When Michael Cohen was taken to task on the stand during cross-examination by Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, he faced serious questions over his past, including his taking credit for the indictment against former President Donald Trump and referring to the former president as “dumb*ss Donald.” The cross-examination was so thorough and severe that it stunned CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
In fact, Cooper described the cross-examination and what went on during it as being “incredible.” He said, explaining as much, “The last 20 minutes of court today right before the lunch break, it was incredible. I mean, it was, you know, Ellie Hoenig on my program last night had talked about, you know, on a cross-examination.”
Continuing, he noted that Blanche did just what lawyers want to do on cross, saying, “Lawyers want to kind of put the the witness in a build a box around the witness and then slammed shut. That’s what Todd Blanche did to Michael Cohen. I mean, the story, you know, the Todd Blanche just methodically went through this sequence of events of this, this phone conversation that allege that, that Michael Cohen had testified to previously, you know, that that he had had this consequential phone conversation with Donald Trump, it was a 92nd phone conversation, I believe was October 24. Oh, was the date that was testified to and around 8 pm or so at night.”
Further pursuing that point, he said, “But Todd Blanch, on his cross-examination today, when I kind of looked at the transcripts of text messages that Michael Cohen had received and sent before that, that timeframe. And there had been this series, I guess, of crank calls that Michael Cohen had received. It turned out to be from some 14-year-old; there was an exchange of messages between the alleged 14-year-old and Michael Cohen. And then Michael Cohen texts Keith Schiller at like 7:50 something or 7:48 pm saying ‘hey, you know, I’ve got some dope has been harassing me. I got the person’s phone number. Who can I talk to?’ Keith Schiller texting back, saying, ‘call me,’ and Michael Cohen calls Case Shiller.”
Cooper then explained how Blanche was able to use those details to obliterate Cohen’s former testimony about Trump and the call, saying, “This is the conversation that previously Michael Cohen had said he was calling to speak to Donald Trump to tell him that the storm he was going ahead with the stormy Daniels arrangement and that Trump approved it, which was a, you know, a crucial, crucial to Michael Cohen’s whole raison d’etre for being on the stand. He’s the only person testifying today involvement by direct involvement by Donald Trump in the stormy Daniels payments. But . . . [Cohen] now says, Oh, it was a call about this 14-year-old making crank phone calls to me, but also about the moving ahead on Stormy Daniels.”
Then, explaining how Blanche responded to that news and used it in the courtroom, Cooper said, “Todd Blanche was incredulous. His voice cracking his voice raising up moving around the courtroom, speaking, you know, saying, you know, saying that, what did the jury doesn’t want to hear? You know, him guessing it wants to hear facts. It was an extraordinary cross-examination by Todd Blanche.”
Cooper further sounded off on Cohen, saying, “Throughout the day, Michael Cohen, when cornered in when he found himself in a corner. He does have a pattern of suddenly not understanding the question that’s being asked or seemingly kind of, I mean, one could say buying time to try to figure out what how he wants to answer, but he definitely suddenly starts to you know, have Todd Blanche repeat questions, since ‘I don’t quite understand what you mean. I’m confused by the question.'”
Concluding his comments on that point, Cooper noted that Cohen had been caught in a substantial lie and that that fact would likely change what jurors think, saying, “But this time, Michael Cohen was was cornered in what appeared to be a lie, I think too many in the room and had to adjust suddenly his memory that he had just testified to on Tuesday.”
Watch him here:
Featured image credit: By The Circus – YouTube, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77222381
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