CNN legal analyst Michael Moore forecasted on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s prior attorney Michael Cohen secretly recording his former boss will backfire on him.
Cohen made a recording of a discussion with Trump about potentially purchasing the rights to a story related to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleges she and the former president had an affair. Moore said the recording contradicts Cohen’s testimony that he did not hide information from Trump and that the defense will use it to attack Cohen. (RELATED: ‘Kangaroo Court’: Denying Mistrial Over Stormy Daniels’ Testimony Is One Of Many Mistakes By Judge, Legal Experts Say)
“One of the things that you’ve put up, one of the quotes from the testimony was about Cohen telling the prosecutor that he told Trump everything because he needed to know and he wanted to know, but he told him everything,” Moore said. “But he’s lying to the jury in that one statement. He didn’t tell him everything. And we know that because he recorded it. He recorded his client, recorded his friend, recorded his mentor and didn’t tell him. And so that’s going to come back to bite him, I think, at the end of the day. So I think you’re going to see the defense take a huge attack on that.”
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“The idea that Trump knew about the payments, that’s not illegal to pay somebody off. The idea that he’s signed some checks, that’s not illegal to what we’re talking about here. What’s illegal, what they’ve got to prove, is that he did it specifically with the intent to commit another crime,” Moore added. “And I think that’s the braves they haven’t quite gotten over yet. I mean, they could talk about well, he didn’t want people to know, whether it’s Melania, whether it’s the voters. He didn’t want somebody to know, but they’ve got to prove that he did all this with the intent to commit a crime. And I think you’ll see the defense drill down on that in great part.”
The prosecution is using the recording as evidence against the former president. The trial is about the alleged falsification of business records related to Trump reimbursing Cohen for $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“And I think too that the defense is going to really push him on this idea that the only witness that they have to Trump’s state of mind, his intent, the purpose behind all this is Michael Cohen, somebody who I think we would agree is pretty vulnerable on his credibility,” Moore continued. “And you’re going to sort of just hear this litany of a story about what he’s not been truthful about in the past. And again, what he’s probably not been truthful about right here, today, to this jury, so they’ll say, not only did he lie to the government, not only did he lie to Congress, not only lie to his wife … He lied to Trump, he’s lied to you.”
Jury consultant Carolyn Koch recently asserted that the jury will likely be “stunned” by the lack of “credibility” of Cohen and his alleged evidence against his former boss as the tape does not contain the complete conversation between them.
“Well, audio is good,” Koch said. “And audio is like a document. But jurors are going to respond to the case like a mosaic. So there’s pieces of the puzzle and I use the analogy like a Jenga, a Jenga tower; the audio is an unfinished conversation and there is a big difference between contemplation and consummation. And so, like, I always think about … you learn it in law school, it’s the unjust enrichment.”
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