Going to donald trumpcriminal trial, Interrogation of Michael Cohen was one of most awaited partsif not O most awaited part. Lawyers on both sides certainly knew this would happen, and the prosecution used their direct examination to further corroborate its case and add even more evidence that Cohen was in a unique position to present.
So why does the defense attorney Todd BlancheDid the interrogation begin so strangely on Tuesday afternoon?
Almost immediately, Trump’s lawyer asked his client’s former fixer if he recently went on TikTok and called Blanche a “whiny little cry—” (using a swear word for excrement).
“Sounds like something I would say,” Cohen responded. The prosecution objected and the judge Juan Merchan sustained the objection and asked the parties to approach the bench.
Now, you probably don’t need to be a lawyer to know that it’s not a good sign for the pace of your cross-examination – the key to which is control – to quickly have a sustained objection followed by a meeting with the judge. It achieved worse for Blanche in the sidebar, when Merchan asked him (out of earshot of the jury), “Why are you making this about yourself?”
Blanche responded that Cohen was biased against him, but the judge reminded the former president’s lawyer that it doesn’t matter if a witness is biased against the lawyer; It matters whether the witness is biased against the defendant. Merchan hit the target and sent Blanche to continue the cross.
From then on, however, things don’t seem to have gone much better for the defense, whose examination was “challenging to follow, even for close observers of the case”, by NBC News.
Of course, the cross is not over. And after Wednesday’s day off, Blanche could make more progress on Thursday with what is expected to be the prosecution’s last witness before resting the case. But the defense attorney (and the client) probably hopes to end stronger than they started. One other challenge that Blanche may encounter, however, is that while he has a day to catch his breath, so will Cohen.
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This article was originally published in MSNBC.com
