Posted on 05/07/2024 5:32:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
So far, the witnesses in the former president’s ‘hush money’ trial seem to be undermining the Manhattan DA’s case.
Since the so-called Trump “hush money” trial started three weeks ago, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has called a handful of high-profile witnesses in his case against former President Donald Trump who have appeared to contradict Bragg's central claims.
Hope Hicks – a former communications aide for Trump – last week delivered testimony that undercut Bragg’s main charge, that Trump orchestrated the “hush money” payments to women claiming they had affairs with him to improperly influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
But Hicks was not the first witness to poke holes in Bragg’s case and to call into question the prosecution’s key witness, Michael Cohen.
Two other witnesses – David Pecker, the CEO of the National Inquirer who helped “capture and kill” the affair stories, and Keith Davidson the former lawyer to Stormy Daniels to whom hush money was paid – each gave testimony challenging the facts contained in the indictment.
Then on Monday, former Trump organization controller Jeffrey McConney testified that his former boss did not personally direct him to make any of the alleged hush money payments.
In Bragg's indictment, he alleges the former president, now a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had knowledge of and orchestrated the scheme.
Hicks told the court that her former boss was primarily motivated by sparing his wife, Melania Trump, from having to deal with the public attention that would come from accusations that her husband had an affair with an adult film actress.
“I don't think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed by anything that happened on the campaign," Hicks said under cross examination from Trump’s lawyers, according to Business Insider. "He wanted them to be proud of him."
The testimony appeared to cast doubt on Bragg’s claim that then-2016 presidential candidate Trump was primarily concerned with swaying the election outcome.
The testimony was one of many that have “contradicted the basis for prosecution,” says legal expert Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School.
Hicks’ testimony also undercut Bragg’s key witness Cohen, the former Trump attorney and fixer who is set to testify against his former boss at the Manhattan trial.
Cohen was the one who organized the payments to Daniels, a former porn actress, and Karen McDougal a former Playboy model, before the election to prevent them from taking their stories public.
“He was not looped in on the day-to-day,” Hicks said of Cohen and the presidential campaign.
“He went rogue at times, it was fair to say?” Emil Bove, lawyer for Trump, asked her.
“Yes,” she answered. "I used to say that he likes to call himself a fixer or Mr. Fixit. But it was only because he first broke it that he was Mr. Fixit."
Cohen faces scrutiny of his own past actions and reliability, Just the News previously reported.
His own statements to his former lawyer, with whom he waived attorney-client privilege, show he repeatedly insisted to his attorney that he had no incriminating evidence on Trump related to the hush money payments to Daniels.
Cohen was also sentenced to three years in prison for various crimes born of the scheme to pay off Daniels and for lying to Congress.
Before the trials, Cohen infamously claimed he would “take a bullet for the president,” yet as the investigations into his conduct accelerated, he decided to flip on his former boss and cooperate in multiple investigations, including the Mueller probe and others directed at the 2016 campaign and Trump family members.
Cohen blamed Trump for leading him down a “path of darkness” after his sentencing. One of Cohen’s attorney’s requested leniency in light of his client's cooperation against his former boss.
Yet, one attorney with the Southern District of New York stated Cohen “didn’t come anywhere close to assisting this office in an investigation” and that his charges “portray a pattern of deception, of brazenness and of greed."
Pecker's testimony also raised doubts about Bragg’s clean narrative.
He told jurors that his relationship with Trump dated back long before the 2016 election and the allegations by Daniels and McDougal were brought to him. He testified that the relationship dated to sometime before 2000.
“It was a great mutual, beneficial relationship,” Pecker said, describing the ratings boost that covering Trump would generate for his tabloid paper.
Pecker also told the court, under cross examination from Trump’s lawyers, that he provided similar services for several public figures over the career, not just for Trump. Former figures protected by Pecker include Tiger Woods, actor Mark Wahlberg, and Ari Emanuel, who sought to halt a story about an alleged affair involving his brother, Rahm Emanuel, an Obama administration alumnus who was running for Chicago mayor.
Pecker did acknowledge that Trump was concerned about how the stories could impact the election.
However, Turley believes this fact does not matter for Bragg’s overall case and that the length of Trump and Pecker's relationship weakens Bragg’s case.
“The question is not whether bad stories can impact a defendant on a political as well as a personal basis. The question is whether the denotation of these payments as legal expenses was intended to hide a crime,” Turley told Newsweek.
“While many of us are still unclear what that crime was, there are a myriad of reasons why such stories are killed with NDAs, including stories going back over a decade with Trump. NDAs are often treated by celebrities as a matter handled by private counsel to avoid bad press. Pecker acknowledged that fact,” he also said.
Davidson, who also represented McDougal, also gave testimony undercutting a key claim from Bragg’s case – that Trump was paying hush money misrepresented as a legal expense.
“It wasn't a payoff and it wasn't hush money ... it was consideration in a civil settlement agreement,” Davidson told the jury, according to Newsweek. Bragg has alleged that Trump’s payments to Daniels and McDougal violated the law because they were recorded falsely as business records.
