Frustrations on both sides were obvious as the prosecution and the defense sparred over an image of defendant Donald Trump, 77, with his onetime bodyguard late Monday afternoon during a hearing away from jurors’ ears in the former president’s ongoing hush-money trial.
Michael Cohen, 57, finished his third day of cross-examination under slow-to-start but ultimately capable questioning by lead defense attorney Todd Blanche. The witness then worked to rehabilitate some of his more damaging answers under relatively brief redirect testimony led by Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger.
Brief and to the point. The prosecution was guided by that method when attempting to clean up certain areas of Cohen’s cross-examination testimony. Of particular importance to the state was further explanation regarding a brief phone call to Keith Schiller, Trump’s former bodyguard, at 8:02 p.m. on the night of Oct. 24, 2016.
Dueling narratives have emerged as to what was said — and to whom — during that phone call. To hear the state tell it initially, Cohen made that call simply to relay the details of a pending settlement to the threat posed by Stormy Daniels, 45. The defense, however, forced a telling omission: text messages showed Cohen had actually called Schiller to discuss a 14-year-old prank caller who would not let up. But what seemed like a clear win for the defense was undercut by that aforementioned image of Trump and Schiller together.
Asked whether Cohen had a specific recollection, Cohen said he did, according to a report by MSNBC personality Katie Phang.
Asked if he was too busy in October 2016 to finalize the Daniels payoff, Cohen replied he was not. The prosecutor asked the witness if he was too busy to get Trump’s approval to make the payoff.
“No, ma’am,” Cohen replied.
Still, that cleanup on the witness stand might not have meant much to the far-flung collection of assembled Manhattanites — the defense has sought to craft an image in jurors’ minds of Cohen as someone who will say anything to save himself or improve his own standing. So, the state looked to bolster what the witness said with a picture.
First, the image of Trump with Schiller together on the night in question — culled from a screengrab of C-SPAN video — was shown to Cohen alone. The defense quickly objected to the image and New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan called an early lunch recess in order for the court to hash out evidentiary issues, according to a report by Law&Crime Network reporter Terri Austin.
The photo, dated 7:57 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2016, shows Trump to the left and Schiller on the right.
The state sought to introduce the photo to show Trump and his bodyguard were, in fact, together at or around the time Cohen made the phone call. The upshot was clear: it would tend to show the witness was otherwise reliable about the discrete issue in dispute. The defense objected — saying it was not relevant because they had never argued the pair were not together and because the image was hearsay.
After the evidentiary hearing, the judge indicated two things: (1) the photograph was relevant; but (2) there was not an easy way to get around the hearsay issue. So, the picture could not be shown to jurors. The prosecution, clearly frustrated by the ruling, then offered to re-call a prior witness from C-SPAN to authenticate the image.
As the judge appeared open to the idea of the witness returning, Blanche complained about the delay that such an effort would entail — a starkly disjointed gripe from Trump’s team who, for months, sought to delay the proceedings in New York City for as long as possible.
“That’s not the way a trial is supposed to work, judge,” Trump’s lead attorney said, according to a report by The New York Times.
Pressing the defense’s case further, Blanche said there were multiple delays caused by the prosecution already. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass pushed back on that claim and the judge took the state’s side — saying there was only one time such a delay occurred.
Reversing himself, Merchan gave the defense the option to decide when the state would be allowed to re-call the C-SPAN employee who would provide the significant enough foundation for the Trump-Schiller photo in order for the hearsay problem to be cured.
After huddling with the defendant and other counsel, Blanche agreed to withdraw the defense’s objection to the photo altogether.
After the lunch break and the hearing, Cohen returned to the stand and the photo was immediately introduced into evidence.
Photo is identified as 417B. Cohen recognizes Trump and Keith Schiller. Parties agree still taken at 7:57 on 10/24/2017.
Cohen had many conversations in person and by phone with Trump about Daniels. Cohen estimates 20 conversations in October with Trump on Daniels. #trump
— Terri Austin (@Terridaustin) May 20, 2024
Hoffinger returned for a final redirect of her star witness.
Asked about the phone call, the witness said he spoke to both Trump and Schiller. In response to another question, Cohen said he spoke with Trump more than 20 times about the Daniels payoff.
“Do you have any doubt that you had a conversation with Trump to work it out?” Hoffinger pressed.
To which the witness replied: “No doubt.”
The post ‘No doubt’: Trump attorney complains about trial delay and suffers major loss in hush-money trial as key photograph shown to jurors could undercut defense narrative first appeared on Law & Crime.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Colin Kalmbacher
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://lawandcrime.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.