After weeks of building tension, the criminal trial of Donald Trump finally moved forward on Tuesday with a showdown between the former president’s legal team and Michael Cohen, his longtime fixer.
However, after a few crackles at first, it didn’t have the pop that many had anticipated.
Cohen is the prosecution’s star witness, and during a day-and-a-half of direct examination, he provided critical details about Trump’s knowledge of the cover-up at the heart of the case. So when Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, stood up after lunch to begin cross-examining him, everyone was waiting to see the Trump team’s strategy for depicting Cohen as a liar with a vendetta.
Blanche’s first question — in which he quoted an off-color insult from Cohen — got the courtroom’s attention. But over several hours, Cohen largely maintained his cool while Blanche attempted to provoke him. And in questions ranging from Cohen’s book profits to what Cohen said during the Robert Mueller investigation, it wasn’t clear if Blanche managed to dent Cohen’s credibility in the hush money case.
Even Trump himself appeared to doze off while his own lawyer was questioning his nemesis.
The cross-examination will continue Thursday (after a scheduled day off on Wednesday), but for now, Cohen seems mostly unscathed.
Here’s what happened on Day 17 of the Trump trial:
Another day of the Cohen show
During the morning session, as prosecutors completed their direct questioning that began Monday, Cohen delivered new details about the fallout from the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Cohen described Trump’s efforts to maintain his loyalty after the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office in 2018, and he described his decision to break with Trump after serving for years as his footsoldier.
Cohen told the jury that he regretted what he had done for Trump.
“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen said.
One thought on “A Trump lawyer slammed toward Michael Cohen and yelled obscenities at him. After that, momentum died.”