A 'bored jury' is a threat to Trump in hush money trial: legal expert
May 19, 2024
According to MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos, Donald Trump's attorney Todd Blanche needs to do a better job on what is expected to be the last day of cross-examining former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen lest he lose the jury.
Speaking with fill-in host Charles Coleman Jr., Cevallos joined the chorus of former prosecutors and lawyers who have been puzzled by Blanche's disorganized grilling of Cohen which seems to have frustrated jurors deciding Trump's fate in the 34-felony count hush money trial.
With the goal of convincing the jury to let the former president walk, host Coleman asked, "What more do you think the defense has to do to create the notion of reasonable doubt?"
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"Just continue to cast doubt on Michael Cohen's credibility and point out that he is a liar and that he has a motive; a book entitled 'Revenge' and he is here making things up in order to get back at his former employer," Cevallos replied. "And while I don't think the moment that we saw on Thursday, where Todd Blanche confronted Michael Cohen with a phone call that he originally said was to talk to Trump about the Stormy Daniels payment, but now may have been about — and this to me, the reason for the call, it totally eclipsed the purpose of the cross-examination — but Cohen was actually calling a presidential candidate's security detail for help dealing with a phony phone call, a 14-year-old phony phone caller."
"A lot of folks thought that it was a gotcha moment. I don't think it dealt a fatal blow to the prosecution at all," he added. "I think it is something they could easily come back from. But it is significant and if I am the defense counsel, I'm using that in my closing."
"They need to continue to hammer that he [Cohen] is a liar but don't overdo it," he advised. "Don't keep them on there too long and start boring the jury, because a bored jury will punish the lawyer."
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