The Election Corruption Trial in NYC this past week has been so historic that I am going to indulge "the blogger's privilege" (kind of like the Chair's privilege or the host's privilege, if you're familiar) and write about it here for a brief change of pace.
Some of Michael Cohen's trial testimony may prove unbelievable to the jury, but not for the reasons you may have heard. His testimony raises two issues in my mind. The first issue is the degree of Michael Cohen's credibility as a witness in this trial. The second question is the effect of Michael Cohen's testimony on reaching a verdict.
Much ado has been made about, well, one telephone call on I believe it was October 24, 2016. On the transcript, the big brouhaha sure doesn't seem like much more than one telephone call and the witness handled it well on cross-examination last Thursday. On the air, cable media freaked out, and in print, columnists wrote like they needed oxygen. The emotions brought out by Todd Blanche's cross-examination of Michael Cohen over one telephone call seemingly erupted and captured the attention of columnists and cable media.
They do not seem to have been reading the trial transcripts. Kudos to the New York State Court System for posting them so that anyone with online access can read them, and a big thanks to the Washington Post for making them truly accessible and even searchable. I have been reading the daily trial transcripts on the Washington Post website, and I have read all of Michael Cohen's testimony.
Michael Cohen comes across mostly as unbelievable in the transcripts. I did not think this would be my reaction, but after reading the transcripts, it is.
The prosecution understandably rehearsed his witness testimony with Mr. Cohen, but in his case the preparation must have been very extensive, so much so that he actually testified that he remembered just about every phone call, every text, and every EMail that he sent or received over the course of years, so long as the Assistant D.A. asked him about it. Nobody remembers those things from years ago, and some of us do not even remember what we said or wrote last week. So Mr. Cohen's recollection of them all is incredible, unbelievable, unconvincing from reading the trial transcript. It is true that Todd Blanche's cross-examination was long and tedious. It was so meandering it became infuriating many times. But perhaps a long cross-examination of Michael Cohen was appropriate here, given the long recitation of calls, texts, and EMails during the Prosecution's direct examination of Cohen.
That said, Michael Cohen's testimony was credible in corroborating other witnesses and documentary evidence on important points. He corroborated the plan directed by the defendant to pay witnesses to keep quiet at a critical point in the 2016 presidential election, and then to lie about it in order to cover it up, not just in their records but also in what they said about it publicly.
The talking heads and opinion artists had a different reaction to all that of course. Their big takeaway at first was they were impressed that Michael Cohen handled himself well because he did not erupt, forgetting that this jury has seen Michael Cohen only when he took the witness stand in this trial. They had nothing to compare his performance with, unlike the pundits who were impressed by his controlled demeanor.
Until the one phone call of October 24th. Then their hormones apparently woke up. They responded now with emotion to the words and gestures during Todd Blanche's cross-examination and Michael Cohen's spoken words about one telephone call. That changed their opinions from "good job, Prosecution" in presenting your case, to "How is the D.A. going to overcome this October 24th telephone call?"
The difference in reactions between my reading the trial transcript, and people who heard and saw the cross over one telephone call, struck me. We live in a time when people no longer think as much as they once might have, instead they go with their gut reactions, their emotions, much more than they ever did in the past. The O.J. Trial is a good example here, I think. Everyone "knew" that O.J. was a murderer, or at least that was the prevailing opinion on the matter. Until. Until everyone could see that O.J. could not get his hand into a glove years later, at trial. Then they acquitted him.
That brings me to the second question I have, which is the effect of Michael Cohen's testimony on reaching a verdict in this case.
Emotions generally seem to rule in reaching important decisions more often than reasons and thinking do. I think that explains the difference in reactions in the O.J. Simpson Trial. I think that also explains the difference in reactions to Michael Cohen's trial testimony this past week.
I am not saying that there will be the same result in the Election Corruption Trial in NYC as there was in O.J.'s Trial. If the results did end up being the same, though, it would not surprise me.
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