And I was so hoping no one would respond with what is already well-known.
According to Cohen, Trump said (in relation to the payment to Stormy Daniels):
I want you to just push it out as long as you can just get past the election. Because if I win it will have no relevance because I’m president. And if I lose, I don’t even care.
If the jury believe this is a real quote then that’s a huge blow to Trump. He would no longer be able to claim he covered up the payment because he wanted to avoid embarrassing his wife or his family and ties it directly to the campaign.
Trump testifying on the stand that he didn’t say this would help him but it looks like it will be left to the defence counsel to try to undermine Cohen. Which means this whole case looks like it’s going to hinge on that cross-examination.
with sunshiny faces, no doubt
My understanding is that the prosecution’s case is that:
-
A payment was made to Cohen which was falsely recorded to be “legal services” when it was really for the payoff to Stormy Daniels to silence her.
-
The purpose for doing that was to protect his chances of winning the election.
-
This was effectively a massive campaign contribution, which was not declared as such.
-
Making a large campaign contribution without declaring such is a federal crime.
-
Falsifying records in furtherance of another crime elevates it to a felony in NY law.
If the jury is not convinced of any one of those things beyond a reasonable doubt, then Trump will be acquitted. That’s quite a few dependencies. A competent defense would try to identify any elements that they can undermine (if not all of them), and if there is any opportunity to cause a reasonable doubt they should focus on it. They don’t necessarily need to discredit everything, just something, and Trump can skate.
As a layman, reading the analysis and summaries in this thread, it seems to me like so far the prosecution has done a thorough job of making their case. So as much as this might seem like a house of cards (and that opinion has been made for quite some time, as this has been described previously as the weakest criminal case Trump has pending), I do think there’s a good chance of a conviction. But there are multiple ways that the defense could potentially pull this off. We’ll see what they do during cross-examination of Cohen, and of course the defense will have a chance to call their own witnesses later (if they have any).
CNN is speculating that the direct examination involving Stormy Daniels will take another hour. Then, prosecutors will move on to Cohen’s “change of heart,” or why he’s turning on Trump. That’s going to be interesting.
I so much hope that they slip in a quote from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
per cnn:
The jury is seeing emails between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson in which Davidson tells Cohen that due to his failure to wire funds, the deal was off.
On October 17, 2016, Cohen says, “My intent was to continue to delay it, as per Mr. Trump’s demand. And I clearly did not send funds to Mr. Davidson’s lawyers account on this date.”
“We were losing control over the settlement of this agreement in order to prevent the story from coming out,” Cohen says. Asked if he was concerned, Cohen said, “very.”
On October 17, National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard texted Michael Cohen: “I’m told they’re going with DailyMail. Are you aware?”
Cohen responded: “Call me.”
“Well???” Cohen texted later Howard, looking for an update.
“Not taking my calls,” Howard responded.
“You’re kidding,” Cohen wrote.
“Who are you trying to reach?” Cohen asked.
The “agent” Howard wrote, and Cohen testifies that was a reference to Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson.
Cohen recalls at the time, “This was obviously incredibly stressful, incredibly important.”
Michael Cohen called Trump at 5 p.m. on October 17, 2016.
The call log shows it lasted for eight seconds and Cohen says he left a voicemail.
“I called Mr Trump in order to advise him of the situation that because I didn’t forward the funds, (Stormy Daniels) is now declared the agreement void, that we were not going to be in a position to delay post the election, which is what he wanted me to do. And that the matter, the story, was going to go to the Daily Mail,” Cohen testified.
Michael Cohen says he set up the Essential Consultants LLC that day, to make sure he had a “vehicle” to transfer funds to Keith Davidson to “lock down the story.”
Michael Cohen is recounting his conversation with Donald Trump about the Stormy Daniels story and payment that is at the center of the case.
“He stated to me that he had spoken to some friends, some individuals, smart people, and that it’s $130,000. You’re a billionaire, just pay it,” Cohen testified.
“There’s no reason to keep this thing out there so do it. He expressed to me, just do it. Meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure this whole thing out,” Cohen said.
Michael Cohen says he spoke to Alan Weisselberg at the time and told the Trump Organization CFO that he was setting up an LLC and that “it just needed to be funded.”
Weisselberg asked if AMI, which owned the National Enquirer, could pay Stormy Daniels.
Cohen says he told him that wasn’t going to happen.
