well, here we are. After more than a year, and more obstructive bullsh*t than any judge or interested viewers should have to tolerate, we’re fiinally at ground zero. On Tuesday the two sides will make their closing arguments, and Judge Merchan plans to hand the case to the jury to start deliberating on Wednesday. Which makes perfect sense, since the jury is going to be locked up in the deliberation room, so he can still conduct his normal Wednesday mental health calendar.
I must admit, New York is a bit different in how they handle closing arguments than in the states I’ve lived in, Illinois and Nevada, as well as California, with which I have documentary experience. In those states, the prosecution makes it’s closing argument, followed by the defense making their closing argument. But since the prosecution has the burden of proof, they get one more bite at the apple, with their final summation.
New York cuts out the middleman. On Tuesday the defense will lead off with it’s closing argument, followed by the prosecution with theirs. Personally, I like the other way better. The prosecution leading off gives the defense a chance to see what they’re arguing, and respond to it in their closing argument. The prosecution still gets the last whack, but in New York the defense is flying blind, trying to guess what the prosecution will try to highlight. Just a point of trivia interest. In the Manson trial, prosecutor Vince Bugliosi took nine hours over two days to present his final summation.
But what do we look for? Well, in the defense’s closing argument, Trump lead attorney will throw the final shovel of dirt over Trump’s grave, simple because there’s nothing else he can do. The old legal adage is, If the facts are against you, argue the law. If thge law is against you, argue the facts. And if the facts and the law are against you, pound the table and blame the judge.
And unfortunately, that’s precisely the spot Blanche finds himself in. Both the law and the evidence are against him. Worse yet, both Blanche and his co-counsel Alina Habba were willing participants in their own self destruction, Banche far more so than Habba, who was pretty much a designated hitter to take on Stormy Daniels.
There are two basic cardinal rules to criminal defense as I understand it. The first is in opening statements, never promise more than you can deliver. Juries don’t like being lied to or misled. And Blanche did it twice in his opening statement. First, he promised the jury that by the time he rose to speak to them again in closing arguments, he would prove that the Daniels affair never happened. And then he promised the jury that he would prove that the payments to Michael Cohen were standard legal fees, and not a reimbursement for the Daniels payoff. And they’re not going to be able to argue either one of those in closing arguments.
But the second violation is even worse. To my understanding, the secret to a successful criminal defense is not to butt heads with the prosecution over the evidence. If the evidence and testimony wasn’t compelling and admissible, the prosecution wouldn’t be offering it. Instead the object is to ask probing questions in weak spots in the witnesses testimony.
Done properly, this allows the defense to stand in front of the jury and argue alternative interpretations. They can say, Yes, the prosecution showed you these facts, and this testimony, and tells you it fits this way. But if you take into account the weakn esses in their theory that we exposed under cross examination, you could just as easily turn the puzzle this way and conclude that the defendant had nothing to do with it. They don’t have to prove the theory, they just have to plant the seed of reasonable doubt.
They did neither. In their cross examinations of Daniels and Cohen, their basic strategy amounted to Liar! Liar! Pants on fire! And got crucified for it. Habba imploded by aggressively challenging Stormy Daniels’s memory of their alleged affair, and had Daniels rattling off the style, size, and color of the floor tiles in Trump’s room. And Blanche thought he had trapped Cohen on a conversation allegedly with Trump that could have been with Keith Schiller, only to have a photograph surface showing Trump with Schiller at the time of the call.
As I see it, here’s Todd Blanche’s final argument in a nutshell. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Stormy Daniels is nothing more or less than an extortionist, trying to pry money out of an innocent man. Keith Davidson is a bottom feeding lawyer who helps extortionists get money from innocent men. And Michael Cohen is a convicted serial liar who is bitter at his former employer for not bailing him out of his legal problems, in which President Trump had no part.
The documents the prosecution showed you are standard business documents, which they are skewing for their own purposes. There is no way you can convict a former President and current frontrunner to become President again in 2025 on the baseless and disproven accusations of extortionists and convicted serial liars! Thank you. Blanche won’t touch Robert Costello with fire tongs.
The prosecution should be more entertaining. If I’m right, they’ll hoist Blanche on his own petard by literally reading from his opening statement about disproving the affair, and the payments being reimbursements, and then lay out the evidence that proves Blanche was full of sh*t, while Blanche sits there red faced. Remind the jury that he misled them at the first opportunity.
And then it will be story time. start with Pecker, then on to Davidson, Connahey and Daniels, highlighting their relevant testimony, and the supporting documentation. Then they’ll segue into Cohen, admitting his shortcomings as a world class scumbag, but providing his testimony, and how every single document backs up his testimony. And they will make it as short as possible, in deference to the jury’s time.
And then it’s all over but the shouting. The judge has already warned the jury that they may go overtime on Tuesday, so that he can read them the jury instructions from the bench. And then he’ll send them home, with instructions to be back at 9 am Wednesday morning to begin deliberations. And then it’s finally over. it’s in the jury’s hands. My personal guess? The jury comes back either late Thursday ot early Friday with convictions on at least 20 counts. Like King Solomon, they mah choose to split the baby, but it only takes one conviction to cost Trump his right to vote in November. Don’t touch that dial.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Their problem with Cohen is that the defense rely on him being called, generally, a liar.
But it doesn’t matter what label they put on him if it can be proved he told the truth.
And the prosecution have.
A minor point, Murf, Alina Habba wasn’t part of the defense legal team.
That dubious honor belongs to Susan Necheles. While Ms. Necheles had a better reputation than Habba Dabba Doo going into the trial, she was no more effective than the latter would have been had she been at the table.
Well, given all of Habba-Dabba’s “analysis” she’s done for Fox “News” over the past few weeks (and, past few days especially), it’s understandable that Murf made that mistake.
A-yup, Ms. Necheles didn’t make any noise outside the courtroom. Ms. Habba has proved to be quite the gasbag….
Sounds like a bit if table thumping and blaming is the order of the day. Good luck with that strategy Don Don!