A defense lawyer for Donald J. Trump painted Michael D. Cohen, the trial’s key witness, as an unrepentant liar on Thursday and suggested he fabricated testimony. He will be back on the stand on Monday.
So I read the live updates throughout the day - and was then surprised to see headlines later claiming that Cohen’s “knees were cut out from under him.”
From what I heard, the defense made a point that on a call where Cohen called Trump’s body guard to say the Stormy thing was taken care of, text messages before the call suggest that Cohen was calling to instead complain about a 14 year old that was prank calling Cohen.
The defense also pointed out that Cohen was conservatively getting something like 20,000 calls a year. All in all, the point they were making seemed to be that Cohen couldn’t be sure about when the phone call took place and that the exact call he specified early likely was about something else.
So how devastating is that to the prosecution’s case? In my mind, it sounds like a reasonable mistake. But is it crucial that they identify exactly at what point in time Cohen talked to Trump? I could see if this was a murder case and they were like “the victim was killed at 8:00, but your call at 8:02 was about something else so you’re lying!” But does the exact time and date of this call actually matter?
My confusion is to the whole “how could you possibly talk about two things in a minute and change?” And I’m just sitting here trying to remember the last time I talked to someone other than my mother on the phone for more than 30 seconds.
So I read the live updates throughout the day - and was then surprised to see headlines later claiming that Cohen’s “knees were cut out from under him.”
From what I heard, the defense made a point that on a call where Cohen called Trump’s body guard to say the Stormy thing was taken care of, text messages before the call suggest that Cohen was calling to instead complain about a 14 year old that was prank calling Cohen.
The defense also pointed out that Cohen was conservatively getting something like 20,000 calls a year. All in all, the point they were making seemed to be that Cohen couldn’t be sure about when the phone call took place and that the exact call he specified early likely was about something else.
So how devastating is that to the prosecution’s case? In my mind, it sounds like a reasonable mistake. But is it crucial that they identify exactly at what point in time Cohen talked to Trump? I could see if this was a murder case and they were like “the victim was killed at 8:00, but your call at 8:02 was about something else so you’re lying!” But does the exact time and date of this call actually matter?
My gut is the timing doesn’t matter much, but I’m not in the jury box.
My confusion is to the whole “how could you possibly talk about two things in a minute and change?” And I’m just sitting here trying to remember the last time I talked to someone other than my mother on the phone for more than 30 seconds.