Lawrence O’Donald MSNBC….
“Tump slept thru 90% of the court session…
‘He was like a guy in a Nursing home’…..
For several minutes, Trump appeared to be sleeping in his seat as Blanche continued to conduct his cross-examination of Cohen. Trump was motionless, his head hanging down.
His lawyer Susan Necheles, who sat two seats away from him with an empty seat between them, appeared to attempt — unsuccessfully — to get his attention. Failing to do so, she moved into the empty seat between them, at which point Trump appeared to awaken.
Necheles then whispered in Trump’s ear before moving back to her original seat….
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Review of the Cohen Q &A by the dfense Attorney….
Donald Trump’s criminal trial finally progressed Tuesday to a confrontation that has been brewing for weeks: the face-off between the former president’s defense team and his former fixer, Michael Cohen.
But after a few initial crackles, it lacked the pop that many had expected….
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Blanche’s first question — in which he quoted an off-color insult from Cohen — got the courtroom’s attention. But over several hours, Cohen largely maintained his cool while Blanche attempted to provoke him. And in questions ranging from Cohen’s book profits to what Cohen said during the Robert Mueller investigation, it wasn’t clear if Blanche managed to dent Cohen’s credibility in the hush money case.
Even Trump himself appeared to doze off while his own lawyer was questioning his nemesis.
The cross-examination will continue Thursday (after a scheduled day off on Wednesday), but for now, Cohen seems mostly unscathed….
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But if Blanche’s strategy was to rankle Cohen into displaying some of the ire and petulance he has broadcast on social media and on his podcast, it didn’t work. Cohen maintained a largely placid demeanor, calling Blanche “sir,” and declining to offer colorful descriptions of the events Blanche questioned him about.
When Blanche tried to depict Cohen as a blabbermouth who has frustrated the Manhattan district attorney’s office by repeatedly going on TV to talk about the case against Trump, Cohen said he didn’t recall many requests by prosecutors to keep quiet and insisted they had only occasionally asked him, “please don’t talk about the case.”
“That’s it? They just call you and say that?” Blanche said incredulously.
“Actually, they call my attorney,” Cohen replied…
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In testimony that at times sounded like it could’ve been delivered at a mob trial, Cohen described a pressure campaign by figures in Trump’s inner circle — and Trump himself — to convince him to remain loyal after he was raided by the FBI. (That raid, incidentally, was part of a campaign-finance investigation tied to the same hush money payment that is now at the center of Trump’s case.)
Cohen’s most surprising evidence on the subject came when he described a backchannel that attorney Robert Costello tried to create between Cohen, Rudy Giuliani and ultimately Trump himself.
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Trump has always craved leverage and control over the legal and political threats he faces, but he doesn’t have that option inside Merchan’s courtroom. So instead Trump has trained his energy on the small cordoned-off park just outside the Manhattan criminal courthouse.
There, he’s been assembling a daily team of surrogates to pummel Merchanand prosecutors — and make the very arguments Trump himself is prohibited from making under Merchan’s gag order. They’ve been hammering Merchan’s adult daughter, accusing the judge of a conflict of interest because of the daughter’s political work for some Democratic candidates. And they’ve been assailing by name one of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s subordinates, a former Justice Department attorney.
On Tuesday, the surrogate role was played most prominently by Speaker Mike Johnson….