Sounds like today went about as I'd have guessed.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/05/14/how-michael-cohens-testimony-helped-donald-trump-n4929015

He didnt make a hush money payment. He was sold an NDA by an attorney but his knowledge of the purchase is somewhat suspect.

Regardlass of whether he wins the election or not, IF the jury returns a guilty verdict and then he loses the appeal, what happens? Jail? A fine? Community service?

TequilaMockingbird said:

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Regardlass of whether he wins the election or not, IF the jury returns a guilty verdict and then he loses the appeal, what happens? Jail? A fine? Community service?

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Well based on the "crime" provided....nothing.

SwigAg11 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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"The judge will charge this jury that if a witness has a bias or skin in the game, you take that testimony with caution," Brennan added. "A witness is supposed to say, 'they robbed the bank, they drove the car, it was blue and it was raining out.' Not 'I want him in jail.'"

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You had this in a previous post. Do judges typically state that to jurors or required to?

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Yes. There are pattern jury instructions on how juries may assess credibility. A good deal affecting their incarceration or favorable treatment in a criminal case is one, convicted perjurer another, bias and a financial interest in the outcome another, animus towards the defendant is another. Jury can consider those in assessing the credibility and the weight to give to that testimony from such a witness.

Notice I said "weight" too. I thought Keith Davidson, Stormy's and McDougal's lawyer, was a pretty scummy shakedown lawyer, was once suspended from practicing but the jury could easily find him more believable than Cohen. That's important because Davidson's and Cohen's testimony clashed often.

To be clear, a fact witness having animus towards another witness is not nearly as big of a deal as the avowed hatred towards a defendant. And it comes down to corroboration at the end of the day. All of the witnesses and even the prosecutors saying Cohen was not the savoriest of characters before Cohen stepped foot on the stand could either be corroborated or refuted by Cohen's demeanor OR his testimony.

Cohen could maintain his demeanor but what he was saying he did, lying to everyone including his wife over a HELOC, he could still be repugnant to the jury which corroborated the testimony of the earlier witnesses who did not like him because he was an A-hole jerk.

Were I on that jury, between Davidson and Cohen Davidson all of the way

SwigAg11 said:

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dallasiteinsa02 said:

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He didnt make a hush money payment. He was sold an NDA by an attorney but his knowledge of the purchase is somewhat suspect.

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I had not put all of that together like that (I'm probably just slow). It's been discussed during the trial that Cohen basically awarded himself the life rights to the story (and not Trump). I believe all of the witnesses from Stormy's end said they never had any interaction with Trump at all, and I do not believe there is any physical evidence either (e.g. texts, calls, emails, etc.).

He spent $130,000 of his own money then says he was trying to get paid back $420,000. With him owning the life rights, that sounds like a perfect setup for blackmail material and extortion, especially after we found out he recorded his client without his consent.

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It is problematical for Team Trump to call Cohen an extortionist just because that indirectly implies Cohen had the actual goods on Trump. But reading between the lines? More likely than not, that was the subtext.

I'll go back a long ways with Jim Comey in early 2017 and then his testimony before Congress in March 2017. Comey testified he asked to remain behind to speak with Trump privately. He told Trump about the Moscow hotel pee-tape with prostitutes story. Just to give Trump a heads up, Comey said.

But then Comey said something very curious during his Congressional testimony. In his folksy way, when recounting that private meeting he said he thought, "Oh lordy! I hope the President doesn't think I'm blackmailing him!"

That is a tell.

Your discussion about the jury/charge/charge conference are all great explanations about why - cost permitting - you should always have embedded appellate counsel on your trial team. They can focus on preserving error, directed verdicts, and the jury charge. I watched a plaintiff's case get utterly wrecked by my colleague who is an appellate counsel embedded in the trial team at the "informal" charge conference. Long story short, plaintiffs just assumed they were going to get a question that gave them 12 different blanks to get a "yes" and he had it down to 2 by the time it was time to start the "formal"/on-record charge conference.

pdc093 said:

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Witness tampering?

LAWFARE: Democrat Rep @DanielsGoldman has admitted to meeting with Michael Cohen to prepare him for today’s cross examination. Did Goldman advise him to admit to crimes yesterday to distract the jury? Is this witness tampering?pic.twitter.com/upQUVug4N3

— @amuse (@amuse) May 14, 2024

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This got buried pretty quickly earlier, but is this permissible?

Quote:

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Witness tampering?

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No

Sadly not witness tampering but his connection to the judge's daughter's company is something the defense can raise with Cohen.

"How many times did you meet with Congressman Goldman? What was the purposes of those meetings? Is the Congressman a part of your legal team now? Is he a part of the prosecution team to your knowledge/"

aggiehawg said:

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Sadly not witness tampering but his connection to the judge's daughter's company is something the defense can raise with Cohen.

"How many times did you meet with Congressman Goldman? What was the purposes of those meetings? Is the Congressman a part of your legal team now? Is he a part of the prosecution team to your knowledge/"

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I assume the defense has to be careful to not directly mention Merchan if they go through with that? They would need to raise those ethical concerns outside of the presence of the jury?

