Bob Costello, the former attorney for Michael Cohen, reveals that Cohen told him that Trump was not involved in the Stormy Daniels payment and that he had nothing on Trump. Costello was encouraging him to make a deal with the prosecutors in order to get a better deal for himself by turning on Trump, but that Cohen refused stating that he knew of no criminal actions by Trump. Judge Merchan got irate at Costello, not appreciating that Costello was attempting to unrig this rigged trial. Costello has been practicing law for 51 years and has a stellar career. Merchan could not intimidate him.
Professor Turley nails it:
On Monday, Judge Merchan’s orders became even more inexplicable when Cohen’s former attorney Robert Costello took the stand.
Merchan immediately started to sustain a flurry of prosecutors’ objections as Costello basically accused Cohen of multiple acts of perjury.
At one point, Costello — one of the most experienced lawyers in New York and a former prosecutor — exclaimed that one of the judge’s rulings was “ridiculous.”
The judge chastised Costello and even challenged him: “Are you staring me down?”
In fact, it was hard not to stare. What is happening in the courtroom of Judge Juan Merchan is anything but ordinary.
Go here to read the rest.
So, what happens to Merchan, Bragg, and their minions for their many abuses? Nothing.
And the jury will still convict, in all likelihood. Because they know that is their job in this farce.
I agree Frank, although a hung jury would not surprise me considering the absolute circus this case has been.
Prediction: The whole thing will be thrown out on appeal and this will be one more item cited to demonstrated that the American judicial system is indeed both corrupt and incompetent,
Donald Link, I agree it will probably be tossed on appeal. But the real goal of the Dems at this point is simply to be able to say over and over again, “Donald Trump, convicted felon” in every single campaign ad, interview, photo op, etc. from now until they decide to stop counting ballots. All of this is, I believe, done in hopes that it will dissuade enough low-information voters from voting for Trump to bring the election back within the margin of fraud. I don’t think anyone believes that even a New York appellate court will endorse this mess. But if they succeed in smearing Trump enough to walk away with the election again, that will be all they care about.
This case shows yet another example of how the media are in on it.
Note that it’s always referred to as a “Hush Money Case” despite the trial not in fact being about whether Donald Trump paid Stormy Daniels. If they were being merely descriptive it would be something like a “Falsified Business Records Case” (though even that is being generous to the prosecution, since this crime requires concealment of another crime which should also be specified.) The reason that they do this is both to make the trial sound more salacious, and also because the charges are so bogus that to even discuss them makes it obvious that there is no trial here. This ties in too with how I’ve never heard a news report go into detail about what Trump is being accused of, even though they’ll go into great length about Stormy Daniels’s claims about the affair or Michael Cohen’s insults against Trump.
This is far from the first time that all the major outlets, including local news and Fox News, have united in using the same terminology to push the same narrative. Recall how they all called President Trump’s travel ban a “Ban on Travel from several muslim-majority nations” or just a “Muslim Ban” when they could have just as easily called it a “Ban on Travel from several unstable nations with ties to terrorism,” but none of them did.