Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Blanche is pretty chronological. The problem that I, as a (retired) lawyer see is that not all of the chronology is bad for Cohen or, more importantly, good for Trump. And it is too long. Blanche is making points that are all but stipulated: that Cohen loved Trump, looks back fondly to this day on working for the Trump Org. but came to hate Trump because he cut him loose, shunned him, and didn't pay him. There is no cross so far on Cohen's central relevant testimony, that Trump was intimately involved in, and approved the hush money payments to Daniels through Cohen and falsified the docs of that transaction to commit election fraud. The cross has been all, so far, on Cohen's late hatred of Trump, who he once idolized. If Trump falsified docs to influence the 2016 election it doesn't matter what the witness's motivation was. If that is proved, and so far it hasn't been disproved or even thrown into doubt by Cohen's bias, then Blanche is not striking at the core of the case. I'm up to p 3734.