By Mike Huckabee
May 22, 2024
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In calling former Michael Cohen legal advisor Robert Costello to testify --- they took our advice, haha --- Trump’s attorneys not only showed the jury he’s the most credible witness in this whole trial, but also, through the judge’s conduct, signaled to them how biased this courtroom is.
That was Judge Jeanine Pirro’s observation after another day of testimony Monday. The behavior of Judge Juan Merchan was atrocious, she said. When prosecutors constantly interrupted Costello’s testimony (by one reporter’s account, “every 30 seconds”) with objection after objection, and Costello --- a well-respected and impeccably-credentialed attorney --- finally gave an eye-roll as if to say “sheesh,” Judge Merchan reportedly said to him, “Are you staring me down?” and went ballistic, screaming to the defense to keep their witness in line and sending jurors and then everyone out of the courtroom so he could speak to Costello alone (!) Contrast this freak-out with his enabling behavior towards the prosecution when they brought in a porn star who had nothing of substance to offer in testimony.
This will give you a good idea of how it played…
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/breaking-fuming-judge-merchan-shouts-trump-defense-witness/
Eric Trump, who was in the courtroom on Monday, posted on X: “The judge’s treatment of Bob Costello is truly disgraceful – he will not allow him to tell his story – the same story he told Congress – as he knows it will be devastating and end this sham trial. This is not justice!” He sat there with his father, who “didn’t do a damn thing wrong” but who has been censored, admonished, embarrassed, slandered and taken off the campaign trail. “How much more does a person need to go through, and how much more obvious can this be to every single American, exactly what’s happening right now?”
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6353340712112
He told Sean Hannity Monday night that he’d never seen anything like it. “...You would think that transparency would be important in a courtroom,” he said, “in front of a jury, to get to the actual truth...and the exact opposite thing happened today.”
Judge Merchan has reportedly put “strict limitations” on the questioning of expert witness Bradley Smith, who will be called after the judge first denied him. Smith is the former head of the Federal Elections Commission, someone you’d think would shed some light on the reimbursements to Cohen for payment on a non-disclosure agreement and why they don’t qualify under law as campaign-related expenses. But light is exactly what the prosecution and the judge (pardon the redundancy) don’t want, so just how strict might these limitations be?
“To not allow an expert is a fatal error by the judge, in my opinion,” Trump legal spokesperson Alina Habba said Monday. Here’s her full interview with Hannity.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6353337488112
“This jury now knows,” Pirro said on Monday’s THE FIVE, “as a result of the way he’s handling Costello, the defense’s first witness, that this judge is not on the level. [Also] that Michael Cohen went from ‘I got nuthin’ to give the prosecution’...[and being] about to kill himself, [to having had] a lobotomy…” They know he’s a serial liar and even surreptitiously recorded his boss.
Oh, but he did more than that. It (finally) came out under cross-examination that Cohen even stole tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump Organization. He had to admit it on the stand. We’re talking grand larceny, folks, to the tune of at least $30,000, a far more serious crime than this “falsified business records” charge against Trump. As the AP reported, “Cohen told jurors earlier Monday that he stole from the Trump Organization after his 2016 holiday bonus was slashed to $50,000 from the $150,000 he usually received.”
This trial has actually shown Trump to be the crime VICTIM.
First, Cohen steals from him; now, he’s trying to send him to jail. Even a CNN analyst admitted Cohen has professed to a more serious crime than what Trump has been accused of doing. And Cohen’s testimony is “a bomb,” certainly enough to create reasonable doubt.
Bottom line: Cohen falsified an invoice so he could pocket the difference. (He paid the amount actually owed with cash in a paper bag. Not kidding.) As of Monday, the only one we know of who has falsified business records isn’t Trump --- it’s Cohen! And if anything shows that Trump didn’t always know what he was signing off on, this should be it.
President Trump, sitting there in court charged with 34 felonies, was hearing about how Cohen stole from HIM. Can you even imagine? Here are the stunning details on Cohen’s admission:
But perhaps the most amazing thing about this is how some on the left are trying to minimize it. MSNBC commentator and terminal TDS sufferer Lawrence O’Donnell did some calculations and decided that the amount of money Cohen took was LESS than the amount of the bonus he thought he deserved, so he was just trying to do a little “balancing.” Well, wasn’t that noble of Cohen --- he could have stolen more but didn’t!