Davidson also made contributions about Cohen’s character and behavior. In his testimony, he described Cohen’s conduct, calling him “aggressive,” said in one meeting he threw "a hostile barrage of insults, insinuations and allegations,” and said, "The moral of the story is nobody wanted to talk to Cohen.”
McConney, who served in that comptroller for over 20 years, also testified that Trump did not direct him to make any of the legal expenses payments to Cohen that Bragg alleges were falsely represented.
Trump’s participation in and knowledge of the alleged “hush money” payments are central to the Manhattan District Attorney’s case, according to the summary posted on his office’s website.
"President Trump did not ask you to do any of the things you just described ... correct?” Trump’s lawyer asked McConney of the reimbursements to Cohen.
“He did not," McConney answered.
Robert Hirschhorn, an attorney and jury consultant, told CNN that Bragg brought the “wrong guy” to the stand when he called McConney because the DA failed to establish the “crucial link” between the alleged crime and Donald Trump.
“The guy that prosecution ought to have up on the bars is Allen, who’s currently in the cross bars motel,” Hirschhorn told CNN, referring to Allen Weisselberg, the one-time CFO of the Trump Organization who is currently behind bars for falsely testifying in Trump’s civil fraud case.
But since Weisselberg is in a cell, the prosecution had to call McConney, the next highest ranking official in the operation.
“He’s the highest one up so far from the Trump Org. side. He has not provided that crucial ... link between the crime and the defendants either knowledge of it or ordering that the documents be falsified,” Hirschhorn said of McConney.
Still to come, Bragg plans to call Cohen himself to the stand, but he will be faced with significant credibility issues that have only compounded from the testimony of other witnesses in the case.
Other witnesses could include Daniels and McDougal, Robert Costello – Cohen’s one-time lawyer –and Trump White House secretaries or campaign officials.
I think all the receipts paid to Cohen says....Cohen was a regular attorney on a retainer. I believe that. The fact that he paid $130,000 blackmail money to Stormy is for that alone...surely he got paid for working on that and that’s included in that billing as well as for other work. We need to know what else Cohen did for Trump that year. The fact that they divided it was more likely than not...how Cohen wanted to be paid and he billed accordingly. Nothing to do with Trump.
Dismiss the case ,so Trump can campaign.
Stop wasting his time and our money , you POS .
I’m still trying to get a crime out of this. The fact that everything is on the books...tells me that nothing was hidden. You don’t write “paying blackmail money to Stormy Daniels via Cohen” in your ledger.
Uh, the only problems I see are the judge and jury. Will the judge toss it out? Pretty sure the ‘fair and impartial’ jury is chomping to convict. I really dislike these entities.
Why are they talking about McDougal? She’s not part of the charge is she?
Lawyerly orthodoxy advises to never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. Bragg’s geniuses did just that with Hope, and numerous times so far.
I watch Shark Tank.
Mr. Wonderful has said he won’t even get out of bed for 130k.
And we are supposed to believe that multi billionaire President Trump personally directed this 130k?
That is not even walking around money for him.
“I’m still trying to get a crime out of this”
Nothing that goes on it that court room matters.....it’s all about what the jury thinks and decides......or has already decided.....don’t forget thst.
I suspect most of them had their minds made up when they received their summons to appear for jury duty.
I hate to be a Debbie downer but if that jury finds Trump not guilty (not proven) regardless of what the evidence proves or doesn’t prove......I’ll be absolutely shocked.
Unfortunately, I don’t see how this matters much. The judge, jury, and DA are all Democrats. Fifty years ago most Democrats were fair. They were often wrong, but they were fair.
Today, most Democrats are insane ideologues. Actual justice is quite low on their agenda.
Bingo. These jurors are probably afraid that anything short of conviction will have repercussions on them when their identities are revealed especially the 2 lawyers
McDougal and the pussy tape are meant to muddy Trump’s image in order to get a conviction. Neither should be allowed and will guarantee any conviction is overturned on appeal, but they don’t care about a reversal because it would occur after the election.
Ds lust to label Trump as “convicted” during the campaign.
No doubt. Then again knowing where they are from and the politics in nyc, they could be elated to be the ones to go down in history for a guilty verdict against OMB.
I thought similarly, initially, but now the charges are being shown to be so blatantly ridiculous and baseless that a conviction might paint the jurors as equally ridiculous stooges.
if you were on this jury, would you want your 12-0 conviction to be tossed on appeal ?...which is a virtual certainty.
if you were on this jury, would you want your 12-0 conviction to be tossed on appeal ?...which is a virtual certainty.
——-/
Me no but to them it’s part of history and there’s no certainty that this gets overturned pre election.
To me this is a setup for Biden to declare I won’t debate a criminal
This is all just the prelude to the jury standing up as one and screaming: “hang him!” Impartial my left gonad.
I predict a hung jury with at least 1 holdout with a spine and a brain, unless the 2 lawyers on the jury hate Trump, ignore written law, and persuade their lessers.
yes, any appeal would happen well after the election, which is what Ds are counting on.
What is the difference between Trump paying hush money and the Biden campaign/FBI intimidating social media to cover up Hunter’s laptop story? No one is indicting Biden or anyone on his campaign for violating the laws.
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