Edit: If they get Cohen to admit he was prepped by Goldman, I'm guessing the defense can raise an ethical concern on appeal, if needed?

degreedy said:

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Through all the witnesses thus far, what has been proven? Not a damn thing. This was one of the most fragmented incomplete trials accusing nothing that I have ever seen. It seems as though the only motivation of the prosecution was to prove that Trump may have a cloudy history, and that the clouds solely depend on the eye of the beholder. It was either a pretty cloud or an ugly cloud.

But where is the prosecutions case of proving illegal hush money payments? The only thing they proved is the witnesses themselves had very little to nothing to do with any payments apart from Cohen, and more so than anything some of the actual dealings that transpired to payments were direct results of Cohen's sliminess.

edit: spelling

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Except if you watch this case you'd think what's at trial is did Trump or did Trump not pay Stormy for an NDA. And this biased jury pool might convict him simply based on that. The law be damned.

Quote:

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Edit: If they get Cohen to admit he was prepped by Goldman, I'm guessing the defense can raise an ethical concern on appeal, if needed?

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On what basis?

Ethical concern isn't really an appellate point.

So, maybe I missed it. Can someone string together for me how the prosecution has shown that Trump falsified business records with the intent to conceal a crime?

not sure this matters too much, but to add a bit more info in case anyone else was under the wrong impression regarding the HELOC.

I've been under the impression that the HELOC was opened specifically for this purpose; according to the federal press release regarding Cohen, he AND his wife applied for a HELOC in December 2015 and were then approved in April 2016. He then used money from that HELOC (supposedly because he didn't want to use the cash at the same bank because his wife would find out (but somehow not find out about the HELOC withdraw also in her name?))

press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax

cohen testimony to house oversight:
"The reason that I used the home-equity line of credit as opposed to cash that I had in the same exact bank was that I didn't want my wife to know about it," Cohen said. "She handles all of the banking. And I didn't want her coming to me and asking, 'What's the $130,000 for?'"
Talk about a wow moment.
"I didn't want to explain to her what that payment was about," Cohen said.

fredfredunderscorefred said:

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not sure this matters too much, but to add a bit more info in case anyone else was under the wrong impression regarding the HELOC.

I've been under the impression that the HELOC was opened specifically for this purpose; according to the federal press release regarding Cohen, he AND his wife applied for a HELOC in December 2015 and were then approved in April 2016. He then used money from that HELOC (supposedly because he didn't want to use the cash at the same bank because his wife would find out (but somehow not find out about the HELOC withdraw also in her name?))

press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax

cohen testimony to house oversight:
"The reason that I used the home-equity line of credit as opposed to cash that I had in the same exact bank was that I didn't want my wife to know about it," Cohen said. "She handles all of the banking. And I didn't want her coming to me and asking, 'What's the $130,000 for?'"
Talk about a wow moment.
"I didn't want to explain to her what that payment was about," Cohen said.

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As if we need more evidence that he's a lying sack of schist. Definitely something to ask Thursday tho. "So you were lying on behalf of Trump until 2018 and apologized to this jury for your past indiscretions but didn't you tell this jury that you took out a heloc in 2016 so you could hide it from your wife but in fact your wife was on that heloc because you opened it well before the payment to stormy?""

Objection compound question

Not a bankruptcy lawyer. I am civil trial lawyer, that has handled a couple of adversary proceedings that had nothing to do with bankruptcy law


Still waiting fo any examples of how I ignore due process. Which you said happens often, so please provide examples.

bobbranco said:

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Probably objections but the transcriber disregards to facilitate coherent updates.

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you are correct. for example, there was 27 objections made on monday during the cohen testimony. few were discussed in the cnn blog

BMX Bandit said:

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bobbranco said:

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Probably objections but the transcriber disregards to facilitate coherent updates.

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you are correct. for example, there was 27 objections made on monday during the cohen testimony. few were discussed in the cnn blog

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CNN has put in very few objections. Inner City Press on Twitter/X has been very thorough during the trial, including logging a lot of objections.

https://twitter.com/innercitypress

thats a really good twitter account. I think it was the carroll trial when someone first linked to it.

BMX Bandit said:

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bobbranco said:

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Probably objections but the transcriber disregards to facilitate coherent updates.

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you are correct. for example, there was 27 objections made on monday during the cohen testimony. few were discussed in the cnn blog

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Is there a link to the transcript?

BMX Bandit said:

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bobbranco said:

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Probably objections but the transcriber disregards to facilitate coherent updates.

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you are correct. for example, there was 27 objections made on monday during the cohen testimony. few were discussed in the cnn blog

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Yep. I know very little about court reporters and stenography but it I know the court reporters are very effective with documenting court matters. I don't know if audio recording is part of court reporting to assist with transcribing. I do know that pulling together a days proceedings is not an easy task with all the tools available.

At best the news reporters in the gallery 'documenting' the trial would lag behind and not catch everything. Especially if they were multitasking like Jake Tapper was with his drawings.

here:

https://ww2.nycourts.gov/press/index.shtml

you can also see all the exhibits admitted

Hawg,

Driving home, the talk radio had some lawyer from Houston on. Don't remember his name,but seemed to be pretty high level.

