Saturday, May 11, 2024 3:29:43 PM
Att. Zorax: Trump Trial Week 4: Testy and Explicit, Then Calm Before the Cohen Storm
"Trump's lawyers CRASH AND BURN with failure during trial
"Opinion Trump might not go to jail, but this trial is a close second""
Zorax, ok, i understand more now why you expressed concern with Cohen's talking out. Wish you had told us Cohen was spruiking on TikTok every day, for one, i didn't know. Now, since Merchan has spoken on it, i hope Cohen does what you felt he should do ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174396842 .
That said it doesn't take anything away from my reply to you there ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174397139 .
Ahead of Michael D. Cohen’s testimony Monday, the judge told prosecutors to keep him quiet about Donald J. Trump’s criminal case.
Former President Donald J. Trump once predicted that Michael Cohen would not turn on him. Now Mr. Cohen is set to testify against him.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
By Jesse McKinley and Jonah E. Bromwich
May 10, 2024
In a startling precursor to what could be the most explosive testimony in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, the judge on Friday told prosecutors that he was personally asking that a key witness stop speaking out against the former president.
The witness, Michael D. Cohen, was once a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump and in 2016, paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star to silence her account of extramarital sex with the then-presidential candidate. Mr. Cohen, who is expected to begin testifying next week, has been outspoken in his taunting of Mr. Trump, recently posting a TikTok video in which he wore a shirt .. https://twitter.com/wsteaks/status/1788389312452587782 .. with a picture of the former president behind bars.
On Friday, moments after prosecutors acknowledged that they have little control over their star witness, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, asked them to tell Mr. Cohen again to refrain from making any more statements about the case. He made it clear that the directive came from the highest authority in the court: him.
“That comes from the bench,” Justice Merchan said.
Mr. Cohen declined to comment.
Justice Merchan’s remarks might as well have been a billboard previewing next week’s main event. Mr. Cohen is crucial to the case: He says that records of his reimbursements for the hush-money payment were falsified in 2017 at the then-president’s direction.
The Links Between Trump and 3 Hush-Money Deals
Here’s how key figures involved in making hush-money payoffs on behalf of Donald J. Trump are connected.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/25/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money-payments.html
The judge’s admonition injected a sense of anticipation into an otherwise placid proceeding, perhaps the first routine day in a most unusual trial. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office steadily tightened their focus on the central accusations against Mr. Trump ahead of what they said could be their final week of witness testimony.
They prepared for Mr. Cohen’s arrival by calling a round of custodial witnesses , whose testimony allowed the prosecutors to introduce important documents, phone logs, and text and email messages — much of it relevant to Mr. Cohen. Such witnesses are used to authenticate evidence that prosecutors and defense lawyers have not otherwise previously agreed should be admitted.
------
[Insert: Custodial Witnesses Provide Little Spectacle, but Affirm Basic Facts
[...]Jeffrey S. McConney, the Trump Organization’s former corporate controller, also described in painstaking detail how Mr. Cohen requested the checks by invoice. They were then cut by Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts supervisor at the organization, and sent via FedEx to the White House by Rebecca Manochio, a junior bookkeeper at the company.
P - Those checks left Mr. Trump’s headquarters in New York stapled to Mr. Cohen’s invoices and arrived in Washington, making their way to the White House through two of Mr. Trump’s aides, including Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s personal bodyguard, at their home addresses.
P - A defense attorney, Susan Necheles, sought to downplay the sending of checks to an outside address, suggesting in questioning Ms. Westerhout that such an arrangement was simply “a workaround” to avoid things getting delayed in a crush of mail being received at the White House. Ms. Westerhout agreed.
P - Once the checks were signed by Mr. Trump — often in Sharpie, according to testimony — they were sent back to New York, and eventually to Mr. Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness for prosecutors, beginning on Monday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/nyregion/custodial-witnesses-trump-trial.html ]
------
Between the riveting testimony of the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Mr. Cohen’s looming appearance, Friday’s session was a moment of calm, the eye of the storm that is the first criminal trial of an American president.
Mr. Trump is charged with 34 felonies .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/04/nyregion/trump-indictment-annotated.html , accused of orchestrating the falsification of documents — 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 ledger entries — that were used to reimburse Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has denied having had sex with Ms. Daniels.
