Trump lawyers scramble as trial witnesses blow up Michael Cohen strategy: expert
April 30, 2024
Former top Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann claimed Tuesday that the witnesses being called in the Donald Trump hush money trial are confirming every detail of Michael Cohen's story — with bombshell accuracy.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Weissmann said testimony from David Pecker, the ex-publisher of the National Enquirer, was "so powerful I think we have to recalibrate the lens [through which] we were thinking about this case."
The assumption from legal analysts has been that Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen would be the prosecution's star witness, with documents and information that could confirm his ex-boss's involvement in hush money payments paid to coverup a potentially damaging sexual relationship with adult movie star Stormy Daniels.
Instead, Weissmann said, Pecker has proven to be the big witness — and subsequent witnesses backed up everything he testified about.
"This case is made very much without Michael Cohen," said Weissmann. "I mean, this is so corroborated, and it is not just that you have David Pecker and now [ex-attorney for Stormy Daniels] Keith Davidson."
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He called the witnesses' stories "hand and glove," fitting together "so perfectly."
"It is completely corroborated, particularly with respect to Mr. Davidson, by so many texts and email exchanges and the written documents," said Weissmann.
Davidson served as the attorney who negotiated the deal for Playboy playmate Karen McDougal and was working with Daniels on her story as well. Both women attempted to sell the National Enquirer details of sexual relationships with Trump.
The former president is standing trial on charges relating to business fraud involving payments to Daniels to coverup her story before the 2016 election. He denied the charges.
Davidson proved to be a witness "where, with almost every question there is a reference to a document, so that the jurors could see there is no question about what he is saying," the legal eagle explained. "It is completely backed up."
This means that by the time Cohen appears on the stand, witnesses who were also involved will have backed up his story, Weissmann said.
Trump's lawyers are expected to try to paint Cohen, who served time in prison over the hush money payments, as lacking in credibility, making him out to be a liar or implying he was corrupt.
But with the corroborating witnesses, Weissmann said, doing that will be harder.
"It is so completely consistent with this story. The whole idea that Michael Cohen had to essentially take over the role of the National Enquirer because they no longer were willing to be, as we heard from Mr. Pecker, 'the bank,'" Weissmann quoted.
"And so there was this scramble at the last minute about how Michael Cohen would come up with the money to replace the money that National Enquirer had been focusing on."
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