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Donald Trump is not testify during his criminal hush-money trial in New York.
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Before his defense case rested, his lawyers called attorney Robert Costello to criticize Michael Cohen.
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The strategy seemed to backfire.
Donald Trump did not take the witness stand in his defense during his landmark trial in New York on criminal charges related to a hush money payment to a porn star.
The GOP frontrunner remained impassive in his courtroom Tuesday morning as his lead attorney, Todd Blanche, told the judge they had finished presenting their defense.
“Your Honor, the defense rests,” Blanche told the New York Supreme Court judge Juan Merchan just after 10am
Trump’s final decision follows weeks of speculation. Last Thursday, Blanche told the judge that the defense team still needed time to “think” about whether Trump would take his stand.
The first-ever criminal trial of a former US president is now nearing its end after several weeks of witness testimony.
Without any testimony from Trump, the trial will conclude next week. The judge told jurors that the trial would take an extended break, taking into account the Memorial Day weekend, and would return Tuesday for closing arguments before receiving jury instructions and beginning their deliberations Wednesday morning.
Before resting their case, Trump’s lawyers wrapped up testimony from Robert Costello, a lawyer whose misconduct on the stand during Monday’s testimony nearly led to his removal from the trial. His time in the stands was the focus of a brief, volatile and ultimately counterproductive defense.
The judge threatened to hold Costello in contempt, kick him out of the courtroom and expunge his testimony from the trial after he repeatedly ignored and even interrupted the judge’s instructions.
“Gee,” Costello had muttered at one point after being told not to answer an inappropriate question from Trump attorney Emil Bove. “Ridiculous,” Costello also muttered.
Costello had a legal dispute with the prosecution’s key witness, Michael Cohen, in 2018. Cohen feared that Costello was a “backchannel” for Trump, who he said orchestrated a “pressure campaign” while in the White House to prevent Cohen from cooperating with prosecutors.
During cross-examination Tuesday morning, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger suggested the pressure campaign was still ongoing.
She pointed out that Costello, at the invitation of Republican lawmakers, criticized the case at a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives last week — while Cohen was in the middle of his trial testimony.
“Intimidate Michael Cohen?” Costello scoffed. ‘Ridiculous. No.’
Trump has relentlessly attacked the case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a political “witch hunt,” “scam” and “sham.”
Nearly every morning and afternoon since the trial opened on April 15, the former president has angrily told the press in the hallway of the 15th floor courtroom in midtown Manhattan that there was “no crime” and that the charges against should never have been submitted to him. brought.
Trump also repeatedly labeled Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, as “completely contradictory” and “corrupt” in the courtroom hallway.
In some of those hallway appearances earlier in the trial, Trump told reporters he planned to testify. But in recent weeks, as more and more witnesses testified against him, Trump ignored questions from pool reporters in the hallway asking whether he still wanted to take the witness stand.
As he left the court Tuesday morning, he clenched his left fist and raised it, but did not respond to questions from reporters.
Trump’s legal team has put only two witnesses on the witness stand
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has charged Trump 34 crimes for falsifying company data. Prosecutors allege Trump illegally provided disguised records showing his lawyer-turned-nemesis Cohen repaid a $130,000 hush money payment to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 election.
The prosecution called twenty witnesses to testify at the trial. Trump’s lawyers have called only two witnesses in his defense.
One, Costello, is a criminal defense attorney who met Cohen in 2018. At the time, Cohen was in his own legal troubles after being the subject of an FBI raid. He later pleaded guilty to a series of crimes, including violating campaign finance laws by making hush money payments.
Costello backed Trump’s lawyers’ arguments that Cohen — not Trump — directed the plan to silence Daniels. He told jurors that Cohen told him Trump knew nothing about the payments. For his part, Cohen previously testified that he did not trust Costello and misled him, viewing him as a “backchannel” for Trump because of his close relationship with Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.
During his testimony in court Monday afternoon, Costello reacted negatively to the judge’s statements, sighing heavily and audibly muttering his disapproval as Merchan accepted prosecutors’ objections to questions from Trump’s attorney Emil Bove. At one point, Merchan ordered the removal of journalists from the courtroom and robbed Costello, threatening to hold him in contempt.
“If you don’t like my statement, don’t look sideways or roll your eyes,” Merchan told Costello before leaving the room.
Costello portrayed Cohen as a duplicitous operator who piled dishonesty upon dishonesty, claiming the Trump fixer hired him as a criminal defense lawyer in 2018 but made excuses about not signing a retainer agreement and refusing to join his firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron , to pay.
“It appears to both Jeff and me that we have been played,” Costello wrote in an email to jurors, referring to his boss Jeffrey Citron, referring to reports that Cohen would cooperate with prosecutors.
Under cross-examination, Hoffinger, the assistant district attorney, portrayed Costello as a Trump ally who was bitter that Cohen rejected him in favor of another legal team. In another email to jurors, Costello called Cohen a “son of a bitch” who “played with the most powerful man in the world.”
In another email, Costello memorialized a phone call with Giuliani and said they had been making plans together behind the scenes.
“Our problem is getting Cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following Giuliani’s or the president’s instructions,” Costello wrote.
In addition to Costello, Trump’s lawyers also called Daniel Sitko, a paralegal who worked for lead attorney Todd Blanche, to serve as a witness so jurors could see the phone conversations between Costello and Cohen.
The Trump team also planned to call former federal elections commissioner Brad Smith to the stand, where he would serve as a high-priced expert witness earning $1,200 an hour to testify on campaign finance law. But on Monday, Merchan ruled that Smith’s planned testimony would have little relevance, arguing that as a judge he is the final arbiter of how the law should be applied.
On social media Monday evening, Smith called Merchan “biased” and the trial “a farce.” He told The Washington Examiner that he would have testified about past uses of campaign finance law, and that he did not believe a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels to silence her prior to the 2016 election using a NDA amounted to campaign costs. .
“My personal belief is that paying hush money, or paying for an NDA, is not a campaign expense,” he said.
During the trial, jurors heard testimony from both Daniels and Cohen, key witnesses for the prosecution.
Cohen completed his testimony Monday. He told jurors how Trump approved his payment to Daniels and knew he paid Cohen back the hush money in 2017.
Much of Cohen’s most damning testimony came when he quoted what he described as Trump’s own words.
Trump”I wasn’t thinking about Melania – this was all about the campaign,” Cohen told the judges.
This story has been updated.
Read the original article on Business Insider
