Ag with kids said:

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Im Gipper said:

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SwigAg11 said:

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I may have missed it, but did the defense object to Cohen being asked his opinion on FECA violations?

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I don't believe he was asked for an opinion. I believe he testified he plead guilty, correct?

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This is what Hawg posted:

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Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger reads the line from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) statement, "The payment in question does not constitute a campaign contribution."
"Was that a true statement?" she asks Michael Cohen.
"No ma'am," he says.

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To elaborate on this issue I think I know why defense did not call Bradley Smith and that snippet of testimony explains why.

Prosecution would cast aspersions on Smith that since Cohen lied to the FEC in that letter is the reason why no action was taken either against Cohen nor the Trump campaign. That they were misled by Cohen and that caused them not to act upon it.

Do you recall what day?

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THE TRUMP TRIAL SUFFERS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. The trial of former President Donald Trump is now in its sixth week in Manhattan. Even though it doesn't meet every day, the court sessions are intense and can wear on all the participants. It is particularly unfortunate when they wear on the judge who is in control of all the proceedings. That is what appears to have happened late Monday, at the end of a very odd day, when Judge Juan Merchan abruptly ordered the courtroom cleared of everyone, including press, even though the trial is public when Merchan apparently lost his temper over a witness called by the Trump defense.

The witness was Robert Costello, a well-known lawyer in New York. Costello had once been the lawyer for Michael Cohen, who was once Trump's lawyer and who, according to testimony in the trial, has spent the last several years lying about Trump, stealing money from him, evading taxes, and defrauding banks, among other activities. Manhattan prosecutors have based key parts of their case against Trump on Cohen's word.

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Having Costello testify was a last-minute decision by the Trump defense. He had knowledge of Cohen's credibility, having been Cohen's lawyer, and by an unusual series of events, Cohen had waived attorney-client privilege concerning Costello, meaning that Costello could testify about their communications. Costello testified that Cohen told him that Trump did not know about the nondisclosure agreement payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. "Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times," Costello said.

That is important information, given that it goes to the heart of the case that Trump allegedly, with intent to defraud, falsified records of the payments because he was also intending to commit some other crime that prosecutors have not yet specified. If Trump "knew nothing about those payments," as Cohen said, according to Costello's testimony, that would throw a big wrench in the prosecution's theory of what happened.

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When the prosecutor objected to something else, and Merchan said, "Sustained," Costello said, "Yes. Strike it." That was apparently it for Merchan, who ordered the jury out of the room. When the jurors were gone, Merchan let Costello have it.
"When there is a witness on the stand, if you don't like my ruling, you don't say 'Jeez,' OK?" Merchan said. "And then you don't say 'strike it,' because I'm the only one that can strike testimony in the courtroom. Do you understand that?" Costello said, "I understand." Merchan continued: "OK. And then, if you don't like my ruling, you don't give me side eye and you don't roll your eyes. Do you understand that?"
"I understand that," Costello said. "I understand what you're saying." At that point, Merchan said, "OK. Thank you. Let's get the jury back," but then, Merchan said to Costello, "Are you staring me down right now?" Costello answered, "No. I'm just wondering how" And then Merchan said, "Clear the courtroom, please. Clear the courtroom." Court officers got up to hustle everybody out of the room.

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"Can I say something please?" Costello asked. "No," Merchan said. "This is not a conversation."
After that, Merchan allowed the press and public to reenter and then the jury. But what was that about? Yes, it appears Costello was somewhat disrespectful of the judge. At the same time, Merchan seemed to be channeling, to make two old movie references, Travis Bickle "You talkin' to me?" and Captain Queeg "I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn."
By Tuesday morning, many commentators were pronouncing the moment a disaster for the Trump defense, but the bottom line was that it was a moment of supreme weirdness in the trial. And it overshadowed not only Costello's testimony but something far more important that happened earlier in the day, when Cohen admitted that he had stolen $60,000 from Trump during all the Daniels transactions. Cohen was angry that Trump had cut his bonus, and he responded by stealing the money. "I was angry because of the reduction in the bonus, and I just felt like it was almost like self-help," Cohen said.

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LINK

This isn't an attack or anything. It's just my opinion. But I would prefer that you just post the link rather than hide the url with the word "link". It's an easier way to identify the source without having to click on it.

The charging conference is supposed to be happening now, isn't it?