Friday’s most substantive witness was Madeleine Westerhout, a former executive assistant during Mr. Trump’s presidency who had direct insight into how documents flowed in and out of the Oval Office.
Ms. Westerhout testified that Mr. Trump would sign checks sent from his family business, the Trump Organization, often stapled to the related invoices. She said she saw him sign them at the Resolute Desk and sometimes, in Sharpie.
She also testified that she had helped schedule a February 2017 meeting between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in the White House. There, Mr. Cohen is expected to testify, he and Mr. Trump discussed reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels.
During cross-examination on Thursday, Susan Necheles, a defense lawyer, elicited warm testimony from Ms. Westerhout, who said that Mr. Trump had been “a really good boss” who cared for his wife and family.
Those statements bolstered a key component of the defense’s case. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that he was motivated to pay Ms. Daniels not to win the election, as prosecutors have said, but rather “to protect his family, his reputation and his brand” from “salacious allegations.”
But Ms. Westerhout missed a chance to further that case Friday. Ms. Necheles asked the former executive assistant about Mr. Trump’s reaction in 2018 after Ms. Daniels’s story became public.
While Ms. Westerhout acknowledged that “the whole situation was very unpleasant,” she said that her former boss had not brought up his family.
Shortly before Ms. Westerhout took the stand, the jury got a chance to assess Ms. Daniels’s story for themselves.
Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?
The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/nyregion/trump-manhattan-criminal-trial-witnesses.html
Beginning on Tuesday, Ms. Daniels was on the stand for more than seven hours. She described, in often graphic detail, her account of a liaison with Mr. Trump in a Lake Tahoe, Nev., hotel suite in 2006. Though not directly related to the charges, the encounter — a brief and fraught experience, as recounted by Ms. Daniels — was the impetus for the hush-money payment made by Mr. Cohen, and for the case itself.
Mr. Cohen was once one of Mr. Trump’s closest confidants and most loyal enforcers. But he has since become a bitter enemy, openly mocking the former president and his legal travails .. https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-cohen-says-trump-join-050456605.html .
Mr. Trump has returned fire, calling Mr. Cohen a liar and reposting similar attacks by allies. It was those broadsides, in part, that prompted Justice Merchan to prohibit Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses and jurors, among others. The judge has since found the former president to have violated that order 10 times, and fined him $10,000. Twice, Justice Merchan has threatened .. https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/D.O.motion4contempt-FINAL.pdf .. Mr. Trump with jail .. https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/DOcontempt_5-6-24FINAL.pdf .. if the violations continue.
Mr. Cohen, a felon who pleaded guilty to a raft of federal crimes in 2018 .. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax , some of which he said were executed at Mr. Trump’s direction, is an imperfect witness. He has already been introduced to the jury by others who spoke of him from the stand, often in unflattering terms. The jury has heard his voice — in secretly recorded conversations, with Mr. Trump and others — and seen a photo of him beaming in the White House. But Monday, he is expected to appear in person.
On Friday, jurors got a taste of Mr. Trump’s disdain when prosecutors displayed Twitter posts disparaging Mr. Cohen, including one in August 2018 .. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032247043992023040?lang=en , a day after Mr. Cohen’s plea deal was announced.
“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” the former president wrote.
Jurors also heard from a prosecution paralegal, Georgia Longstreet, who doubled as a witness, guiding the courtroom through texts between Dylan Howard,
[Who is the Australian caught up in Donald Trump’s first criminal trials?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174357015]
the onetime editor of The National Enquirer, and Gina Rodriguez, Ms. Daniels’s manager in 2016. The messages showed a negotiation that led to a deal brokered by representatives of The National Enquirer but eventually executed by Mr. Cohen.
Prosecutors have argued that the supermarket tabloid entered a conspiracy with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election .. https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-04-04-SOF.pdf .
Mr. Trump has characterized the case as a political persecution, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat. During the former president’s four weeks inside Justice Merchan’s courtroom, he has been a glum and glowering figure, staring straight ahead or occasionally at a collection of positive press notices, printed for him daily by an aide.
Many other times, however, Mr. Trump has shut out the testimony around him, closing his eyes for long stretches.
