If you’ve had the television on a news channel for the last half hour or so, then you just saw Trump mouthpiece Robert Costello’s only reason for going to New York today. The grand jury appearance? Pfffft! That was just Costello’s price of admission to the circus.

I’ll explain. Costello is Trump’s man, and everybody knows it. If Costello had come out and announced that he was holding a press conference at 1:00 in front of the gates of Mar-A-Lago, the media crowd would likely have been smaller, and just as likely more confrontational. But let him walk into a grand jury room for a couple of hours, saying God knows what, and come back outside, and the media will carry him home in a Sedan Chair in return for a few words.

And don’t kid yourself, that self serving spectacle we just saw was the only reason for his grand jury appearance. For one thing, who knows what he actually said to the grand jury? Every word he said in front of those microphones may have been bullshit, but we’ll never know, because that blabbermouth from Fulton County isn’t on this grand jury. Also, no Trump lawyer questioned him in front of the grand jury, a prosecutor did. And as a result, Costello only got to give the information he was asked for, and not that free form kabuki we saw. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was slandering Michael Cohen in front of the cameras to the potential jury pool. And they did that.

But if they think that they just pulled off some master class slick move, I humbly beg to differ. In fact I think the Trump legal team gave up far more substantively than they got in any short term media flap. For two reasons.

For one thing, in order to pull this dog-and-pony-show off, Robert Costello actually had to go in and testify to the grand jury. Which means that there is now a written transcript of every word that came out of his mouth. And then he came out and made a public statement, which is now also on public record. Which means that if, as expected Costello testifies for the defense, Alvin Bragg now has not just one, but two different sources to use to impeach Costello on cross examination if his testimony deviates from what he said to the grand jury, or in his presser.

But that’s not the worst. In any criminal trial, the defense has a built in edge. It’s called discovery. In discovery the prosecution has to give the defense pretty much everything they have, down to their shoe sizes, so the defense can prepare. On the other hand, pretty much the only thing that the defense has to turn over to the prosecution is it’s witness list, which some lawyers seed with names from the phone book, to keep prosecutors busy interviewing people who have nothing to do with anything. If the prosecution can’t interview the witness, they don’t know in advance what to ask on cross examination.

But if in fact Costello is, as Trump put on Bullshit Social, the most important witness to appear before the grand jury, one would think that he would be one of the defense’s bombshell witnesses. And what did they just do? They just outed their own surprise witness! Not only that, but they just gave the prosecutors a walking tour of his testimony should he appear at trail.

Think about it. You can bet that the prosecutor took notes during Costello’s testimony. They now have months to interview every person Costello named in his testimony to verify his accuracy. And they have months to pick his grand jury testimony apart to find inconsistencies to hit him with in cross.

But here’s the real damage. The whole purpose of a bombshell witness is the bombshell part. Shock the shit out of the prosecution, flummox the jury, and watch the prosecution scramble to explain it. Not anymore. Alvin Bragg now knows what Costello will say. And if he’s smart, he’ll bring it all out on direct examination of Michael Cohen, let him explain it, and when Costello actually takes the stand, he’s just repeating something the jury has already heard, boring them silly.

Now you see what I’m talking about. This is a perfect example of the transactional Trump. He is getting so sick of talk of indictment, and hearing about how important that Michael Cohen is that he had to get payback. Right here, right now. So he sends his trained monkey out to do the dirty, and in doing so, burns him of any real value at trial. Typical.

BREAKING NEWS! 

In an exclusive interview with Ari Melber on MSNBC just now, Michael Cohen confirmed that while he had been at the DA’s office as a possible rebuttal witness, he was not called after Robert Costello’s testimony. Which tells you how impressed Bragg must have been with the damage of Costello’s bombshells.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Watched all of it. The prosecution has all the documentaiton from Cohen. Do they have all the documentation Costello says he has? The goal is simple. Contaminate the jury pool. That’s what Costello was sent to do. Put doubt in the minds of anyone that Cohen is 1) lying and 2) a loose canon. Cohen went to jail for 45 because he played 45’s game.

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    • I think the goal was to impeach Cohen’s testimony. But they should have known better: Cohen has receipts and is willing to tell them everything.

      15
  2. This is getting explosive, but not the way Trump meant it to become explosive. The MAGAs aren’t dropping from the sky to avenge him. Rather he’s painting himself into a corner.

    And he’s taking Ron DeSantis down as well. DeSantis can’t and won’t protect him and those are not good optics with the base. So watching DeSantis navigate that landmine will be hilarious! :))

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  3. Desantis is taking HIMSELF down with his over the top agenda, WOKE mania, and his all around shitty personality…I said this would happen, and I’m keeping an eye on it…

    15

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