Trump lawyer's big 'moment' may be 'less devastating' than people think: legal expert
Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, scored major legal points when he caught Michael Cohen off guard during the witness' testimony, but it won't move the needle much, a legal expert said Sunday.
Lawfare's Roger Parloff, who recently reported that Judge Cannon had created a "secret docket" in the process of overseeing the Trump case involving allegedly stashed classified documents, addressed what he called "Todd Blanche’s Perry Mason moment" during his cross-examination of Cohen.
The question, the expert said, is whether it "torpedoed the People’s case against Trump."
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"Here’s some perspective," the expert said. "On Thurs Cohen misremembered a call to Trump bodyguard Schiller on the evening of 10/24/16. He thought he spoke to Trump about Stormy Daniels but, in fact, it appears he probably spoke to Schiller about a 14-year-old prank caller."
He continued:
"But here are other facts the jury knows & will be reminded of either on redirect or closing. That same day, 10/24/16, Cohen exchanged the first in a series of frantic Signal calls with AMI chief David Pecker that continued for 2 days. (Not about a 14-yo prank caller.)"
Also, according to Parloff, "Pecker’s right-hand guy, Dylan Howard, also had a flurry of exchanges with Cohen starting 10/25/16. 'We have to coordinate something ... or it could look awfully bad for everyone.' (Doesn’t sound like it’s about a 14-yo prank caller.)"
"At that time, Cohen testified, he was trying—but failing—to convince Pecker to have AMI pay Stormy Daniels the $130K. Pecker already testified that that was, indeed, the case," he added Sunday. "Also during that time—10/23/16 to 10/25/16—Cohen had a series of calls with Trump Org CFO Weisselberg, the last of which took place after biz hours, 7:23pm, on 10/25/16 and lasted 3 min 24 sec. (Not about a 14-yo prank caller.)"
The next morning, according to Parloff, "10/26/16, Cohen had 2 calls with TRUMP. 1st is at 8:26am (3 min 1 sec) and 2d is at 8:34am (1 min 28 sec). Cohen testified they talked about how Cohen was setting up a vehicle to pay Daniels off."
"A half hr later, 9:04am on 10/26/16, Cohen reached out to this woman to get corporate records he needed to open a bank acct for Essential Consultants, a Delaware LLC he’d set up earlier that month to pay Daniels. (Not about a 14-yo prank caller.)" he wrote. "By 10:52am same morning (10/26/16), Cohen has set up the bank acct for Essential Consultants, providing a false description of what it was for. (Doesn’t seem to be about a 14-yo prank caller.)"
After adding up all the evidence, Parloff said, "Maybe it’s just me, but I think Blanche’s Perry Mason moment may prove less devastating than many commenters seem to think."