That habit was particularly pronounced during Ms. Daniels’s testimony, which his defense team furiously tried to discredit, suggesting that she was a liar and fabulist, intent on peddling a false story of an affair for personal gain. They called twice for a mistrial, arguing that her testimony had poisoned the jury. The judge rejected both attempts.
For her part, Ms. Daniels was initially uneven — speeding through testimony and earning rebukes from the judge for straying off topic — before finding her footing in cross-examination. She batted back questions and insinuations from Ms. Necheles, the defense lawyer.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to be equally aggressive with Mr. Cohen, who will likely bring a glare of attention to the courtroom. And while the pressure will be on the witness, the moment is likely to also be intense for Mr. Trump, who once predicted that Mr. Cohen would never turn against him.
“Sorry I don’t see Michael doing that,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in April 2018 .. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-michael-cohen-will-never-flip-143516069.html . “Despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”
Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/nyregion/trump-michael-cohen-trial.html
Don't forget the case against Trump was almost closed until Bragg brought it back to life. This from 2022:
Donald Trump Revelations Put Alvin Bragg in 'Untenable Position'—Lawyers
The three lawyers resigning, with Mark Pomerantz's letter, certainly gives your feelingsome suggestible credibility. Without
further evidence though that's where it stands. I'd agree with you that there is no doubt Trump is guilty of the charges laid.
Related: Trump Is Guilty of ‘Numerous’ Felonies, Prosecutor Who Resigned Says
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168352179
By Ewan Palmer On 3/25/22 at 8:09 AM EDT
VIDEO
All links
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been put in an "untenable position" with regards to the ongoing criminal investigation into Donald Trump's business dealings, following the "scathing" resignation letter from his former prosecutor, according to experts.
On Wednesday, The New York Times published the letter from prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who quit as special assistant district attorney in February amid reports Bragg had doubts about pushing forward with prosecuting the former president and paused the grand jury investigation needed to indict him.
In the bombshell letter, Pomerantz, one of the top prosecutors working on the investigation into alleged tax fraud by The Trump Organization, said that the former president was "guilty of numerous felony violations" with regards to his "false" financial statements.
Pomerantz also hit out at Bragg for not seeking criminal charges against Trump even though the district attorney's predecessor who started the investigation, Cyrus Vance Jr., urged the department to seek an indictment "as soon as reasonably possible" because of the evidence against the former president .. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mazars-financial-statements-investigations-1679829 .
"The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes—he did," Pomerantz wrote.
"I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice."
Speaking to Newsweek, former Los Angeles County prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Josh Ritter said that Bragg is now in a no-win situation regarding how he continues the investigation into Trump, and that Pomerantz's letter presents "huge problems" for him and the former president.
"What Mr. Pomerantz is describing cannot be characterized as a simple difference in opinion between prosecutors. The letter is nothing short of a scathing rebuke on Mr. Bragg's refusal to bring charges against Trump for what Mr. Pomerantz describes as clear-cut criminal behavior," Ritter said.
"This letter places Mr. Bragg in a completely untenable position. If Mr. Bragg were to now reverse course and pursue an indictment against Trump, he will no doubt be excoriated for bowing to political pressure. Conversely, if Mr. Bragg maintains his current position the letter raises questions about Mr. Trump's potential crimes that cannot remain unanswered."
The criminal investigation in New York is one of a number of inquiries that Trump is facing.
The Manhattan DA probe has run parallel with a civil case headed by New York Attorney General Letitia James into allegations Trump's business inflated the value of several New York properties to obtain better bank loans and other financial benefits.
Continued -- https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169149864
It seems clear there was pressure from different directions to do the right thing and try Trump, as Bragg did
in the end. Also don't forget one source of that pressure was Michael Cohen, after Trump betrayed him:
Disloyal: A Memoir
Disloyal: A Memoir; The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump is a 2020 book by Michael Cohen.[2][3] In the memoir, Cohen recollects his time working as an attorney for Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018, his felony convictions, and other personal affairs. Throughout the book, Cohen alleges numerous incidents of wrongdoing by Trump.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disloyal:_A_Memoir
"Trump's lawyers CRASH AND BURN with failure during trial
"Opinion Trump might not go to jail, but this trial is a close second""
Zorax, ok, i understand more now why you expressed concern with Cohen's talking out. Wish you had told us Cohen was spruiking on TikTok every day, for one, i didn't know. Now, since Merchan has spoken on it, i hope Cohen does what you felt he should do ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174396842 .
