"
Read the piece here.
Former President Donald Trump told a roomful of donors that he has plans to expel student demonstrators from the United States, insiders at the meeting told the Washington Post.
Talking to a roomful of wealthy supporters — that he joked contained “98 percent of my Jewish friends” — he promised to deport anybody taking part in what he called a “radical revolution.”
The promise would be a fundamental disregard for the right to freedom of speech.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country,” he told the group at the meeting on May 14, according to the Post.
“You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,”
He also praised the NYPD’s crackdown on Columbia University protesters, and urged police forces elsewhere to take similar action.
“Well, if you get me elected, and you should really be doing this, if you get me reelected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he said, according to the Post’s insiders.
“The private New York meeting offers new insight into his current thinking,” the Post reported.
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“Speaking to wealthy donors behind closed doors, Trump said that he supports Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror” and boasted of his White House policies toward Israel.
“The former president didn’t mention Netanyahu, whom he resents for acknowledging Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and hasn’t spoken to in years.”
Trump also told donors he supported Israel’s right to attack Gaza.
“But I’m one of the only people that says that now. And a lot of people don’t even know what October 7th is,” he said.
Trump has stated he wants to deport "anti-American" protesters at rally speeches.
A man claiming to be a U.S. veteran pranked C-SPAN on Memorial Day with a call into the Washington Journal program.
On Monday, Memorial Day, C-SPAN opened the phone lines to veterans and retired military personnel. The first caller identified himself as Jack from Kansas.
"I am retired military," Jack claimed. "Before I begin, I would like it if you could please thank me for my service."
C-SPAN host Pedro Echevarria seemed to be caught off guard.
"We'll do that all during the course of the morning, and thank you for doing that," the host said.
"As I said, I am retired military," the caller continued, identifying himself as Colonel Jack Strickland. "I fought under General Chad King in Iraqistan."
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"I'm proud to say that I have over 300 confirmed kills, and the Purple Heart that I received after an oil drum fell on my foot," he insisted. "Now, despite all of that, the VA has been giving me a raw deal when it comes to receiving benefits."
Strickland said the VA had refused to cover his legal fees.
"A few weeks ago, I was at a grocery store, and I saw a young boy, couldn't have been more than six or seven, and he was wearing a camouflage jacket," he opined. "I found this deeply offensive because nobody that young has ever served their country."
"So I began screaming, stolen valor, and then I beat the child with a crowbar."
At that point, it was clear to Echevarria that the call was illegitimate, and he disconnected.
"Okay, we'll go to Danny in Arizona, a member of the military family," the host said.
Watch the video below from C-SPAN.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to indict Donald Trump in Florida rather than Washington, D.C. has turned out to be a “fateful one” that could end up being the point that the case against him crashed, CNN wrote Monday.
A comparison between the judges in D.C. and the Florida jurist assigned the case, Aileen Cannon, showed “vastly different approaches,” with Cannon’s handling being criticized for slow progress that seems often sympathetic to the former president.
“Those approaches became apparent in the past week as opinions were unsealed from two D.C. federal judges indicating how much more quickly and harshly for Trump the case might have played out had it remained in Washington,” the report stated.
In recently unsealed opinions, D.C. Judge James “Jeb” Boasbert and his predecessor, Judge Beryl Howell — who had been involved in the case before it was sent to Florida — show “deep skepticism” for Trump arguments involving attorney-client privilege and secrecy around the grand jury that Cannon has now spent months considering — without reaching a decision.
Cannon's inability to rule on these, as well as other motions before her, have resulted in the case against the former president being put on indefinite hold — and it will almost certainly now not be heard before the November election.
Another example of the slow pace of the Florida judge compared to those in D.C. came last Friday when prosecutors asked Cannon to rule on a request for a gag order following comments that the FBI was told to use deadly force during the search of his Mar-a-Lago home in 2022.
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Cannon has yet to respond — though D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case against Trump, wasted no time gagging him from commenting on witnesses months ago, CNN pointed out.
The case involving the storing of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago started in D.C. but the Department of Justice transferred it to Miami before charing Trump because much of the alleged criminal actions happened there.
“Cannon is now being asked to re-examine fundamental portions of the case that Howell and Boasberg had already ruled on, including prosecutors’ ability to secure testimony in the DC grand jury from Trump’s former attorney Evan Corcoran,” CNN reported.
“Trump’s team is seeking to cut that testimony out of the prosecutors’ case entirely — an approach that might have been harder for the defense if the case had stayed in DC.
“Last year, Howell ordered Corcoran to testify in front of the grand jury after finding that his conversations with Trump were not protected by attorney-client privilege because they were in furtherance of a crime. Corcoran’s testimony ended up informing key portions of the indictment against Trump and included detailed accounts of Trump’s alleged efforts to keep the classified materials hidden from federal authorities.
“Bradley Moss, a DC-based lawyer with extensive national security experience, said that the ruling from Howell provided Cannon a “clear road map” to consider the attorney-client privilege issues.
“But Cannon hasn’t even scheduled a hearing on the topic, which the parties began arguing over in court papers in February. 'That she continues to sit on the matter is inexcusable,' Moss said.”
The report also noted that Howell had made many pre-indictment rulings that went against Trump — the same questions that Cannon is now slowly re-considering.
“Cannon, a Trump appointee confirmed to the bench in late 2020, has far less experience than the D.C. court handling cases where high-stakes political implications intersect with national security interests,” CNN reported.
“… 'Simply greater exposure to this litigation process alone speaks to the speed and detail with which these two DC judges handled these matters in comparison to Judge Cannon,” Moss said.
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