Michael Cohen is the world’s worst witness. Will it matter?
Everything depends on whether there is anyone of integrity on the jury. All it would take would be one person, and that person would have to be strong enough to resist extreme pressure and even threats. I wouldn’t count on it, although it’s possible.
The NY case against Trump is bogus in so many ways, many of which have been discussed on this blog and all of which have been touched on elsewhere. No need to recap them at the moment. But the utterly contemptible corruption of the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen, grows more apparent every day – and it was amply apparent to begin with.
Yesterday I wrote about how even Anderson Cooper was remarking on it. But today I saw this series of other videos featuring equally gobsmacked TV newspeople noting how poorly Cohen had performed and had well Trump’s attorney had shown him to be a vengeful former employee who had been lying constantly, and lying on the stand as well.
You might want to follow that link and take a look at the videos there. But here’s an especially colorful one:
CNN legal analyst: "I don't think I've never seen a star cooperating witness get his knees chopped out quite as clearly and dramatically as what just happened with Michael Cohen." pic.twitter.com/NcghETrUIJ
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) May 16, 2024
And here’s Jonathan Turley, speaking about Cohen even before yesterday’s dramatic testimony on the stand:
So, what does it all mean? Nothing, as I said, unless there’s at least one juror with integrity and courage. If the judge had any integrity and courage, this case would be decided for Trump in a directed verdict, because no evidence has been produced that could reasonably convict him. But I feel pretty safe in saying that this judge will not do that. If the prosecutors had any integrity (I know; don’t ask for something impossible) this case would never have been brought in the first place. But it was, and here we are.
They didn’t televise this trial despite the fact that it would have gotten very high ratings, because they knew how terrible it would look. They knew it would expose the hollowness of the case against Trump and the duplicity of the prosecutors and the witnesses against him. Too many people watching it might be shocked enough to vote for Trump when they saw for themselves, up close and personal, just how corrupt these people are, and how completely and utterly unprincipled the whole thing is.
So they thought they’d filter it for the public through the MSM and could count on the jury to convict, and although a conviction would probably be reversed that didn’t matter because it would happen after the election. But what they didn’t quite bargain for was that Cohen would be so awful that even the MSM would notice and some sort of vestigial reporting instinct would kick in for some people, at least for a day.
I doubt that instinct will last any longer than that.
I would dearly love to see a video of what happened in that courtroom yesterday. But we’ll probably never get to see it, and I doubt it even was allowed to be filmed. But apparently there was a real Perry Mason moment, the type of drama that was common on the TV series but actually is rare in real life.
It is also informative to listen to Costello, who was Michael Cohen’s attorney (the one referenced by Turley in the above clip). Costello has his own tale to tell of Cohen’s motives and statements:
NOTE: Court is not in session today because they allowed Trump to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation. How very kind of them.
…whether there is anyone of integrity on the jury.
Diogenes, lantern in hand, might well search NYC in vain.
How many active jurers are there currently? 12? So we’re counting on at least 1 out of 12 NYC Democrats to have a shred of integrity?
What is the jury-count difference between a hung jury and acquittal?
Never figured it would be important to know.
Richard Aubrey:
Acquittal requires unanimity, as does conviction. Everything else is a hung jury and mistrial.
I confess that I find it somewhat mystifying that we can’t count on the integrity and respect for the law of at least 1 out of 12 NYC Democrats. Trump derangement must be serverley debilitating among such people, overriding most rational thought.
Nonapod:
If it was just the population of NY, it would be likely that someone on that jury would vote to acquit. After all, in 2020 in Manhattan (where the trial is taking place) the vote for Trump was 14.5%. That’s approximately one in seven.
In other boroughs, the tally for Trump was better: 17% for Trump in the Bronx, 25% for Trump in Brooklyn, 30% for Trump in Queens, and Trump won Staten Island 61.6% to 37.6%.
And those are Trump supporters in NY, not just people who might be persuaded to not convict him in a kangaroo court. The problem, however, is that the jury is not necessarily representative even of Manhattan, where one in seven people support Trump. It is a very carefully selected group of people, and the sample is small. Who knows how it will go? I don’t. But I do know that if it was truly representative of the Manhattan population (and certainly of the NYC population as a whole), Trump would get at least a hung jury.
It has also been my experience that most people’s opinions of a trial are heavily influenced by their political positions, especially in a political trial. That is true of both left and right, although I believe that it’s even more common on the left, because leftists openly state that the ends justify the means and that law is a purely political power play.
Only takes one Trump hater to decide this s*** show is not helping and like Obi-wan, striking Trump down only makes him stronger.
“You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Why would we think that the MSM is allowing vestigial reporting instinct or integrity to operate? They certainly close ranks and enforce omerta well enough when they want to. In this case they have little reason to say anything as the public cannot get video of the actual trial (but can get transcripts I think). Why aren’t they just lying about what Cohen said, or omitting entirely what the defense drew out of Cohen, which is their usual move?
The most probable conclusion is that in this case they don’t really want to completely bury Trump’s defense. There’s any number of reasons why that might be, but one is perhaps that Trump drama is profitable for them as few other things are. There’s no drama without ups as well as downs.
It’s important to remember that MSM has been almost entirely captured by marketing, and departments of the Federal government are some of their biggest customers for so-called earned media. For those who don’t know about this, few reporters do their own reporting. It is nearly always done by someone else who gives it to friendly reporters to put their bylines on it, usually someone who is doing marketing for themselves or someone else.
Consequently I would be very cautious in assuming that anything a media talking head or reporter says or writes is correlated closely with anything they actually think, and certainly won’t be original to them, but someone else’s views or narrative passed off as their own.
Neo. Thanks. That’s what I had supposed. If there isn’t one honest juror in that demographic, I suppose the appeals might work. As in, what’s the actual crime? Stuff like that.
I don’t suppose the fear of being doxxed to the howling mobs is as important here as in the Chauvin case.
We all see it was nothing but a Kangaroo Court, but just wondering what if as could happen all the jury says guilty if it gets rid of Trump. There will be sentencing and sure it will be scheduled to destroy more campaign time.
I am not in a position to opine about the mindset of Manhattan jurors, but as a retired trial lawyer of 50 years experience, I have greater respect for jurors in general staying true to their oath and doing the right thing based on the law and the evidence. Am I correct that there are two lawyers on the jury? If one of them is a trial lawyer, he would find it hard to find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of any crime encompassed in the indictment being proved. I would not be surprised with a hung jury producing a mistrial. If that proves to be the case, there will never be a retrial as it would not serve any purpose for the Democrats.
Short answer: No.
This is not a trial based upon the law and/or facts. It’s a Soviet proceeding designed to punish the State’s enemy, and reward its servants.
It does and will matter, the Left cannot stop.
My understanding from other reading is that NY law forbids televising the trial. I suppose that could have been worked around had The Regime so desired but I suspect a more likely motive for chosing not to was controlling the testimony that is leaked. None of the participants in the persecution have shown sufficient self awareness to be embarrassed.