By The FirstKey elements of Michael Cohen’s story fell apart Thursday as Donald Trump’s former fixer faced a brutal cross-examination from the president’s attorneys.
From CNN:
Michael Cohen’s testimony about an October 2016 call with Keith Schiller and Donald Trump gets at the core of the case and could potentially be problematic for prosecutors, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said.
“Michael Cohen on his direct testimony said, ‘I had this phone call in late October of 2016, I called Keith Schiller and he patched me through to Trump, I don’t remember if he put me on speaker but I was speaking to the two of them and I told them then that Stormy Daniels had been paid and the matter was resolved.’ Right? We’ve been asking, ‘When are they going to go with the core?’ This is the core the case,” Honig explained.
He added that Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche then raised two points regarding this testimony.
First, the texts leading up to the call that day show that Cohen texted Schiller nothing about Daniels, but about instead about a 14-year-old who was harassing him.
Second, Cohen never mentioned in previous testimony that this call was about Daniels, including a prior grand jury testimony and extensive statements he’s given to the district attorney.