That said it doesn't take anything away from my reply to you there ..
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174397139 .
Ahead of Michael D. Cohen’s testimony Monday, the judge told prosecutors to keep him quiet about Donald J. Trump’s criminal case.
Former President Donald J. Trump once predicted that Michael Cohen would not turn on him. Now Mr. Cohen is set to testify against him.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
By Jesse McKinley and Jonah E. Bromwich
May 10, 2024
In a startling precursor to what could be the most explosive testimony in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, the judge on Friday told prosecutors that he was personally asking that a key witness stop speaking out against the former president.
The witness, Michael D. Cohen, was once a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump and in 2016, paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star to silence her account of extramarital sex with the then-presidential candidate. Mr. Cohen, who is expected to begin testifying next week, has been outspoken in his taunting of Mr. Trump, recently posting a TikTok video in which he wore a shirt .. https://twitter.com/wsteaks/status/1788389312452587782 .. with a picture of the former president behind bars.
On Friday, moments after prosecutors acknowledged that they have little control over their star witness, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, asked them to tell Mr. Cohen again to refrain from making any more statements about the case. He made it clear that the directive came from the highest authority in the court: him.
“That comes from the bench,” Justice Merchan said.
Mr. Cohen declined to comment.
Justice Merchan’s remarks might as well have been a billboard previewing next week’s main event. Mr. Cohen is crucial to the case: He says that records of his reimbursements for the hush-money payment were falsified in 2017 at the then-president’s direction.
The Links Between Trump and 3 Hush-Money Deals
Here’s how key figures involved in making hush-money payoffs on behalf of Donald J. Trump are connected.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/04/25/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money-payments.html
The judge’s admonition injected a sense of anticipation into an otherwise placid proceeding, perhaps the first routine day in a most unusual trial. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office steadily tightened their focus on the central accusations against Mr. Trump ahead of what they said could be their final week of witness testimony.
They prepared for Mr. Cohen’s arrival by calling a round of custodial witnesses , whose testimony allowed the prosecutors to introduce important documents, phone logs, and text and email messages — much of it relevant to Mr. Cohen. Such witnesses are used to authenticate evidence that prosecutors and defense lawyers have not otherwise previously agreed should be admitted.
------
[Insert: Custodial Witnesses Provide Little Spectacle, but Affirm Basic Facts
[...]Jeffrey S. McConney, the Trump Organization’s former corporate controller, also described in painstaking detail how Mr. Cohen requested the checks by invoice. They were then cut by Deborah Tarasoff, an accounts supervisor at the organization, and sent via FedEx to the White House by Rebecca Manochio, a junior bookkeeper at the company.
P - Those checks left Mr. Trump’s headquarters in New York stapled to Mr. Cohen’s invoices and arrived in Washington, making their way to the White House through two of Mr. Trump’s aides, including Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s personal bodyguard, at their home addresses.
P - A defense attorney, Susan Necheles, sought to downplay the sending of checks to an outside address, suggesting in questioning Ms. Westerhout that such an arrangement was simply “a workaround” to avoid things getting delayed in a crush of mail being received at the White House. Ms. Westerhout agreed.
P - Once the checks were signed by Mr. Trump — often in Sharpie, according to testimony — they were sent back to New York, and eventually to Mr. Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness for prosecutors, beginning on Monday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/nyregion/custodial-witnesses-trump-trial.html ]
------
Between the riveting testimony of the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Mr. Cohen’s looming appearance, Friday’s session was a moment of calm, the eye of the storm that is the first criminal trial of an American president.
Mr. Trump is charged with 34 felonies .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/04/nyregion/trump-indictment-annotated.html , accused of orchestrating the falsification of documents — 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 ledger entries — that were used to reimburse Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty and has denied having had sex with Ms. Daniels.
Friday’s most substantive witness was Madeleine Westerhout, a former executive assistant during Mr. Trump’s presidency who had direct insight into how documents flowed in and out of the Oval Office.
