At one point yesterday it was revealed that Michael Cohen had, in effect, stolen money from Trump’s company. Aaron Blake at WaPo explains,
To recap: Cohen testified that he paid a technical services company named Red Finch about $20,000 to rig online polls in Trump’s favor, after initially agreeing to pay it $50,000. (The poll-rigging arrangement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2019.)
But Cohen testified that he sought to be and was reimbursed for the full $50,000 from the Trump Organization. He said he was ultimately paid $100,000 because of the practice of “grossing up” — reimbursing double the amount because the money is taxable income.
“You stole from the Trump Organization?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked.
“Yes,” Cohen said.
This morning I noticed that rightie sites were pratically giddy with glee at this admission. Alvin Bragg’s Case in Shambles said one headline at RedState. The Fox News headline proclaimed Cohen’s bombshell admission could lead to hung jury, if not acquittal: expert.
Really? Maybe not. As Aaron Blake explains, “While Monday’s testimony might have dinged Cohen’s already tenuous credibility, it could also have cast a spotlight on a major hole in the defense’s case.”
That $100,000 reimbursement for the Red Finch payment was actually part of the $420,000 Cohen was paid over 12 months ($35,000 per month) starting in early 2017. These are the very same payments that prosecutors say Trump illegally falsified as being legal expenses, even as they really included reimbursement for the $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. The charge is that Trump falsified the expenses to cover up the decade-old tryst Daniels alleged late in the 2016 campaign.
(Cohen described the $420,000 as being $130,000 for the Daniels payment plus $50,000 for Red Finch — both “grossed up” by doubling them — plus $60,000 to account for what Cohen viewed as an insufficient annual bonus.)
But despite drawing attention to this allegedly criminal reimbursement scheme, Trump’s lawyers have also argued that the payments to Cohen weren’t actually reimbursement at all. This despite Trump’s having seemingly indicated as much both publicly in 2018 and in anothercourt case.
As I understand it, the big bad crime here is that Trump falsified financial records to conceal another crime, which involved a conspiracy with the National Enquirer to keep the Stormy Daniels episode out of the news until after the election. The records he falsified were reimbursements to Michael Cohen for his out-of-pocket expenses. Trump tried to cover up these expenses by labeling the money to Cohen as a retainer for legal services. That’s the crime. And whether Cohen managed to squeeze some extra money out of Trump by concealing what he had really paid out doesn’t make any of that go away. If anything, the Red Finch story digs the hole Trump is in a little deeper, seems to me.
Aaron Blake:
That $100,000 reimbursement for the Red Finch payment was actually part of the $420,000 Cohen was paid over 12 months ($35,000 per month) starting in early 2017. These are the very same payments that prosecutors say Trump illegally falsified as being legal expenses, even as they really included reimbursement for the $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. The charge is that Trump falsified the expenses to cover up the decade-old tryst Daniels alleged late in the 2016 campaign.
(Cohen described the $420,000 as being $130,000 for the Daniels payment plus $50,000 for Red Finch — both “grossed up” by doubling them — plus $60,000 to account for what Cohen viewed as an insufficient annual bonus.)
Blake also points out that the information about Michael Cohen helping himself to some extra Red Finch money had come out in the prosecution’s questioning of Cohen last week, or whenever it was. They just didn’t use the word “steal.”
Trump’s lawyers have been saying that the reimbursements weren’t really reimbursements, but it’s not clear to me what their arguments are for that claim. They still look like reimbursements to me.
So testimony is finished, and I’m reading that the jury won’t be back until next Tuesday. Then they will hear closing arguments and begin deliberations. After the jury left the lawyers and the judge had a big debates over jury instructions. For example, from the New York Times:
For more details of the issues discussed, see Josh Kovinsky at TPM, DA’s Office And Trump Team Hash Out How Jury Will Evaluate Case.
The judge says he will have final jury instructions by the end of the day Thursday. The Times also reported this:
Texas’s lieutenant governor was among those who praised Trump outside the courthouse on Tuesday, but there was also an opposing voice from the Lone Star State. Cecy Vazquez Dreher stood in Collect Pond Park across the street with a handwritten sign noting that “Loser Trump” still owed her hometown, El Paso, more than a half million dollars for a 2019 rally.
“The El Paso taxpayers are still waiting for his bill to be paid,” said Vazquez Dreher, 57, a real estate agent. She was in town to see friends she made when she attended the Wharton School of Business, which Trump attended as well. When asked if that is where he learned not to pay bills, Vazquez Dreher said: “I don’t think it was part of the curriculum.”
As I think I may have already said, one of the subthemes of the trial has been what a deadbeat Trump is. Which we knew already.
There are the ALL CAPS kind of events happening in the trial, but what's very quietly sinking into the country is how far along Trump is in mental decline. Somebody posted in reddit "sleeping in mid day and verbal struggles, especially at night are strong signs of mid range dementia". Day after day he's slowly sinking deeper.
I think reporting has missed what the jury probably did not in the cross-examination this morning. Let me quote from Salon this afternoon.
"Prosecutors presented an email that undermined Costello's claims, showing him to be a Trump enforcer.
In a May 2018, Costello wrote to a partner at his law firm: “Our issue is to get Cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following instructions from [Rudy] Giuliani or the President.”
A month later, Costello complained that Cohen was stalling with respect to whether or not he'd turn on Trump. “What should I say to this [obscenity]?" he wrote. "He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet.”
That evidence undercut Costello's claim to be an honest broker.
"No clue how prosecutors got these emails, but Costello may have accomplished the impossible feat of appearing even less competent and ethical than Michael Cohen," Andrew Fleischman, a lawyer following the case, posted on X."
The jury saw yesterday that Costello was antagonizing Judge Merchan. Given that he's a witness for the defense, they probably surmised he's a MAGA loyalist. No crime there, but he's no impartial witness.
Today, the jury saw the email that implies Costello was following the instruction of either Rudy or Don the Con. It was obvious yesterday that Cohen resisted signing a retainer with Constello – the tempo of communications suggests Costello was pursuing Cohen, not the other way around. Can the prosecution ask in their closing in a week who Costelllo's real client was?
This is the last look the jury got at a long trial. I think (or hope) the jury realizes that when Cohen was in legal trouble (and suddenly Trump could hardly remember Cohen) the vise Cohen was in got tightened by prosecutors who wanted Cohen to testify and from Trump, exerting pressure for Cohen to stay silent.The witness for the defense was a component of Team Trump trying to silence Cohen.
Nobody should break out champagne yet but Costello may have rehabilitated Cohen in the eyes of the jury and Cohen is the weak link in the prosecution.
Are they bracing for a conviction? All the scholars have said the same thing, this trial should never have been brought. There is no crime here.
NY v Trump has 'reasonable doubt' written all over it. But with Bragg, Merchan antics, outcome is unknowable (msn.com)
The specific crimes being tried are various charges of fraud. The fraud is concealment of the payoff to Stormy as legit business expenses. If Trump had simply paid her out of his own pocket there would have been no crime. But he had to take the opportunity to do some petty tax-cheating while he was at it.
There’s a connection to New York campaign finance laws, which is what makes it a felony, I understand.
The comments thread on this Kevin Drum post explain the connection. I am corrected on this, it seems mostly about campaign violations.