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Liars don’t win trials. This is the truth. That’s how it should work anyway.
Fulfilling that adage is the challenge for the defense in Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial. The former president’s lawyers have been tasked with uncovering legal fraud District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the chronic dishonesty of their star witness, Michael Cohen. Adding to the challenge is a presiding judge, Juan Merchan, whose anti-Trump bias is obvious and outrageous.
The Beverly Hills lawyer was back on the stand Thursday negotiating payouts for two women who demanded exorbitant cash from Trump in exchange for their silence about alleged affairs. But witness Keith Davidson admitted that he had no contact with the defendant and never met him. He specifically dealt with Trump’s former lawyer, Cohen, who was working entirely on his own. His testimony does not involve anything involving the crimes allegedly committed by Trump.
NY VS. Trump: A trial in search of an imaginary crime
Davidson’s description of Cohen was both accurate and scathing – profane, aggressive, constantly angry and often threatening. Crucially, they portrayed Cohen as a liar who became bitter toward Trump when the president-elect refused to take him to Washington, D.C. Jurors found Cohen had delusions of grandeur. , he envisioned himself as White House Chief of Staff or even Attorney General of the United States. State.
When his bubble burst, Cohen exploded like a nuclear device A budding hatred towards his former boss which became a manic obsession. He became angry at Davidson, saying, “Jesus Christ, can you believe I’m still not going to Washington after everything I’ve done for that guy?” Cohen seemed suicidal. This helps shape the defense theory that Cohen’s real motive in testifying against Trump is vengeance, not truth.
It is hard to imagine that any sensitive or ethical prosecutor would ever rest their case on the stooping shoulders of a man as crude and a pathological liar as Cohen. After confessing under oath to several embarrassing fabrications in 2018, he was sent to prison for perjury and fraud. He is exactly what a federal judge recently described him as, “a serial perjurer.” He’s the brilliant Mr. Ripley…without the talent.
After repeatedly criticizing Trump on television shows and calling him a criminal, Cohen has adopted TikTok To comment on testimony during the trial and to increase his condemnations of Trump. There is financial gain from their social media babble, which means that now, more than ever, they have an economic motive to lie. In fact, their livelihood depends on it. Prosecutors’ heads must have exploded when they found out what he was doing. What little credibility Cohen might have brought to the courtroom has vanished.
FILE – Former President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen is seen outside federal court in New York City on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The mere mention of Cohen’s name in court should amount to “reasonable suspicion.” That is the definition of incredible. Without that there is no valid case to prosecute. But rather than shrug it off by admitting that his key witness had gone rogue and self-destructed, Bragg continued in his vile pursuit of Trump. The DA is like an attack dog that won’t let go.
If Bragg thought Davidson would be a great witness for the prosecution, it may have had the opposite effect. He refused to call the Stormy Daniels payment “hush money or payment”, while insisting that the proper definition of it is “consideration”. It’s a fancy legal term in contract law that simply means exchange of benefits. Here, it was compensation in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. Therefore, it would clearly be appropriate to book it as legal expense.
Morning Glory: The show trial of Donald Trump
This key testimony exposes all 34 of Bragg’s allegations against Trump that he falsified private business records. What was the lie? The Daniels deal was a legal agreement negotiated by two lawyers, resulting in the execution of a legal document. No doubt this was a legal expense. What else will happen?
On cross-examination, Davidson melted like a Joe Biden ice cream cone when confronted with evidence that he was once investigated by law enforcement for criminal extortion, though never charged. He admitted that much of his practice involved “extorting money” from celebrities (he preferred to label them “settlements”). He also “pimped sex tapes.” As for the defense, this fits the pattern of putting pressure on key people for cash at a time of risk. people like Donald Trump,
If there is a scandalous factor in the trial, it has affected Bragg’s witnesses more than Trump. Increasingly, the defendant resembles a victim of blackmail, which the law defines as a demand for money under threat. In 2016, as the presidential election approached, the cash ultimatums intensified and in the case of Daniels, Trump reluctantly capitulated.
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However, this does not mean that Trump himself has committed any crime. As Bragg argues, his personal reimbursements to Cohen were not a violation of election laws. The two government departments that have exclusive authority over such matters are the Federal Election Commission and Justice Department– Correctly concluded that the payment to Daniels did not constitute an unlawful contribution.
In other words, there is none. But Alvin Bragg could care less. He knowingly ordered a state statute that has no application to a federal election and turned it into a farce to bring an absurd charge against Trump that is completely unsupported by the facts and the law.
Of concern for the defense are jurors who may be likely to convict in a politically charged case. presidential candidate They may dislike it. Are they able to put aside their personal beliefs to understand the prosecution’s tactics? Or will they be led to believe that there is an electoral crime here, even though none has happened?
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When a dishonest prosecutor violates the law and deploys nefarious or lying witnesses to fool a jury into convicting an innocent defendant, it is an attack on the rule of law and an abuse of our justice system. In Manhattan, the cards are stacked against Trump.
We’ll see whether the liars win the test…or the truth.