Ms. Westerhout testified that Mr. Trump would sign checks sent from his family business, the Trump Organization, often stapled to the related invoices. She said she saw him sign them at the Resolute Desk and sometimes, in Sharpie.
She also testified that she had helped schedule a February 2017 meeting between Mr. Cohen and Mr. Trump in the White House. There, Mr. Cohen is expected to testify, he and Mr. Trump discussed reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Ms. Daniels.
During cross-examination on Thursday, Susan Necheles, a defense lawyer, elicited warm testimony from Ms. Westerhout, who said that Mr. Trump had been “a really good boss” who cared for his wife and family.
Those statements bolstered a key component of the defense’s case. Mr. Trump’s lawyers have argued that he was motivated to pay Ms. Daniels not to win the election, as prosecutors have said, but rather “to protect his family, his reputation and his brand” from “salacious allegations.”
But Ms. Westerhout missed a chance to further that case Friday. Ms. Necheles asked the former executive assistant about Mr. Trump’s reaction in 2018 after Ms. Daniels’s story became public.
While Ms. Westerhout acknowledged that “the whole situation was very unpleasant,” she said that her former boss had not brought up his family.
Shortly before Ms. Westerhout took the stand, the jury got a chance to assess Ms. Daniels’s story for themselves.
Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?
The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/nyregion/trump-manhattan-criminal-trial-witnesses.html
Beginning on Tuesday, Ms. Daniels was on the stand for more than seven hours. She described, in often graphic detail, her account of a liaison with Mr. Trump in a Lake Tahoe, Nev., hotel suite in 2006. Though not directly related to the charges, the encounter — a brief and fraught experience, as recounted by Ms. Daniels — was the impetus for the hush-money payment made by Mr. Cohen, and for the case itself.
Mr. Cohen was once one of Mr. Trump’s closest confidants and most loyal enforcers. But he has since become a bitter enemy, openly mocking the former president and his legal travails .. https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-cohen-says-trump-join-050456605.html .
Mr. Trump has returned fire, calling Mr. Cohen a liar and reposting similar attacks by allies. It was those broadsides, in part, that prompted Justice Merchan to prohibit Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses and jurors, among others. The judge has since found the former president to have violated that order 10 times, and fined him $10,000. Twice, Justice Merchan has threatened .. https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/D.O.motion4contempt-FINAL.pdf .. Mr. Trump with jail .. https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/DOcontempt_5-6-24FINAL.pdf .. if the violations continue.
Mr. Cohen, a felon who pleaded guilty to a raft of federal crimes in 2018 .. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax , some of which he said were executed at Mr. Trump’s direction, is an imperfect witness. He has already been introduced to the jury by others who spoke of him from the stand, often in unflattering terms. The jury has heard his voice — in secretly recorded conversations, with Mr. Trump and others — and seen a photo of him beaming in the White House. But Monday, he is expected to appear in person.
On Friday, jurors got a taste of Mr. Trump’s disdain when prosecutors displayed Twitter posts disparaging Mr. Cohen, including one in August 2018 .. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032247043992023040?lang=en , a day after Mr. Cohen’s plea deal was announced.
“If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!” the former president wrote.
Jurors also heard from a prosecution paralegal, Georgia Longstreet, who doubled as a witness, guiding the courtroom through texts between Dylan Howard,
[Who is the Australian caught up in Donald Trump’s first criminal trials?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=174357015]
the onetime editor of The National Enquirer, and Gina Rodriguez, Ms. Daniels’s manager in 2016. The messages showed a negotiation that led to a deal brokered by representatives of The National Enquirer but eventually executed by Mr. Cohen.
Prosecutors have argued that the supermarket tabloid entered a conspiracy with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election .. https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-04-04-SOF.pdf .
Mr. Trump has characterized the case as a political persecution, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat. During the former president’s four weeks inside Justice Merchan’s courtroom, he has been a glum and glowering figure, staring straight ahead or occasionally at a collection of positive press notices, printed for him daily by an aide.
Many other times, however, Mr. Trump has shut out the testimony around him, closing his eyes for long stretches.
That habit was particularly pronounced during Ms. Daniels’s testimony, which his defense team furiously tried to discredit, suggesting that she was a liar and fabulist, intent on peddling a false story of an affair for personal gain. They called twice for a mistrial, arguing that her testimony had poisoned the jury. The judge rejected both attempts.
