Trump prosecutor’s evidence backs Michael Cohen’s account experts believe
Summary
- Prosecutors are set to end the case in Trump’s NY Hush money trial
- Experts say circumstantial evidence helps prosecution
NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) The New York Times reports that Donald Trump‘s lawyers during the New York criminal trial have described his ex-fixer Michael Cohen as a deceiver and Trump-hater who took on the role of a single person to pay porn stars However, experts in the field say that the prosecution has largely supported Cohen’s testimony by relying on the statements of other witnesses, phone logs and other evidence.
Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at one time, Cohen has testified on behalf of the prosecution last week that Trump ordered Cohen to pay the adult actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her quiet during the 2016 presidential election regarding an alleged sexual encounter in 2006. Cohen said Trump later agreed to a plan of fudge documents to conceal the arrangement.
In cross-examinations, defense lawyer Todd Blanche sought to challenge Cohen’s credibility by portraying Cohen as a rebel, while and falsely accusing his former boss of being to jealousy. The defense provided the foundation to claim that Trump did not have any involvement in the particulars of the reimbursements made to Cohen in the center of the matter.
While prosecutors were unable to completely confirm Cohen’s claims of one-on-one meetings with Trump They did establish that Trump knew about the plot and portrayed Cohen as a nanny-state manager of his family’s financial and business, according to Prof. Rebecca Roiphe at New York Law School.
A long-time New York businessman whose first political career was running to the White House, Trump wrote books. The jury was instructed, with statements such like: “Ask to see all of the invoices” and “If you don’t know every aspect of what you’re doing, down to the paper clips, you’re setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises.”
A former prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Roiphe stated: “Part of what the prosecution did well is to corroborate other pieces of Michael Cohen’s testimony so completely,” saying: “There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence connecting Trump to the payments.”
Trump who, at 77, is 20 years older than Cohen Trump has pleaded guilty to 34 felony charges of faking business records presenting payments in the form of reimbursements to Cohen to pay for Daniels Hush money as a retainer to the legal services provided by Cohen’s lawyer.
The prosecution claims that the altered documents were used to cover up tax law and election law violations, since the funds were essentially an unreported contribution to the Trump campaign. This elevates the crime from a misdemeanor to felonies, punishable with up to four months in jail.
As the first U.S. president past or present to stand trial in the possibility of a trial on criminal charges, Trump denies he had sexual relations with Daniels and denies having sex with Daniels Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s trial as a partisan effort to sabotage the Republican campaign to win his White House from President Joe Biden in the November. 5 presidential election.
In order for Trump in order to find him guilty, the 12 member jury must be unanimous in deciding that the prosecutors have proved their case beyond reasonable doubt. After the jury has completed cross-examination of Cohen in the morning, defence attorneys will be able to present the witnesses of their own.
They will likely claim that Trump was at the time moving to the top post on earth – handed over the important business issues to aides such as Cohen or Allen Weisselberg, the Trump company’s chief financial officer for many years.
Lawyers representing defense have stated that there was nothing wrong with referring to payments to lawyers in the form of legal costs.
EXPERTS CITE CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Experts said that prosecutors had presented numerous circumstantial evidence which suggested that Trump did not know that he was concealing an offense:
* David Pecker who was the former editor for The National Enquirer tabloid, testified that he had promised to serve as president’s “eyes and ears” for women who come forward with negative accounts in a meeting held in August 2015 together with Trump Cohen and Cohen.
Prosecutors played a shady recording Cohen claims he recorded about Trump in September 2016, when he appeared to talk about a $150,000 payment made to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claims to have was involved in a relationship for a year with Trump in 2007 and 2006. Trump has denied having the allegations of an affair.
Jurors have been shown the logs of calls that suggest Cohen along with Trump were in constant contact during the chaotic discussions with Daniels lawyer in October of 2016. They read notes written by Weisselberg that explained the procedure for how Cohen was to be compensated. Hope Hicks, Trump’s former communications aide during his campaign as well as at his White House, testified that Trump was an uninvolved manager.
“We just have reams of evidence and documents that have been put in before Cohen even took the stand,” said George Grasso, a retired New York state judge who is attending the trial but isn’t involved in the trial. “Obviously he testifies to a lot of that, but it’s already been corroborated.”
‘THE ELEPHANT NOT IN THE ROOM’
Despite the abundance instances of circumstantial proof, Cohen’s account of two key conversations with Trump did not have any proof.
Cohen admitted that Cohen and Trump talked about a plan to allow Cohen to receive a reimbursement in the event of Daniels payment by means of fake bills and checks that were crafted in order to look like legal retainer funds during a meeting at Trump Tower shortly before his January 2017 inauguration. Cohen stated that there was a similar discussion within the Oval Office the next month.
The absence of backup evidence might cause the jury to pause due to the absence of Weisselberg who may be able to verify or disprove certain statements made by Cohen.
In the words of Cohen, Weisselberg was also present at the January 2017 Trump Tower meeting. The defense and prosecutorial lawyers have stated that they do not intend to contact Weisselberg 75 years old who is currently serving a five-month prison sentence for perjury in another civil fraud trial involving Trump’s business actions.
In the absence of jurors on May 10 was a matter of concern for prosecutors. declared that Weisselberg is likely to use his rights in the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment to be protected from self-incrimination in the event of a case.
The lawyer for Weisselberg has declined to comment.
“The elephant in the room – or rather the elephant not in the room – is Weisselberg,” said Justin Danilewitz, a former federal prosecutor and a current partner of the law firm Saul Ewing.
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Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller
