Because the opening of the Donald Trump’s New York trial — when the previous president’s counsel advised the jury that the prosecution’s star witness “can’t be trusted” — the protection has telegraphed its principal technique: Eviscerate Michael Cohen.
As Trump’s fixer and assault canine on the time of the alleged crimes, Cohen was extra central to the occasions spelled out within the indictment than anybody within the defendant’s orbit. He even fronted his private funds to quiet Stormy Daniels, who was buying a narrative of a 2006 sexual liaison with Trump.
And having pleaded responsible to tax evasion, false statements and marketing campaign finance violations associated to the Daniels affair, together with a separate plea to creating false statements to Congress, he appears tailored to be accused of mendacity to settle scores along with his former boss. For the loyalty-obsessed Trump, furthermore, the prospect of savaging a traitor guarantees extra psychological rewards.
However earlier than the jury has even heard from Trump’s bête noire, the prosecution has made nice strides to neutralize any plan to undermine Cohen’s testimony.
They’ve executed so in the beginning by presenting a wealth of proof that prospectively corroborates what Cohen will say. (And after his grand jury testimony and quite a few reported sitdowns with the district legal professional’s workplace, the prosecution is aware of what Cohen goes to say all the way down to the final comma.)
The prosecutors’ determination to introduce their story by way of David Pecker, the previous chief government of the corporate that owned the Nationwide Enquirer, labored superbly. A type of Runyonesque rascal in his enterprise affairs, Pecker got here throughout as utterly forthcoming on the stand. And he got here forth with many particulars that concerned Cohen and can be echoed by him. These particulars included a key August 2015 assembly during which Pecker stated he first promised Trump that he would smother the tales of his purported former sexual companions who may come ahead now that he was a presidential candidate.
Each main witness since Pecker has additionally lined floor that Cohen will retread. By the point the jury hears the account of Trump’s onetime fixer, it should ring acquainted in nearly all its particulars.
Virtually however not fairly all. Solely Cohen and Trump may have been aware of sure particulars of the alleged falsification of paperwork, the idea of the 34 prison counts within the indictment.
Nonetheless, the district legal professional will be capable of reply to the protection’s ferocious assaults on Cohen by noting, in time-honored prosecutorial kind, that the jury needn’t depend on his phrase alone due to all of the corroboration.
In truth, the prosecution’s case has been sprinkled with disparaging characterizations of Cohen by its personal witnesses, who’ve referred to as him a “jerk” and worse. It’s one other sign that the district legal professional will argue that the case doesn’t stand or fall on Cohen’s testimony.
And far of what follows Cohen will reinforce his testimony. Longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks figures to offer devastating corroboration of Cohen’s testimony about “the Boss,” together with her firsthand account of the 2015 assembly.
The in depth corroborating proof is only one manner the prosecution is slicing off the protection’s primary line of assault. As necessary, prosecutors have constructed and bolstered a story that bolsters Cohen’s story. It strikes from the preliminary assembly, by way of the efforts to “catch and kill” the tales of a Trump Tower doorman and a Playboy mannequin, after which to the critically necessary “Entry Hollywood” tape that left the Trump marketing campaign in an existential disaster.
The recording, which surfaced shortly earlier than the election and caught Trump boasting of sexually assaulting girls, prompted Republican Get together leaders comparable to John McCain to withdraw their assist for Trump. The jury heard proof on Friday that key gamers within the catch-and-kill scheme had been assured that Trump couldn’t get well from the revelation.
Enter Daniels, who had not too long ago resumed her efforts to parlay her alleged affair with Trump right into a payday. If the marketing campaign was on life assist, her account threatened to tug the plug.
The story that prosecutors have offered from a number of sides thereby results in the conclusion that the dealings with Daniels may have had just one motivation: to salvage the marketing campaign. And that meant that Daniels not solely needed to be paid off but additionally that the aim of the payoff needed to be hidden.
The drive of this account has Group Trump staring up at an almost insurmountable incline. It’s not simply that Cohen’s clarification of Trump’s alleged scheme and functions can be roundly corroborated by different witnesses; it’s that no different clarification would make any sense of the entire patchwork of proof.
The prosecution’s marshaling of that proof leaves the protection with no viable counternarrative. Assume Trump’s group beats Cohen up for days on cross-examination and reiterates in closing that he can’t be trusted. What various story can they provide to produce an affordable doubt in regards to the district legal professional’s account?
As Pecker testified and we are going to in all probability hear repeated at closing, Cohen couldn’t purchase lunch with out Trump’s approval. Is it remotely doable that he would nonetheless take out a house fairness mortgage and pay Daniels $130,000 with out Trump’s information and path? The Manhattan jury is likely to be anticipated to conclude, in a phrase, “Fuhgeddaboudit.”
That’s to not say that the prosecution is coasting towards a responsible verdict or that the jury’s response to Cohen gained’t matter. The fees of falsifying enterprise data are nonetheless weak to technical challenges involving intent and different questions. Particularly with two attorneys within the jury’s ranks, stitching up that a part of the case might be tough. However with a broader rejection of Cohen’s testimony wanting unlikely, the protection’s choices for stopping a conviction are dwindling.
Harry Litman is the host of the “Speaking Feds” podcast and the Speaking San Diego speaker sequence. @harrylitman
