The jury instructions were posted Friday night and court resumes Tuesday in the hush money case in which Donald Trump is a defendant. So it stands to reason that his *lawyer* and spokesperson, Alina Habba, was on the airwaves in a cocktail dress prepping MAGA for a disappointment. And what disappointment? The disappointment of realizing that they’ve been backing a total fraud lo these many years and giving their hard earned cash to a grifter? No. Possibly, in the fullness of time, that realization will come. But for right now, it’s the judge’s fault. Oh, and there are no “facts.” Righto.
Habba: I'm not speaking now to posture for the president, but just generally as an attorney, as an American who understands the law and how to apply laws to facts, there are no facts that support this alleged crime. pic.twitter.com/MVlYLFUKF4
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 26, 2024
Politico has a piece up, “We’re on the cusp of a Trump verdict.” Indeed we are. And that verdict, coming days after Trump’s horrific showing at the Libertarian Convention on Saturday, could be a life changer. The large font is the question that was posed to a panel of experts and regular text the reply.
…if I were a juror — what I was supposed to take away. What did you see as the key points from Costello’s time on the stand?
Feuerherd: I think the substance of his testimony probably helped prosecutors make the point that they wanted to make — that Costello wanted to have this relationship with Cohen to create this backchannel to the Trump team and ultimately, to feed information to [Trump personal attorney] Rudy Giuliani and then on to Trump. Prosecutors might use that and say that the fact that Trump wanted to keep Cohen in the fold after the FBI raided him in 2018 is evidence that Trump knew that Cohen may have damaging information or that the investigation may come back to him, and that maybe he did something wrong with Cohen.
Do you think Trump’s team was able to make any useful points with the jury through Costello’s testimony?
Feuerherd: Costello said Cohen told him that Cohen didn’t believe he had anything on Trump in these meetings and these phone calls that he had in 2018, but I feel like that’s going to be a hard pill to swallow for the jury.
Erica, Trump had been saying he wanted to testify in this case. He did, in fact, take the stand twice of his own volition in the last year. Were you surprised that he didn’t take the stand this time around?
Orden: I was not surprised. In addition to all of the downsides that many people have discussed regarding how he would be cross-examined and what he would be cross examined on, I think it’s instructive to look at these other two times that he testified.
The first time was in the civil fraud case, and there was no jury, and Judge [Arthur] Engoron gave him a long leash on that testimony, he let him insult him to his face and go off on all sorts of tangents in his testimony. […]
It didn’t need to matter, but my view on that is that it mattered the moment that Trump attorney Todd Blanche denied Daniels’ account in his opening statement.
Gerstein: It matters to the credibility of both sides at this point, but there’s not going to be a box on the verdict form that says, “Did Trump have sex with Stormy Daniels?” The truth will be part of the public assessment and the ultimate verdict in the court of public opinion, but for the jury, it’s not that critical. […]
You were in the courthouse for all of the days of his testimony. At this point, what are the one or two things that have stayed with you as an observer?
Feuerherd: It’s sort of like one of these classic things where one day you hear the direct examination, and you’re like, “Oh, wow, they really hit it out of the park.” And then the next day you hear the cross and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, they really hit it out of the park.”
The prosecutors laid out through Cohen’s testimony the story that there was this hush money payment that was directed by Trump. Trump was literally in the room with Allen Weisselberg [the former Trump Organization CFO] and Cohen, when they told Cohen they’d reimburse him and when Weisselberg said, “This is how you’re going to get reimbursed. And here’s the math.”
And then later, according to Cohen, he met with Trump in the Oval Office, and Trump acknowledged this reimbursement scheme again.
That seems to be crucial testimony to the case, but then you have, obviously, these legitimacy issues with Cohen that were beaten to death by Blanche in a cross that jumped all over the place constantly.
And then you had this dramatic moment with Blanche presenting Cohen with this Oct. 24 call in 2016 and saying, “You know, are you sure that you called Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, and then Schiller handed Trump the phone, and then you can confirm that this happened?” The defense argued that Cohen was getting harassed by someone who purported to be a 14-year-old and he was actually calling Schiller because he wanted to get that handled — not to undermine the 2016 election.
When that exchange happened, you were sitting in the courthouse in an overflow room with other journalists and some members of the public watching on television monitors. Was there any sort of detectable shift in people’s attention?
Feuerherd: There was definitely an audible gasp.
Orden: It was also hard not to. Todd Blanche was practically shrieking at that point, so even if you weren’t paying attention, you would have started because his delivery was noticeable.
This reminds me of a comment that Al Gore made once. He said, “If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If the law is on your side, argue the law. If neither are on your side — holler.” That’s what Todd Blanche did.
And here’s another clip of Habba setting up the cult for a letdown. She’s complaining that the jury hasn’t been sequestered and they’re going to be partying with their friends who suffer from Trump derangement syndrome this holiday weekend. But for that, the jury would acquit.
Speculation is all we have at this point. The prosecution put on a meticulous, fact filled case, despite what Habba claims. The paper trail is obvious and compelling. Trump’s propensity for micromanagement is going to bite him in the butt, because it is totally believable that he knew what was happening every step of the way.
The comment has been made many places that maybe Michael Cohen admitting he stole from the Trump Organization will hurt him or his credibility. I don’t think so. I think the important thing to realize here is that nobody in this scenario is a saint. All the characters are a bit dirty. The prosecution had to put on Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen and they did. I think both of them did very well on the stand. Whether Cohen stole money out of a sense of spite for his bonus not being large enough or whether Stormy talks to the dead does not mean that they aren’t telling the truth about this one narrow set of circumstances.
If the jury follows the instructions given and matches the evidence to each element of the crimes alleged, I think Trump is toast. And then let’s see the GOP defend having a convicted felon on their ticket. And, in a worse case scenario where Trump is acquitted or there’s a hung jury, the prosecution has a good case for a retrial, based on Bob Costello’s histrionics and contempt for the judge. It ain’t over until it’s over.
What yabba dabba do? No special grape juice to pass out??? Jim Jones took better care of his cult!
Someone tell me again why exactly this twit still has a law license?
I read in my local newspaper that the revelation Todd Blanche got Michael Cohen to make about stealing from the Trump Organization was muted by the full explanation that Cohen gave for, which involved payments made to Red Finch, a computer services company.
Trump contracted with Red Finch to influence an online poll conducted by CNBC on the most famous business owners in the last century, according to Cohen. Trump was upset that he was polling at the bottom of the list in the poll’s early stages. Cohen reached out on Trump’s behalf to Red Finch, who created an algorithm to make sure that Trump would rise through the poll. In discussions with Cohen over the desired poll result, Trump naturally wanted to finish at number 1. Cohen testified that Trump wound up finishing ninth in the poll, and so refused to pay Red Finch.
The article didn’t go into further detail, but Cohen may have passed the $30,000 “stolen” from Trump to pay Red Finch the amount they’d been stiffed by Trump.