'Trump should be worried' that GOP allies totally botched the Michael Cohen hearing: Ex-federal prosecutor

Former federal prosecutor Ken White thinks President Donald Trump should be very concerned about his House Republican allies and their completely ineffectual attempts to hurt the credibility of former "fixer" Michael Cohen.

Writing in The Atlantic, White argues that both Republicans and Democrats missed major opportunities during Wednesday's explosive Cohen testimony, but he says the ineptitude of GOP lawmakers was on a different level.

"House Republicans needed a trial lawyer—or even a moderately bright junior-high mock-trial participant—to tell them how to do anything," he said. "They provided Cohen with one slow pitch up the middle after another, letting him repeat the cooperating witness’s go-to explanation like a mantra: I did these bad things so often and so long because that’s what it took to work for your guy. I have seldom seen a cross-examination go worse."

These blunders, he writes, should gravely worry the Trump White House that is depending on the House GOP to protect the president from impeachment.

"Team Trump should be worried," he writes. "Republicans did not successfully destroy Cohen’s credibility... Today Republicans had the opportunity to learn... that theatrical committee hearing tactics are ineffective against a witness trained to withstand cross-examination. Will the president of the United States ever learn that a federal criminal investigation is not a reality show?"

Read the whole piece here.