Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Saturday that Michael Cohen “stumbled, fumbled and mumbled” during his cross-examination in the criminal hush money trial against the former President Donald Trump, which he added was “devastating” to the prosecution’s case.
Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, became the first former president in U.S. history to stand trial in a criminal case last month. Following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Trump was indicted in March 2023 on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels by Cohen during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels had alleged she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges and said the case against him is politically motivated.
Jarrett’s comments on Fox and Friends on Saturday referred to how Cohen responded to questioning from Trump’s defense team about phone records and text messages. Cohen previously claimed that he spoke on the phone with Trump about the hush money payment to Daniels before wiring the money.
On Thursday, Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche presented a text message between then-Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller and Cohen, with Cohen asking, “Who can I speak to about harassing calls to my phone and office?” According to phone records, there was then a call between the two, which Cohen testified on Tuesday was to speak with Trump.
“This is the call that you testified about on Tuesday that you had a conversation with President Trump,” Blanche said, to which Cohen responded that “part of it” was about the harassment calls noted in the text message, saying, “I knew that Keith was with Trump at the time.”
“It was shown that he [Cohen] lied to the jurors in the courtroom about a critical conversation he swore he had with Donald Trump payment to Stormy Daniels,” Jarrett, a former defense attorney and author who is also known for his pro-Trump stances, said. “It was a classic ‘gotcha’ moment,” adding that the testimony was “devastating to Bragg’s case.”
Newsweek has reached out to Jarrett for comment via his personal website, and has emailed Cohen’s lawyer.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Cohen, a former Trump attorney who is now a vocal critic of the former president, is a disbarred lawyer who previously pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign finance violations, and lying to Congress. He recently testified before the prosecution, and then was cross-examined by Trump’s defense team for two days.
In Jarrett’s view, Cohen’s testimony “invites the standard jury instruction that says if you find that a witness is lying to you about one thing you may disregard all of that witness’ testimony.”
The 12 member jury is responsible for determining whether the former president is guilty or not guilty of the 34 offenses charged. According to the New York State Unified Court System, if a juror finds that “any witness has intentionally testified falsely as to any material fact, you may disregard that witness’s entire testimony. Or you may disregard so much of it as you find was untruthful, and accept so much of it as you find to have been truthful and accurate.”
“Without Cohen there is no case against Donald Trump, nobody else ties him to any of the bogus crimes alleged in the indictment,” Jarrett said.
On Thursday, CNN host Anderson Cooper told CNN legal analyst Elie Honig that if he were a juror he would “absolutely” have doubts about Cohen’s testimony, adding that he would think “this guy is making this up as he goes along.”
Honig told a CNN panel discussion on Thursday that, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a star cooperating witness get his knees chopped out quite as clearly and dramatically as what just happened with Michael Cohen,” in reference to Cohen’s testimony.
However, other legal analysts believe Cohen has helped the prosecution’s case, like former U.S. assistant attorney and frequent critic of Trump, Glenn Kirschner. On Friday, in a YouTube video posted to political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen’s channel, Kirschner said the prosecutions case “has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, wrote in an email to Newsweek on Thursday that prosecutors’ “treatment” of Cohen shows that Bragg’s office is aware the witness is “an unlikable character.”
“The prosecution did not hide from Cohen’s warts, but allowed the jury to see them by eliciting testimony from witnesses about them,” she said. “But the jury need not like him to believe him. The prosecution has built scaffolding in the form of documents, phone records, and testimony of other witnesses without any credibility issues before calling Cohen as a witness. In this way, the jury already knows most of the facts about which Cohen will testify. Cohen’s only job here really is to provide context and connect the dots.”
On Friday, there was no testimony and jurors were excused as the former president attended his son Barron’s high school graduation. On Monday, Trump’s defense team is expected to finish cross-examination of Cohen. The prosecution is expected to rest its case soon after as it said Cohen will be its last witness.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.