So, what are we thinking? Will this NYC jury convict? If so, what's the sentence and how much does he serve of it?

Im Gipper said:

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Do you recall what day?

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which ever day he was under redirect. Don't remember which day that was but didn't redirect last no more than 1 day?

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Judge Juan Merchan and lawyers for the defense and prosecution are meeting now in the Manhattan courtroom to work on jury instructions.
During the charge conference, the parties will hash out instructions on the law that the judge will eventually read to the jury as he charges them to begin deliberations, which could start next week.
What happens next: Attorneys for the prosecution and defense are expected to deliver closing arguments Tuesday as they appeal to the jury.
Because they have the burden of proof, prosecutors address the jury first but they also get the last word, so the prosecution will give a rebuttal argument after the defense closing argument.

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Heading back into the courtroom Tuesday afternoon, former President Donald Trump called for the hush money case against him to be dismissed.
Both sides have rested their case and closing arguments are expected to start next Tuesday, according to Judge Juan Merchan.
Trump, speaking to reporters, called Merchan "complicated and conflicted," echoing language he has been repeating throughout the trial. He also continued to claim there is "no crime."
The former president also said the next few hours will be important. The lawyers and Merchan will work through the instructions that will be given to the jury.

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From the CNN live blog.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-trial-05-21-24/index.html

Found it! Monday starts at page 148. It was not asking for a legal conclusion opinion, but whether what he wrote in a letter was true. No doubt, its a fine line.

The defense asked him the question first it appears, then on redirect the prosecution sought to clean it up. It was followed by an instruction from Merchan:

That the payment in question does not
constitute a campaign contribution or expenditure, and Mr.
Cohen responded that is not true.
I remind you thatMichael Cohen pleaded guilty to
violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, but that
evidence has been permitted to assist you in assessing Mr.
Cohen's credibility as a witness and help provide context
for some of the other evidence that has been offered.
You may consider that testimony for those purposes
only.
Mr. Cohen's plea is not evidence of the
defendant's guilt. You may not consider it in determining
whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the
charged crimes.

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Dude...all the work aggiehawg has done for all of us

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I did it just one morning! It is MUCH harder than it looks! The cut/paste is greatly appreciated!

General Jack D. Ripper said:

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So, what are we thinking? Will this NYC jury convict? If so, what's the sentence and how much does he serve of it?

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They'll sentence Trump to a round of drawing and quartering then award themselves a million dollars each for their service.

Im Gipper said:

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Found it! Monday starts at page 148. It was not asking for a legal conclusion opinion, but whether what he wrote in a letter was true. No doubt, its a fine line.

The defense asked him the question first it appears, then on redirect the prosecution sought to clean it up. It was followed by an instruction from Merchan:

That the payment in question does not
constitute a campaign contribution or expenditure, and Mr.
Cohen responded that is not true.
I remind you thatMichael Cohen pleaded guilty to
violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, but that
evidence has been permitted to assist you in assessing Mr.
Cohen's credibility as a witness and help provide context
for some of the other evidence that has been offered.
You may consider that testimony for those purposes
only.
Mr. Cohen's plea is not evidence of the
defendant's guilt. You may not consider it in determining
whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the
charged crimes.

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I'm not sure how you consider that him not giving a legal conclusion opinion. It's very straight forward that is exactly what he's doin. Not even a fine line. He's declaring it to be fact that the contribution was a campaign contribution.

Im Gipper said:

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Found it! Monday starts at page 148. It was not asking for a legal conclusion opinion, but whether what he wrote in a letter was true. No doubt, its a fine line.

The defense asked him the question first it appears, then on redirect the prosecution sought to clean it up. It was followed by an instruction from Merchan:

That the payment in question does not
constitute a campaign contribution or expenditure, and Mr.
Cohen responded that is not true.
I remind you thatMichael Cohen pleaded guilty to
violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, but that
evidence has been permitted to assist you in assessing Mr.
Cohen's credibility as a witness and help provide context
for some of the other evidence that has been offered.
You may consider that testimony for those purposes
only.
Mr. Cohen's plea is not evidence of the
defendant's guilt. You may not consider it in determining
whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of the
charged crimes.

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As a limiting instruction, I guess that is the best Merchan could do. It's sucky but not the worst.