Remember we heard from the Enquirer publisher David Pecker, the first witness in the trial, that he wasn’t willing to get involved with the Daniels story or shell out any more money to kill Trump stories.
Michael Cohen says that Allen Weisselberg also suggested to him whether it was possible to use a golf course membership or an event like a wedding or bat mitzvah to give someone a credit to make the payment. But Cohen says that wasn’t possible because Trump’s name would be on all of his clubs.
“The whole purpose was to ensure the Trump name in no way was disclosed in this non-disclosure agreement,” Cohen says.
Eventually then-Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg suggested that Michael Cohen front the money to Stormy Daniels, Cohen says.
Weisselberg said he wasn’t financially in a position to do it, citing prep school and camp bills for his four grandkids.
Cohen says he and Weisselberg informed Trump that Cohen would front the money, and Trump was “appreciative.”
“He stated to me, ‘don’t worry, you’ll get the money back,’” Cohen testified.
“I was doing everything I could and more to protect my boss, which is something that I had done for a long,” Michael Cohen said.
Cohen testified that he would not have paid the nondisclosure agreement on his own.
“I would not lay out $130,000 for an NDA needed by somebody else,” Cohen says.
Michael Cohen is looking at the jury directly as he explains why he chose a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to fund the Stormy Daniels payment: It was paperless.
“I elected to use the HELOC. And once I received the money back from Mr. Trump, I would just deposit it and no one would be the wiser,” Cohen testifies.
He didn’t draw money from his personal bank account because his wife was “CEO of the household” and she would notice a $130,000 withdrawal, Cohen says.
“She would’ve asked me and I clearly could not tell her and that would’ve been a problem to me.”
Michael Cohen spoke with David Pecker and Dylan Howard on October 25, 2016.
Cohen says he asked Pecker if he would make the payment. “I figured why not ask,” Cohen says.
Donald Trump leaned in to say something to his attorney Todd Blanche. He briefly looked over in Cohen’s direction.
Pecker said, “Not a chance,” according to Cohen.
“I had to get this done,” Cohen says on the stand. “This would be catastrophic to the campaign.”
Trump exhaled opening his eyes briefly. He pointed to something in front of Blanche as he said something to him.
Michael Cohen had two phone calls with Trump around 8:30 a.m. on October 26, 2016, before Cohen went across the street to the bank to make the payment to Keith Davidson.
“I wanted to ensure that once again he approved what I was doing because I require approval from him on all of this,” Cohen says.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger follows up and asks whether Cohen would have gone forward to the bank without Trump’s approval. “No,” Cohen says.
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off, on top of that I wanted the money back,” he says.
It truly is a massive stretch to think that Cohen did all of this on his own and contemporaneously told people what he was doing.
Looks like you guess has been largely confirmed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cr2d6p/trump_in_the_courtroom_today/
Photo of Trump, with a blown-up copy of a New York Times page, that is apparently about poll results that show Trump in a good light.
cnn updates:
The jury is seeing a bunch of calls between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson, who represented Stormy Daniels, on October 25, 2016.
“In order to ensure that he knew that the matter was being taken care of and soon there was going to be the transfer of funds in order to have him execute the nondisclosure agreement and side letter,” Cohen says.
There were at least 10 calls on the log between 6:22 p.m. and 7:11 p.m. Several of them are less than 10 seconds long.
Cohen says he checked in with Davidson to ensure the deal was in order “so I could express to Mr. Trump as an update that the matter is under control.”
Michael Cohen had two phone calls with Donald Trump around 8:30 a.m. on October 26, 2016, before Cohen went across the street to the bank to make the payment to Keith Davidson.
“I wanted to ensure that once again he approved what I was doing because I require approval from him on all of this,” Cohen says.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger follows up and asks whether Cohen would have gone forward to the bank without Trump’s approval. “No,” Cohen says.
“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off, on top of that I wanted the money back,” he says.
Michael Cohen testifies that on the two October 26, 2016, calls with Donald Trump, he was "laying out exactly what was going to happen in order to ensure the (Stormy Daniels) story didn’t get sold to Daily Mail or somebody else. "
Cohen says he told Trump he was going across the street to the bank to open the account for the LLC that would wire the money to Daniels.
Michael Cohen says that the documentation he gave to the bank about Essential Consultants LLC was false.
