By The FirstMichael Cohen was caught in lie-after-lie Thursday in what even CNN is describing as “the best day for Donald Trump.”
From CNN:
Donald Trump finally had a good day in court.
The presumptive GOP nominee has often seemed embarrassed and infuriated by his first criminal trial, which has featured salacious exposés of his personal life and details of his alleged attempts to cover it up.
But on Thursday, he got to savor his former fixer-turned-enemy Michael Cohen wobbling on the stand under a fearsome cross-examination. Cohen appeared to be tripped up over an account of a call he’d previously said under oath was to discuss Trump’s hush money payment to adult film Star Stormy Daniels. It emerged under questioning on Thursday that, at least to begin with, the topic of the call was about another matter entirely.
It was the kind of inconsistency that Trump’s attorneys can use to try to sow reasonable doubt about Cohen’s truthfulness and credibility in the mind of a single juror. That’s all it would take for Trump to walk. And now, the prosecution faces a stiff challenge in repairing the damage when they get to their redirect examination of Cohen’s testimony following the close of cross-examination next week. “I think what happened today still is so devastating they have to do something,” Ryan Goodman, a professor at NYU Law, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “If the case ended today and there were final statements, I think there would not be a conviction.”