For her part, Ms. Daniels was initially uneven — speeding through testimony and earning rebukes from the judge for straying off topic — before finding her footing in cross-examination. She batted back questions and insinuations from Ms. Necheles, the defense lawyer.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to be equally aggressive with Mr. Cohen, who will likely bring a glare of attention to the courtroom. And while the pressure will be on the witness, the moment is likely to also be intense for Mr. Trump, who once predicted that Mr. Cohen would never turn against him.
“Sorry I don’t see Michael doing that,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter in April 2018 .. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-michael-cohen-will-never-flip-143516069.html . “Despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!”
Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley
Jonah E. Bromwich covers criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state criminal courts in Manhattan. More about Jonah E. Bromwich
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/10/nyregion/trump-michael-cohen-trial.html
Don't forget the case against Trump was almost closed until Bragg brought it back to life. This from 2022:
Donald Trump Revelations Put Alvin Bragg in 'Untenable Position'—Lawyers
The three lawyers resigning, with Mark Pomerantz's letter, certainly gives your feelingsome suggestible credibility. Without
further evidence though that's where it stands. I'd agree with you that there is no doubt Trump is guilty of the charges laid.
Related: Trump Is Guilty of ‘Numerous’ Felonies, Prosecutor Who Resigned Says
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=168352179
By Ewan Palmer On 3/25/22 at 8:09 AM EDT
VIDEO
All links
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been put in an "untenable position" with regards to the ongoing criminal investigation into Donald Trump's business dealings, following the "scathing" resignation letter from his former prosecutor, according to experts.
On Wednesday, The New York Times published the letter from prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who quit as special assistant district attorney in February amid reports Bragg had doubts about pushing forward with prosecuting the former president and paused the grand jury investigation needed to indict him.
In the bombshell letter, Pomerantz, one of the top prosecutors working on the investigation into alleged tax fraud by The Trump Organization, said that the former president was "guilty of numerous felony violations" with regards to his "false" financial statements.
Pomerantz also hit out at Bragg for not seeking criminal charges against Trump even though the district attorney's predecessor who started the investigation, Cyrus Vance Jr., urged the department to seek an indictment "as soon as reasonably possible" because of the evidence against the former president .. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mazars-financial-statements-investigations-1679829 .
"The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes—he did," Pomerantz wrote.
"I fear that your decision means that Mr. Trump will not be held fully accountable for his crimes. I have worked too hard as a lawyer, and for too long, now to become a passive participant in what I believe to be a grave failure of justice."
Speaking to Newsweek, former Los Angeles County prosecutor and criminal defense attorney Josh Ritter said that Bragg is now in a no-win situation regarding how he continues the investigation into Trump, and that Pomerantz's letter presents "huge problems" for him and the former president.
"What Mr. Pomerantz is describing cannot be characterized as a simple difference in opinion between prosecutors. The letter is nothing short of a scathing rebuke on Mr. Bragg's refusal to bring charges against Trump for what Mr. Pomerantz describes as clear-cut criminal behavior," Ritter said.
"This letter places Mr. Bragg in a completely untenable position. If Mr. Bragg were to now reverse course and pursue an indictment against Trump, he will no doubt be excoriated for bowing to political pressure. Conversely, if Mr. Bragg maintains his current position the letter raises questions about Mr. Trump's potential crimes that cannot remain unanswered."
The criminal investigation in New York is one of a number of inquiries that Trump is facing.
The Manhattan DA probe has run parallel with a civil case headed by New York Attorney General Letitia James into allegations Trump's business inflated the value of several New York properties to obtain better bank loans and other financial benefits.
Continued -- https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169149864
It seems clear there was pressure from different directions to do the right thing and try Trump, as Bragg did
in the end. Also don't forget one source of that pressure was Michael Cohen, after Trump betrayed him:
Disloyal: A Memoir
Disloyal: A Memoir; The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump is a 2020 book by Michael Cohen.[2][3] In the memoir, Cohen recollects his time working as an attorney for Donald Trump from 2006 to 2018, his felony convictions, and other personal affairs. Throughout the book, Cohen alleges numerous incidents of wrongdoing by Trump.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disloyal:_A_Memoir
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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