He says it was false in order “to hide the intent of the reason for opening Essential Consultants, which is to pay for a nondisclosure agreement.”
Asked if he thought the bank would open the account if he was truthful, Cohen says, “I believe that they probably would not.”
Michael Cohen is shown an email from his bank saying that funds had been transferred from his HELOC.
He says he sent the email to Stormy Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson “in order to demonstrate to him that the deal is going to be consummated, that we’re moving forward with it, make sure everything stays locked down, that Ms. Daniels is under control.”
Michael Cohen called Donald Trump on October 28 at 11:48 a.m. They spoke for 5 minutes.
It was the same day Cohen signed the nondisclosure agreement and side letter.
He said he told Trump “That this matter is now completely under control and locked down.”
The jury is seeing call logs indicating there were many calls between Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks on November 4, between 4:51 p.m. and 9:15 p.m.
Cohen said they were “getting our heads around this article, figuring out how to change the narrative and how to quash any of the negative results that would come from it because it was days before the election.”
Michael Cohen says he understood ahead of time that the Wall Street Journal story was going to be about Karen McDougal but also would mention Stormy Daniels.
When asked by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Cohen confirmed he reached out to Hope Hicks and David Pecker to coordinate the situation.
He spoke to them “so that we could all coalesce around this issue in an attempt to again quell the potential effects of an article like this.”
Michael Cohen says he spoke with Stormy Daniels’ attorney Keith Davidson seven times that day.
Cohen says he “wanted to ensure Ms. Daniels did not go rogue.”
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger also asks if he spoke to Davidson about Karen McDougal. “Yes,” Cohen says, as if it stirred his memory.
“Were you angry at him?” Hoffinger asks.
“Very,” Cohen says.
“She was his client, and I respected that he would have this under control,” Cohen says of Davidson, adding, “I wanted to ensure Mr. Trump was safe.”
Michael Cohen had several calls with Dylan Howard of the National Enquirer that evening.
He says he “was expressing to him in a rather angry manner” that Karen McDougal was now part of his team and “you need to get ahold of this” and also issue denials.
we are at the afternoon break.
the prosecution direct will go into tomorrow.
Is it a real article/newspaper? I only ask because it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they gave him newspapers with fake articles about him to stroke his ego.
Conjecture about Cohen’s motive’s from former defense attorney Seth Abramson:
25/ So yes—Michael Cohen has a right to be angry. He watched Trump pardon every other criminal co-conspirator or arguable co-conspirator—Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort—while Trump had such confidence that Cohen was his dog that he wouldn’t save him.
It appears to be real, but the poll might be from March. So not current, just flattering.
Direct examination of Cohen expected to continue tomorrow.
I’m not sure I follow this. The idea is to give a confederate a discount on a Trump service and in exchange the confederate would pay Daniels? Is the issue bringing in another person into the scheme and they would know the linkage?
Or it wouldn’t be a confederate, but a random customer, and that customer could figure out the linkage?
Or just a generic concern not to tie a legit business in the scheme at all?
cnn updates:
The prosecution’s questions resumed with text messages between Michael Cohen and Hope Hicks on November 5, 2016, the day after the Wall Street Journal story came out.
The text messages said:
Cohen: “So far I see only six stories. Getting little to no traction.”
Hicks: “Same”
Hicks: “Keep praying!! It’s working!”
Cohen testifies they were concerned “this story would explode into a massive issue and we were monitoring to see the type of traction the story was getting from other news sources.”
Michael Cohen texted Hope Hicks about the reaction to the Wall Street Journal story.
“Even CNN not talking about it. No one believes it and if necessary, I have a statement by Stormy (Daniels) denying everything and contradicting the other porn stars statement. I wouldn’t use it now or even discuss with him as no one is talking about this or cares!”
Michael Cohen was asked if he would continue to work for the Trump Organization after the 2016 presidential election.
“No, because my service was no longer necessary. I was special counsel to Mr. Trump and he was now president-elect,” Cohen testified.
Trump nodded with his eyes closed as Cohen said this.
Cohen is testifying that he was disappointed that he wasn’t considered for chief of staff at the White House after Trump was elected president — although Cohen acknowledges he was not “competent” for the job.
“I just wanted my name to have been included,” Cohen says. "I wanted to at least be considered. It was more about my ego than anything,’ he added
As Cohen mentions his ego, Trump opens his eyes to look at Cohen briefly.
