Us older farts remember an old TV show starring Raymond Burr as a famous and always successful lawyer who came up with dramatic revelations in court that got his clients off the hook. It led to the term “Perry Mason Moment.” Maybe a handful of the jurors enjoy watching old black & white TV shows, and are familiar with the term but if that’s what Trump’s been counting on with Michael Cohen, and the jury thinking something like: Aha! Here’s a Perry Mason Moment that proves Cohen and everything associated with him is awful so Trump is pure as the driven snow Team Trump is sitting in a particularly delusional corner of MAGA World. Still, the talk coming from Trump’s side is that Cohen got destroyed, or collapsed and the the entire prosecution case along with him.
I first heard some of this talk yesterday. This morning I’ve just read this article by The Independent and it doesn’t just confirm my feeling yesterday that Team Trump has deluded themselves into wishful thinking. What it tells me, with surrogates out there talking up their narrative is that Team Trump is so desperate they’re deep into projection! That’s right, that “bigly” Perry Mason that got so hyped when it happened and for a few hours afterwards wasn’t nearly so dramatic as it was initially made out to be.
This all centers around an Oct. 24, 2016 phone call. Cohen had testified on direct there was a brief message he wanted to give Trump. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche produced texts with Cohen and Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller about some 14 year old that had gotten Cohen’s number and was harassing him. Blanche outright accused Cohen of lying about the phone call in question based on those texts, claiming nothing about the phone call involved Daniels. Initial reports were that Blanche yelled, or screamed. After a while that became more Blanche raised his voice. Hmmmmm. What matters more is that with time, and a review of the transcript of the exchange it was a moment of sorts, but not the “Perry Mason Moment” it was initially made out to be and that Team Trump is insisting it was.
Cohen did not proverbially collapse in a puddle on the witness stand. He wasn’t Sonny Liston flat on the canvass with a triumphant Ali standing over him demanding he get up so he (Ali) could knock him down again. No, by independent reporting the cross was mostly even tempered and Cohen remained calm throughout. Despite Blanche’s accusations of lying, and that Cohen only called Schiller to complain about the harassment and never spoke to Trump the linked article notes:
Cohen meanwhile maintained that he believed he spoke to both Mr Trump and Mr Schiller on the phone – and insisted that the hush money deal was part of his discussion with the future president that night. Cohen has previously been convicted of perjury but defends himself from that accusation by noting he lied to protect Mr Trump.
Still, it’s clear that for Team Trump and all the MAGAs out there THIS was the moment. The smoking gun that “proves” Cohen has been lying about everything. The “gotcha” “Perry Mason Moment” that will give the jury, if not the judge reason to ignore ALL the other evidence that supports Cohen’s testimony on direct (including from people who still like and/or are loyal to Trump) and all the documentary evidence. The defense strategy has been to undermine the credibility of Daniels and Cohen, one assumes in the hopes it will make the jury ignore all the other evidence. And this one bit of the never ending cross of Michael Cohen is THE only thing that counts. For example:
“Michael Cohen, I believe, has just completely collapsed on the stand under withering cross-examination by president Trump’s trial team,” attorney Will Scharf said on Fox News Sunday.
“So, at this moment, I don’t think there’s any further need to call into question Michael Cohen’s credibility, because I think he has none.”
I’ll spare you the clip of Stan from South Park doing his “Really? REALLY?” routine but Scharf wasn’t done:
“I think any fair jury reviewing the record, would immediately and unanimously vote to acquit,” Mr Scharf, a Republican candidate to be Missouri’s attorney general, said.
“In terms of whether witnesses will be called, including president Trump, that’s something that the defense team is going to have to think about after the prosecution rests. But as of now, to me, this looks like a directed verdict or at the very least, an absolute acquittal just based on the prosecution’s total failure to prove anything, even approximating the crime.”
I got a particular kick out of the Directed Verdict part of that nonsense. I’ve said in prior articles it’s standard for a defense to move for a directed acquittal after a prosecution rests, claiming they failed to meet their burden. Happens damned near every time. And damned near every time such motions are denied on the spot, and the judge turns right around and asks the defense to either proceed to present their case, or if they don’t intend to present on rest. You’d think a candidate for the AG spot in any state, even a red one would know there’s tons of evidence that’s been presented in this case to have it go to a jury. Then again, if ANY Republican wants to avoid “The Wrath of Khan Trump” they’d damned well better be out there serving up the kind of bullsh*t Scharf (and others) have been serving up.