Not on a phone. It's easier to just post the link rather than add a tag, and it's easier to identify the link while scrolling rather than needing to hover or click. I don't see an advantage to adding the tag. It's more work for the poster and the reader. I appreciate the links.

aggiehawg said:

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Judge Merchan has so restricted my testimony that defense has decided not to call me. Now, it’s elementary that the judge instructs the jury on the law, so I understand his reluctance. /1

— Brad Smith (@CommishSmith) May 20, 2024

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The tweets are a doozy, he points out that his testimony would have clearly pointed out that there was no 'underlying crime' and the agency he once headed to regulate elections, the Federal Election Commission, never prosecuted such issues, because they simply weren't crimes.

This one stands out:

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Picture a jury in a product liability case trying to figure out if a complex machine was negligently designed, based only on a boilerplate recitation of the general definition of "negligence." They'd be lost without knowing technology & industry norms. /3

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...and this...

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/4 Someone has to bring that knowledge to the jury. Thatnot the lawwas my intended testimony. For example, part of the state's case is that they wrongly reported what they knew to be a campaign expenditure in order to hide the payment until after the election.

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He was the guy to bring that kind of knowledge, as he stated here, but here's the guy who got that job instead:

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/7 but While judge wouldn't let me testify on meaning of law, he allowed Michael Cohen to go on at length about whether and how his activity violated FECA. So effectively, the jury got its instructions on FECA from Michael Cohen!

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Which he noted, shows just how rigged Justice Merchan's courtroom really is:

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/9 So you've got a judge who contributed to Trump's opponent presiding over a trial by a prosecutor who was elected on a vow to get Trump, for something DOJ and FEC chose not to prosecute, on a far-fetched legal theory I which the prosecution has been allowed …


/10… To repeatedly misstate the law or elicit incorrect statements of law from witnesses (and unlike Cohen's, my testimony would not have gone to the ultimate legal issue). The judge's bias is very evident.

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As for the faulty instructions, the burglary analogy comes from this legal commentator cited by Newsweek:

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On May 21, Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote in her Civil Discourse blog about a comment Judge Juan Merchan made while discussing jury instructions. A judge gives such instructions to explain the laws a jury must use to decide a case.

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...and...

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"If I enter your home without permission, that's trespass, a misdemeanor. But, if I do it with the intent to commit another crime while I'm there, it's burglary, a felony. The false records violation works the same way," she wrote.

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The underlying "crime" of course is trying to influence an election. Apparently no one is allowed to influence an election, and especially not a candidate.

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LINK

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Excellent post!
I would have "re-thunk" my young-adult decision to drop 'Pre-Law' as my major...IF I'd somehow known you were a faculty member where I could have been accepted.

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I'm not sure how you consider that him not giving a legal conclusion opinion. It's very straight forward that is exactly what he's doin. Not even a fine line. He's declaring it to be fact that the contribution was a campaign contribution.

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Because it the context of how it first came up.

Team Trump asked if everything was true in the letter.

If Cohen it was a violation of the law to do this, that is a legal conclusion that is not allowed. Saying what he gave was not to him a campaign contribution is not an opinion on legality. An person can testify on an ultimate issue, but not give a legal conclusion.

It is a fine line here.

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Both sides are now discussing the language the defense wants to include in jury instructions.
The defense wants the jury to be told that in 2015 and 2016, there was no limit on a candidate's ability to contribute personal funds to his or her campaign.
"It has nothing to do with the case and is extraneous and would probably be confusing to the jury," Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo argues with regards to the language on candidates' personal contributions.
Merchan said he will not give the jury instruction on the issue.
He tells the defense they can say in closing arguments that "if your client has certain wealth he could have paid for this himself."

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Judge Juan Merchan says he's reserving his decision on the willful issue.
The defense argued that any violation of federal campaign finance laws had to be wilful and that the word needed to be included in the jury instruction.
The prosecution said there was no need to add the word "wilful."

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Robert Costello's disastrous testimony may not have a serious impact since the jury will have a week to think and reset before deliberating, Robert Hirschhorn, a jury consultant and attorney, said on CNN.

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"Normally it would be a really big problem for the defense because Costello was a disaster, ok? I am convinced that it was Trump that insisted he be a witness and I am now convinced that Trump was looking out for number one by calling him as witness and he ended up stepping in number two, alright?," Hirschhorn said.