Michael Cohen says he wanted to be personal attorney to the president but he really wanted to be “consultant” so he could stay in New York.
“Every president has a personal attorney. So my thought was that way I could continue to protect him, to do the things he needed with these other matters. And he would be protected,” Cohen says.
Cohen said being personal attorney to the president “opens up a tremendous amount of doors for people who are trying to understand the mind of Trump.”
Cohen is looking at the jury directly as he’s explaining his pitch to Trump.
Michael Cohen is looking directly at the jury as he explains his pitch to be Donald Trump’s personal attorney.
“Mr. Trump was an enigma. He was a businessman no one knew what his position was,” he says.
Cohen says he thought he could monetize the position and knowledge of Trump. “Because of my close proximity to him for a decade, I did understand him,” Cohen says.
Cohen says he brought in an attorney who helped him pitch the idea to Trump.
He presented Trump with a 3-page memo explaining why Trump needed a personal attorney and why it should be Cohen. They met for about an hour about it, Cohen testifies.
Michael Cohen is now being shown text messages he exchanged with his daughter after the 2016 election.
He says he explained to her his role would not be in government, but it would be “a hybrid” with access to Trump while being able to monetize his relationship with various companies.
Michael Cohen said he didn’t expect to be compensated by Donald Trump for being his personal attorney as president because he understood he’d make money from the companies that would pay him for insights on Trump.
A day or two before Trump left for the inauguration in January 2017, Cohen said Trump officially made him his personal counsel.
i believe they were looking around, trying to find ways of not paying for stormy. pecker said no, perhaps someone else would say yes.
this payment and repayment really landed them in a world of trouble.
with pecker paying for the other 2 big stories, pecker was the one in legal jeopardy.
This is where I personally…maybe not struggle, but someone point me in the right direction. Everything in this case can be true and Trump is not guilty if he didn’t cause that ledger entry to say legal services instead of reimbursement for NDA - very generally speaking. Right? What is the proof he caused the ledger entry to be recorded in a specific incorrect way?
Is this just inferred? They had a bookkeeper or accountant on last week, did that person say Trump caused them to enter it a specific way. Or is it, likely, a snowball effect - the whole scheme was concocted by Trump (or he explicitly approved it) which caused Cohen to send the false/wrong invoice, which caused the check to be written to pay back the false invoice, which caused the person to account for all this falsely on the general ledger?
Would the defense be allowed to call witnesses to testify on how often NY prosecutes felony falsification of business records? In other words, go with the “witch hunt / political persecution” approach and hope for sympathy from at least one member of the jury?
cnn update:
Michael Cohen testifies that he was angry, beyond angry" because Donald Trump had slashed his bonus by two-thirds.
Cohen says after fronting “$130,000 on his behalf to protect him, it was insulting that the gratitude that was shown back to me was to cut the bonus by two-thirds.”
Trump provided bonuses in an annual Christmas card to his staff. “Right after opening it I actually had to take a double take,” Cohen says.
He immediately went to (CFO Allen) Weisselberg’s office “and in some colorful language expressed to him how truly pissed off and angry I really was. This makes no sense at all.”
Trump laughs to himself and nods as Cohen testifies about how angry he was about the bonus cut.
Cohen’s tone is still very even and measured.
He says, with a smirk, “I was even for myself unusually angry.”
Trump now reviews a sheet of paper in front of him. He’s got a big black marker in his hand that he pulled from his inside jacket pocket.
The overflow room audibly laughed at Michael Cohen’s line about being unusually angry over his bonus.
Michael Cohen says he also spoke with David Pecker about his unhappiness with the bonus.
“Can you believe this after all of this and laying out $130,000 to protect him, this is the best that I get?” Cohen recalls telling Pecker.
“I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t even so much about the number as much as it was about the disrespect that came with it. I was just personally insulted,” Cohen says.
On the call, Trump told him next year he should come to Mar-A-Lago an said “don’t worry about that other thing, I’m going to take care of it when I get back,” Cohen said referencing his bonus.
The jury is shown the First Republic wire transfer document with Allen Weisselberg’s handwriting.
Cohen confirms he provided the First Republic Bank statement. The jury again sees the copy that Weisselberg took handwritten notes on calculating what Trump owed Cohen based on their conversations.
Cohen said he was in the room when Weisselberg wrote on the document.