This is something that you don’t see everyday. A twice-fined defendant, leaving the courthouse before court is adjourned and declaring to the press gathered outside, “We won.” Umm….isn’t it the job of the guy on the bench in front to decide who won or who lost? And doesn’t that, “verdict” I think you call it, usually get rendered when all the testimony is finished and the lawyers have done their closing statements and rested their cases? No?
Well, mebbe in the normal world, but this is Trump world, you see, and Donald Trump decides when he’s had enough and it’s time to stalk out and announce that the show is canceled.
Here’s The Guardian:
Cohen’s time on the witness stand has come to a close
Moments before it concluded, Cohen said that “Donald Trump spoke like a mob boss.”
Cohen’s comment was in reference to prior statements about Trump’s directives which the ex-president’s defense team has described as inconsistent.
Specifically, Trump’s team has honed in on Cohen’s testimony to Congress in which he appeared to say that his former boss didn’t tell him to inflate real estate valuations.
Cohen was asked in February 2019: “Did Mr Trump direct you or Mr Weisselberg to inflate the numbers for his personal statement?”
“Not that I recall, no,” Cohen said.
On re-direct, Cohen explained:
”He did not specifically state ‘Michael, go inflate the numbers.”
“As I’ve stated in my books and I’ve stated publicly, Donald Trump speaks like a mob boss,” Cohen said. Trump says what he wants without “specifically” saying.
“We understood what he wanted, so when they asked me, ‘Did Mr Trump direct you or Mr Weisselberg to inflate numbers for his personal statement?’ and I stated ‘no, not that I recall,’ that’s what I was referring to.”
Court has wrapped for the day.
Here’s what happened with an important detail, from CNBC:
Cohen, under cross-examination, said he did not recall if Trump had asked him to inflate the values of his assets on financial records at the heart of the civil case.
Cliff Robert, an attorney for the Trump family, then asked Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron for a directed verdict based on Cohen’s answer. The judge denied the request — and Trump immediately got up and left.
Again, Trump goes for the Perry Mason angle on everything. The odds of anybody getting a directed verdict out of the blue like that are slim to none. A directed verdict is a ruling entered by a trial judge after determining that there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to reach a different conclusion. The trial court may grant a directed verdict either sua sponte (of one’s own accord) or upon a motion by either party.
But Trump thought it was brilliant, I’m guessing, to ask for a directed verdict, or thought that his lawyer had finally found a way to save him and when it didn’t happen magically, then Trump got pissed and stormed out, with the Secret Service chasing after him.
Court reconvenes tomorrow. Whether Trump will be there or not is not known at this time.
Yea, he won. Is that why he looks so happy? /s
He’s really looking for a miracle here. He truly is. And the law just doesn’t work like that — except on TV, which is the only world Trump understands. And, speaking of miracles, somehow only understanding TV got him all the way to the Oval Office.
Directed verdicts are rare. Plus, I don’t even think one is possible under these circumstances because he’s already been found civilly liable and this trial is to assess damages only — unless I’m confused about something. But it looks like Trump is the one that’s confused.
Well,TV savvy and Nixon’s illness got JFK elected, after all. Didn’t hurt that JFK was a charming man capable of great oratory and possessed of a positive vision of America’s future, while Nixon was an irascible bulldog with nothing to offer (he mostly beat Humphrey because the country was tired of the war which he was able to hang around Democrats’ neck).
He always seems to think life is like TV.
But TV is edited extensively to look better.
If you were to edit his ACTUAL life to only have ‘good bits’, there’d be nothing left.
The editors who worked on The Apprentice were interviewed back in 2016. They said that they had to cull through tons of footage to make him look good.
Your cover photo appears to show the malodorous mango is in a state of confusion because he’s torn between projecting another one of his flakey lie based projections, or passing a Gillette razor blade, both as a consequence of what he just went through in the court room. Is it possible for him to concurrently do both at the same time – certainly. Common Don Don, show us all how good you are at multitasking, under legitimate real world pressure.
my favorite part, is the whole Trump family,
like a mafia Brady Bunch.
Jan, it’s Marsha I need the Jets loser pouch
and Jan, I have a bone saw..
Phuck that 300+ lb bag of weasel sh*t. The worst job in America has to be an agent with integrity, charged with protecting that fascist, when the impulse rises to pistol whip that asshole. He’s not a mob boss. A real mob boss shooting his mouth off like he does would have been gunned down long ago, wrapped in a bag, and thrown into an industrial waste incinerator, joining the narrative where is Jimmy Hoffa and Donald Trump?
I always thought that a ‘directed verdict’ was a judge telling a jury that there was no need to deliberate.
Now, with no jury, how can it be ‘directed’?
Besides which, didn’t the judge already find that he WAS guilty and the hearing is now to determine to what extent the State will penalise him for fraud?
i thought Cohen had testified that Trump said he wanted his net worth to go up on his filings, and left it up to the gang of four to figure out how to massage the numbers.
Ursula…don’t you really mean he waddled out of court? That Depends musta been full since he sh*t his pants.