“...Cross-examination wrapped up Monday morning,” the NY POST wrote. “As the three grueling days played out, it became increasingly obvious why federal prosecutors elected not to bring a case against Trump based on Cohen’s story.”
After the prosecution rested (and it needed to rest up for all the objecting it would be doing that afternoon), defense witness Costello testified that Cohen had said numerous times that President Trump “knew nothing” about the payment to Stormy Daniels. Apparently, Trump signed off on those checks with as much awareness as he had of the over-inflated check Cohen had requisitioned so he could pocket half for his “bonus.” Again, just because Trump signed something didn’t mean he knew exactly what it was. He trusted the people working for him --- a mistake, certainly, when it came to Cohen.
Costello’s testimony apparently went much like what we’ve heard him say on TV. He said Cohen had told him repeatedly, “I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.” He said “numerous times” that he’d arranged the payments on his own, that Trump knew nothing about it.
After Costello’s testimony, Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche requested that the judge dismiss the case, on the grounds that prosecutors hadn’t proved that Trump falsified records or did ANYTHING illegal to influence the 2016 presidential election. Ironically, the only one we’ve seen connected with this case who falsified business records is Cohen, when he paid himself a bonus. Hey, they don’t call him “The Fixer” for nothing!
The judge didn’t immediately rule, reserving his decision. Judge Merchant, if you’re reading this, and we know you aren’t, we aren’t holding our breath, but DISMISS THE CASE ALREADY. Put it out of its misery.
Trump suggested this in more polite language after leaving court at the end of Monday’s proceedings, saying the judge “should” dismiss the trial. He had to be careful what he said because of the gag order imposed upon him and no one else in the case.
FOX NEWS legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy said Monday that it got “very contentious” at the end. There was “clearly a lot of tension” between Costello and Judge Merchan, who has to know how bad the case looks. As Laura Ingraham said Monday night, “Judge Merchan should be ashamed of himself for letting this spectacle of an election interference case get this far.”
Jonthan Turley, who has provided such great legal analysis in this case, was at court Monday and said afterwards that “it was like being in a parallel universe.” Seeing Cohen admit matter-of-factly that he’d stolen tens of thousands of dollars from his boss, who was there on trial, was “bizarre,” especially when the prosecutor “had the audacity to get up and say, ‘Will you remind the jury that you’re not charged with anything, are you?’” (Isn’t that the real problem here?) And Turley was struck by “how one-sided it was,” saying “the judge routinely ruled for the prosecution.”
“Some of those rulings against the defense, I still don’t understand,” he said. “...They seem completely wrong to me.” One would assume he means the limitations on the defense’s expert witness. Also, the judge has allowed Cohen’s repeated references to campaign finance violations. “There aren’t any campaign violations by Trump in this case,” Turley said, “but I promise you the jury believes that there are, because Judge Merchan has allowed that to happen.”
He also warned that since Costello “still has a lot to tell that jury that they’re gonna be quite surprised to hear,” he needs to dial his expressions back and not give the judge any excuse to remove him.
Costello is expected to be the defense’s final witness and will take the stand again on Tuesday at 9:30 ET. The defense did not say one way or the other about Trump testifying, but most analysts are saying that’s unlikely. Good; the truth is getting out without him subjecting himself to that. And guess what? There STILL is no real evidence of Trump committing any crime.
RELATED READING: Speaking of prosecutorial abuse, Walt Nauta, Trump’s aide and co-defendant in the Mar-A-Lago “classified documents” case, has harsh allegations of more, by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office. It’s in a new motion to dismiss the case, which has already been indefinitely postponed by Judge Aileen Cannon. For when you have time, this lays out the prosecution’s dirty tactics.
RELATED VIDEO: We’ve shared this clip before from the Rat Pack movie “Robin and the 7 Hoods,” but never has it been so appropriate (or so prescient.) This is exactly how the verdict should go if Merchan is biased enough to let it reach the jury.
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