Like this:
Of course, given that we know that Cohen turned the authorities onto at least some of the information that lead to Trump’s lost fraud trial, we know that this isn’t true.
I’d be curious whether this opens up the prosecution to bring in the fraud case, since the defense raised the point of whether Cohen knew anything on Trump that was plausibly criminal?
Which is what he’s doing.
I suppose there was a bit of desperation but I suspect it’s not a great thing when the judge admonishes a defense witness and clears the courtroom to chew some people out.
I gather he wants to present a tough guy attitude, but the Trump team better get Costello in line. That jury probably wasn’t impressed with what they saw.
I feel like Costello, and especially Trump if he were to testify, basically want to sound like this bit of classic Homer Simpson:
“And I’m not out order. You’re out of order! The whole freakin’ system is out of order. You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth! Cause when you reach over and put your hand into a pile of goo… that was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do! Forget it, Marge. It’s Chinatown!”
My bolding. I’d seen a lot of speculation before today that Costello was unlikely to be called by the defense for this exact reason: that he’d say something that opened the door for the prosecution to bring up the fraud case.
Certainly he proved himself today to be the proverbial “loose cannon.”
The obvious counter that Cohen said these things to Costello because he (Cohen) feared that his words would get back to Trump, seems reasonably likely to be effective. Because no one would have trouble believing that something would get back to Trump, or trouble believing that Trump would revenge himself on Cohen if he found out that Cohen was telling the truth about Trump’s knowledge of the Stormy Daniels payment.
It’s all quite plausible. Whereas the defense narrative that Cohen suddenly started being 100% truthful and candid to this lawyer he barely knew (Costello) is a bit of a hard sell.
If I am correctly understanding, tomorrow will be finishing up with Costello (two hours at most) and a ruling on granting the Defense motion for dismissal (lol) and we are done except for closing arguments. Closing isn’t starting until next week per what the judge said this morning. Presumably there will still be a lot of lawyering over jury instructions and what is and isn’t acceptable during closing.
Am I missing anything?
I liked this bit from the judge, in response to Trump’s lawyer arguing that Cohen was a liar:
“You said his lies are irrefutable,” he says to the attorney. “But you think he’s going to fool 12 New Yorkers?”
I’m with the judge on this. That’s what the jury system is for.
So Costello looks back to some of the people Trump appointed during his presidency and thinks, “Trump could be President again. Attorney General Costello has a nice ring to it.”
From cnn update:
Bob Costello called for the defense:
- Costello testified that Cohen told him “numerous times” that Trump did not know anything about the payment to Daniels. When Costello told Cohen that his legal issues would be resolved if he gave “truthful information” to prosecutors, Cohen told Costello that he didn’t “have anything on Donald Trump.”
- About 14 minutes into defense attorney Emil Bove’s questioning of Costello, Judge Juan Merchan cleared the courtroom over “proper decorum.” Costello could be overheard making comments while attorneys were at a sidebar and over objections and glaring and rolling his eyes at the judge.
- When questioning resumed, Costello said he gave Cohen legal adviceduring a 96-minute phone call after the raid. He denied putting pressure on Cohen to “do anything” and said he considered Cohen is client.
- During the prosecution’s cross-examination, Costello pushed back on the notion that Costello was excited about potentially representing Cohen. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked Costello if he thought Cohen was being a “drama queen” during their meeting. Costello testified that Cohen was “putting on quite a show.”
Per rc:
Costello was in contact with cohen directly after the search warrants were served. For quite some time after that cohen was protecting trump. Cohen did not trust Costello and when he retained his own not paid by trump counsel, he stopped protecting trump.
Nope, that looks like it.
Unless…
Trump decides to throw all caution under the motorized vehicle and take the stand.
It’s infinitely easier to keep Donald Trump off the witness stand than it is to keep him off of a woman who hasn’t given him consent.
Some additional context: per CNN, the defense attorneys did not want to call Costello but were overridden by Trump, who had been impressed by Costello’s performance in front of Congress last week.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it, but it sounds like Trump isn’t the easiest client.
There are no words.
It’s hard for the ego of his lawyers, who have been through law school, bar exams, and years of experience, to suddenly realize that one Stable Genius™ surpasses all of that and can show them the right way to do things.
Along with Vice-President Abbott.
To be fair, Trump does know more about everything than anybody. Just ask him.
Everything Trump says he knows “more about than anybody”
The article is a few years old so it may not list all the subjects.
I was wondering why Trump was talking about the “late, great Hannibal Lector” at his rally the other day.
Like Trump in his own mind, Lector is an off-the-scale genius, and Lector escapes jail and takes revenge on his tormentor at the movie’s end, which I imagine Trump fantasizes quite a bit about doing the same.
The transcript has been released telling what happened once Merchan cleared the court.
Inside the courtroom, Merchan threatened to remove Costello from the stand and strike his testimony.
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous,” Merchan said to Costello, according to a transcript. “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.”
Costello tried to explain: “Can I say something, please?”
“No. No,” Merchan responded. “This is not a conversation.”
Oh yeah! Was just popping by to post that. Wowsers! I knew it would be quite the transcript moment.
How on earth does trump get people to toss their reputations away?? It is unfathomable to me.