He said that the defense should have asked specifically to Stormy questions related to the actual crimes being charged by the prosecution. Get her on the record stating that she has no info on any relevant facts of the case. Then, ask her if the defense knew she knew nothing about actual facts dealing with the actual charges.

Let the jury know that she was only there to defame Trump and add no actual facts to the case.

What are your thoughts on that?

Science Denier said:

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Hawg,

Driving home, the talk radio had some lawyer from Houston on. Don't remember his name,but seemed to be pretty high level.

He said that the defense should have asked specifically to Stormy questions related to the actual crimes being charged by the prosecution. Get her on the record stating that she has no info on any relevant facts of the case. Then, ask her if the defense knew she knew nothing about actual facts dealing with the actual charges.

Let the jury know that she was only there to defame Trump and add no actual facts to the case.

What are your thoughts on that?

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Necheles did ask her if she had any knowledge about the business records involved in this case and she said she did not.

But asking her if she thought the prosecutors knew she had no relevant knowledge calls for speculation or even hearsay. David Pecker and Keith Davidson would have no reason nor ability to know about internal record keeping at the Trump Org. Such knowledge is not a requirement for a witness who otherwise has some relevant knowledge.

But the more important factors regarding Stormy the defense extracted from her were her financial benefit from being a witness and personal animus towards Trump. Much more material as to her credibility, along with her prior inconsistent statements.

Defense was forced to play cards Merchan had dealt them with allowing the prosecution to ask about the details of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. The judge set that table.

So that particular criticism of the defense team misses the mark, in my view.

Quote:

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But asking her if she thought the prosecutors knew she had no relevant knowledge calls for speculation or even hearsay.

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Not if she told them directly during their interviews. This lawyer thought she did inform them of that.

aggiehawg said:

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Science Denier said:

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Hawg,

Driving home, the talk radio had some lawyer from Houston on. Don't remember his name,but seemed to be pretty high level.

He said that the defense should have asked specifically to Stormy questions related to the actual crimes being charged by the prosecution. Get her on the record stating that she has no info on any relevant facts of the case. Then, ask her if the defense knew she knew nothing about actual facts dealing with the actual charges.

Let the jury know that she was only there to defame Trump and add no actual facts to the case.

What are your thoughts on that?

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Necheles did ask her if she had any knowledge about the business records involved in this case and she said she did not.

But asking her if she thought the prosecutors knew she had no relevant knowledge calls for speculation or even hearsay. David Pecker and Keith Davidson would have no reason nor ability to know about internal record keeping at the Trump Org. Such knowledge is not a requirement for a witness who otherwise has some relevant knowledge.

But the more important factors regarding Stormy the defense extracted from her were her financial benefit from being a witness and personal animus towards Trump. Much more material as to her credibility, along with her prior inconsistent statements.

Defense was forced to play cards Merchan had dealt them with allowing the prosecution to ask about the details of her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. The judge set that table.

So that particular criticism of the defense team misses the mark, in my view.

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Did you the video clip of Stormy interview with ??? saying that Trump did not rape her, assault her etc? Did the Defense use that clip?

I would have pushed hard on Stormy trying to get paid through her daughter or a trust to avoid paying Trump.

Then I would ask something about does she believe testifying in this case may allow her to get out of her debt either by legal means or income.

Science Denier said:

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Quote:

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But asking her if she thought the prosecutors knew she had no relevant knowledge calls for speculation or even hearsay.

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Not if she told them directly during their interviews. This lawyer thought she did inform them of that.

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I'm sure she probably did but that is a minor matter in my view.

What is more appalling to me (which took place outside the presence of the jury) was said by Steinglass in response to defense motion for mistrial. It was very unseemly and demonstrated the prurient inclinations of the lead prosecutor, Steinglass. Paraphrasing he told the judge there were many more questions they could have asked for even more salacious details.

And then he offered to file those details under seal, presumably for the judge's reading pleasure. None of which were remotely relevant to their investigation so why were they aking her about those details in the first place? And the memoialize them and offer them to the judge in a sealed filing?

Quote:

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Did you the video clip of Stormy interview with ??? saying that Trump did not rape her, assault her etc? Did the Defense use that clip?

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The one with Bill Maher that was originally in 2018 that he aired again after her first day of testimony?

I don't remember the defense using that one as they probably didn't know about it. Personally I think the defense team was taken by surprise that the prosecution directed Stormy to go the Weinstein/Bill Cosby route that she was coerced or a victim of sexual assault. She never had even hinted at that before, in fact saying the exact opposite in the 2018 Maher interview.

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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Did you the video clip of Stormy interview with ??? saying that Trump did not rape her, assault her etc? Did the Defense use that clip?

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The one with Bill Maher that was originally in 2018 that he aired again after her first day of testimony?

I don't remember the defense using that one as they probably didn't know about it. Personally I think the defense team was taken by surprise that the prosecution directed Stormy to go the Weinstein/Bill Cosby route that she was coerced or a victim of sexual assault. She never had even hinted at that before, in fact saying the exact opposite in the 2018 Maher interview.

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Can the defense use that when they present thier case?