NY: Trump on Trial!

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Prosecution has decided not to call Karen McDougal as a witness. hmm

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Mistrial denied! lol

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Madeleine Westerhout is testifying. I've been curious about this since I'm one of the lucky 13,300 few following her on her usually private Instagram. But she's posted zip about this, boo.

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The Defense isn't required to do anything, but if they want to win they need to sow reasonable doubt if the prosecution has proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

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I think they didn't object because they want to blame the prosecution for the salaciousness of the testimony (even though they brought up things like "orange turd" but whatever). But I'm sure Trump will try to use this to argue ineffective assistance because why not. Even OJ argued ineffective assistance in the robbery case and he had one of the best trial lawyers in the country.

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Prosecution says they could rest at the end of next week!

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But it is illegal and they can explain why to the jury in closing arguments.

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and court is coming very close to ordering Cohen to stop talking

I think this happened, or sort of. The judge told the prosecution to ask Cohen not to make any statements about the case.

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Even so, they can't exactly narrate to the jury right now. All they can do is ask questions of witnesses, and I don't think calling legal experts as a witness to explain the law is particularly common. But they can do all of the explanation in Opening Statements (and they did some) and Closing Arguments. Some of this also gets covered in jury instructions.

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Yeah I think Cohen's testimony is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting here (falsification of records, why it was illegal) and a lot of the witnesses so far have been geared at corroborating him on the whole scheme so the jury will believe him.

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Michael Cohen Was Paid to Fix Trump’s Problems. Now He’s One of Them.
Mr. Cohen once called himself Donald J. Trump’s “designated thug.” Will he help bring about the ex-president’s downfall?

Donald J. Trump has always surrounded himself with lawyers — all types of lawyers. There are the television-friendly talking heads. The polished criminal practitioners. The pit-bull litigators, the corporate suits and the legal advisers with their own legal troubles.

And then there was the singular Michael D. Cohen, lawyer by trade and enforcer by nature. With the loyalty of a surrogate son, he kept Mr. Trump’s secrets and cleaned up his messes. He was the fixer.

This week, however, Mr. Cohen is poised to unfix Mr. Trump’s life. When he takes the stand as a vital witness at Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, Mr. Cohen will unearth some of the secrets he buried, revealing a mess that prosecutors say his former boss was desperate to hide.

It will represent a pivotal moment of the trial, and the climax of a decades-long relationship between two New York loudmouths who used each other, betrayed each other and will now face off on the biggest stage: The first criminal trial of an American president.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/12/nyregion/michael-cohen-trump-trial.html

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I think there was a poll, ~55%+ of voters aren't following the trial at all. I heard it on air so don't know what it was.

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The problem with that approach is it lends credence that these cases are a coordinated political hit job orchestrated by Biden and the Democrats. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, optics matter and Trump is really good at psychological manipulation of the masses. Constantly muttering "election interference", "witch hunt", "political persecution" lands with people, even those who don't support him. (tell a lie long enough and eventually it becomes true). Democrats would be wise not to lend credence to that.

Well then, saying he was convicted of election interference over and over will also land with the people, true or not, for the same reason. It's not just magic if Trump does it.

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There are some cases like death penalty where the prosecution has to make clear what punishment they want, but yeah usually I don't think much happens there until a conviction.

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Well most legal experts seem to agree he won't get jail time for this as a first offender so I'm just going with that.

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Like, what do defendants who have been convicted of this crime usually get as a penalty? Isn't there a recommended sentence for each class of felony in the state?

They're seeking this as a Class E felony, which in NY is apparently up to 4 years but a first offender wouldn't get anywhere near that. I tend to agree with people who think giving Trump jail time will be impossible but even if it wasn't we'd probably be talking like 12 months?

Anyway, that's an argument for the sentencing phase if we get a conviction.

I do think people are unprepared for how quickly this trial is moving and how late in we already are. The prosecution is indicating it plans to rest Tuesday of next week (the 21st) and the defense is saying that they think their case would take about a week, so we'll probably have a verdict the first or second week of June? That's a lot closer than I think people are mentally ready for.

I'm here for it!

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Cohen testified that he and Allen Weisselberg went talked to Trump directly for his sign off on the whole scheme!

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yeah I've heard commentators who said he did great on the stand, owned up to his wrongs, stayed calm and on message. Of course things could be potentially different on cross.

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How about it was a mixed bag, maybe, and there are some who think he did well and some who think he did not do well.

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Well we have the testimony today that he allegedly knew the money being paid to Cohen was repayment of the Daniels payoff and not for legal services. So that.

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They've been around the block a few times with Weisselberg. He's loyal and has gone to prison twice, passing up the opportunity to squeal on Trump. He's not going to change course now.

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Some possibilities.

Their defense that you can't trust Cohen because he pled guilty to perjury does not work as well if their star witness as the same issue.

If the meeting with the 3 of them happened as Cohen described it and Weisselberg lies on the stand about it his cross is not going to go well.

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Sounds like cross has been uneven so far and the defense got off to kind of a rough start. hmm

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What's the expert they're weighing?

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So he would just be arguing that the falsifications can't be upgraded to felonies or that he didn't even break the law at all?