I’d suggest reading the linked article. It will take a few minutes but I promise it’s worth the time because in the days ahead this whole brief exchange between Blanche and Cohen will continue to be blown up into a way bigger deal than it actually was. I will summarize a few points from the world of reality, starting with something the prosecution will likely make quite clear during re-direct. Even in a short call lasting a minute and a half it’s possible to briefly bring up two topics, and even have the phone passed over so the caller can speak to a second person.
More important however is that the crucial call, or rather phone calls came a couple of days later. As the evidence already shows Cohen had two lengthy conversations with Trump explaining how (since a couple of days earlier he’d had to tell Trump that Pecker balked on paying Daniels himself) the actual payoff had been engineered. Where the money would come from and how it would mask Trump’s involvement. And Trump gave the go-ahead that day – the 26th. The next day the deal was done and Daniels’ silence had been bought and her story wouldn’t come out before the election, if ever.
Still, I think it’s illustrative of how scared Trump and his lawyers are. Pushing this narrative of a reduced to mindless blather by Blanche Michael Cohen is standard Fox (and other RWNJ) outlet fare. MAGAs will eat it up with a spoon. However since you’re hear you live in the real world, so knowing the REAL story is important. And the real story boils down to two things:
- Michael Cohen did NOT collapse on the stand, but remained calm and poised, albeit surprised at Blanche’s brining up those texts to cast doubt on the Oct. 24 phone call. But he recovered someone and by the end of re-direct the prosecution will have neatly disposed of this issue with the jury. It’s a nothing-burger.
- Team Trump is worried. Big time. Making a mountain out of this molehill smacks of desperation. We know how so much of what we get from Trump is projection. In this matter the claim that Cohen, and by extension the prosecution has “collapsed” is pure projection. Actually, hanging their hat on this one moment shows they know that the defense case is what has collapsed. Their whole strategy was to make the jury see/think about ONLY Daniels and Cohen and discredit them both. Things backfired with Daniels, and they assumed Cohen would turn into a snarling, make up wild new accusations on the fly witness. And it hasn’t happened.
Trump’s defense strategy had huge potential pitfalls from the start. Now it seems Trump and his lawyers have face-planted after tripping over them.
Dingle berry and his attorneys do not need anything to trip over in order to do the old face plant-they manage to do this by normal means.
I’m a Perry Mason-watching old fart and I swear I don’t remember him ever screaming at a witness or whining at a witness about the witness calling him names or being admonished by a judge for not being very good at his job. Of course us old farts do have questionable memories! I’ll betcha Scharf also believes that if there is no directed verdict, then Juror #7 (Henry Fonda) will carefully show the others all of the things both sides missed and the 12 Angry Jurors will acquit before dinner! 🤭
Sometimes a channel on my limited cable package shows reruns. I enjoy them. But in this day and age they seem awfully quaint. Of course back then people tended to be more afraid to commit perjury, and the surroundings of a courtroom made a strong impression.
Several decades ago I worked for a national conservation group and became friends with a legendary federal game warden. (Game Wars by Marc Reisner of Cadillac Desert fame is about the guy. The note he wrote to me when he autographed it for me makes it one of my most treasured possessions) Down in Louisina Dave established what became known as a “Poacher to Preachers” program. He went after the most notorious and frankly sometimes dangerous well-known outlaws. Multiple times during our association I’d hear him give speeches about all these rough, tough guys would talk trash and make threats, sometimes right up to the point their cases were called by the clerk of the (federal) court. Hearing the words “The United States vs. (their name) almost physically knocked them back. It usually changed them, and for the better and they’d work with Dave to stop illegal slaughter of wildlife. I even met one of them, who got talked about in the book.
Even those that didn’t reform to the point of becoming “preachers” had most of the defiance knocked out of them. Looking at things now it’s a sad commentary on how far respect for the system and the law has fallen.
Delusional thinking produces imaginary results.
The defense attorneys had only one goal,,and that was to.piss off Cohen enough that he would lose control and they might be able to.make the jury hate him.
They blew it. Cohen isn’t a street thug. He is a lawyer. While he went to.jail for lying FOR Trump, he got nothing for it, not even a third tier assistant to the assistant to the White House Counsel. They were able to get that out. But Cohen admitted nothing, and the defense c and across as bullies harassing a man who paid a heavy price for his loyalty to.a man who used and discarded him when he was no longer useful.
Roy Cohen MIGHT have been able to pull this off, but Blanch just came across as an obnoxious harasser. He reminds me more of Al.Pacino.in Devil’s Advocate than Roy Cohn,,and you can’t afford having the jury regard you a second rate demon.