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He continued, "So, it normally be a really big problem for the defense but here's the difference this one week is going to work as a reset."
Hirschhorn added, however, that he believes this one week off might actually help the defense instead of the prosecution.

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Or you can hover over the link and see the source without clicking on it.

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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I'm not sure how you consider that him not giving a legal conclusion opinion. It's very straight forward that is exactly what he's doin. Not even a fine line. He's declaring it to be fact that the contribution was a campaign contribution.

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Because it the context of how it first came up.

Team Trump asked if everything was true in the letter.

If Cohen it was a violation of the law to do this, that is a legal conclusion that is not allowed. Saying what he gave was not to him a campaign contribution is not an opinion on legality. An person can testify on an ultimate issue, but not give a legal conclusion.

It is a fine line here.

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That's not what happened. The letter said it was not a campaign contribution. He was stating that was not true, thus providing an opinion on it being a campaign contribution. How you want to decide that is not him giving a legality opinion is mind numbing. The defense isn't even allowed to call an expert on the matter yet this statement by Cohen is somehow not his opinion on what defines a campaign contribution? Yikes, I think I'd need a shower defending that level dirtiness.

Judge will do what he can to provide the jury instructions that will most likely result in conviction.

General Jack D. Ripper said:

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So, what are we thinking? Will this NYC jury convict? If so, what's the sentence and how much does he serve of it?

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Is there ANY doubt that Trump will be convicted? This case was decided weeks, months, years before it started.

In Liberal LaLa land, he'd serve about 450 years, consecutive, with no parole.

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The defense wants the jury instructions to include a line: "for the purpose of influencing any election requires proof that the activity clearly and unambiguously related to President Trump's campaign."
Defense attorney Emil Bove says they were seeking to provide this type of content through the testimony of campaign finance expert Brad Smith had they been allowed to, so they are asking Judge Juan Merchan to include it.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo disputes Bove's claim that the phrase is a fact of law.
Colangelo says the jury probably needs less not more when it comes to the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) terms.

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"We think the jury probably needs less not more on FECA instructions, and we think the term 'for the purpose of influencing an election' is a pretty straightforward term that jurors can understand," Colangelo says.

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What Merchan ruled: He says he won't include it, noting that some of these issues related to FECA are confusing enough for the jury.
He says other portions of the instructions will accomplish what Trump's attorneys are looking to do with that phrase.

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Yet defense wanted a witness to clear up that confusion, you dolt!

Just catching up now. Trump said that "absolutely" he would testify but he didn't. Do we know why?

aggiehawg said:

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Quote:

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Remember: Prosecutors allege Trump was a part of an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election. They allege he was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

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Colangelo is alleging a conspiracy again. Yet that was NOT one of the 3-4 "theories" put forth by the prosecution in the indictment?

Is it customary for the prosecution to introduce a new possible predicate crime not listed in the initial indictment?

So much of this case seems to revolve around the confusion of what constitutes a FEC violation, and whether it was a conspiracy to violate some nebulous rule regarding the election.

Colangelo's argument seems to be: "Trump: 'We're not really sure what the law is and whether we're breaking it, but if there's a question, our intent is to break it".

Aggie Apotheosis said:

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Just catching up now. Trump said that "absolutely" he would testify but he didn't. Do we know why?

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It would have been a ****ing free for all. And no matter how many legitimate objections his attorney's levied, they would all be overruled no matter what the prosecution wanted to get into.

Aggie Apotheosis said:

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Just catching up now. Trump said that "absolutely" he would testify but he didn't. Do we know why?

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Because it's his absolute right under the constitution not to, and because his attorneys likely told him there was no way it was happening!


Did you really think Trump was going to testify this trial? Really?

Whoa!

Judge to Costello & Bove with jury and press out of courtroom.

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If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.

I will strike his entire testimony; do you understand me?

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Aggie Apotheosis said:

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Just catching up now. Trump said that "absolutely" he would testify but he didn't. Do we know why?

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Because he hired smart lawyers.

normalhorn said:

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General Jack D. Ripper said:

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So, what are we thinking? Will this NYC jury convict? If so, what's the sentence and how much does he serve of it?

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Is there ANY doubt that Trump will be convicted? This case was decided weeks, months, years before it started.

In Liberal LaLa land, he'd serve about 450 years, consecutive, with no parole.

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Or give him a helicopter ride with the Iranian president...