And welcome back to The Factor uncensored,
continuing coverage of the hush money trial involving former President
Donald Trump.
Today, his ex attorney Michael Cohen took the stand.
Prosecutors questioned Cohen about his work for Trump during the
2016 campaign to keep negative stories out of the press
that included a
$130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.
Cohen testified that Trump directed him to stop
Stormy's alleged affair story from getting out or at least
be delayed until the election,
suggesting that was Trump's sole motivation not to keep it
from his family.
Joining us to talk about it,
University of Houston downtown professor,
Doctor DJ Von Beatenfeld. So that was the
prosecution's or the other side's key witness today.
Star witness Michael Cohen, who is known as the fixer,
used to be known as the fixer for former President
Donald Trump.
Absolutely. And I think Fitz and the Tantrums have the
money grabber song that really embodies all of this trial.
Because at every point of this
people are saying who is the the person who is
being paid to to render services.
And often times it's portrayed by the defence that Stormy
Daniels is a former adult film star.
Michael Cohen is somebody who is a sycophant,
somebody who took a plea deal to only get three
years in prison
who lied. You're you've admitted that you are a liar,
but today you're telling the truth.
Don't you know? Are you going to believe me or
your lying eyes?
And is that a hard
pill to swallow for maybe the jurors and and and
those who may be deciding this case?
That's the hope of the defense.
But the problem is at every point,
and we can't unring a bell,
as we say, the legal community.
Even if you tell jurors not to consider external evidence,
they've seen TV, They understand about Trump University.
They understand about how many attorneys have not been
paid on time, not been paid in full,
where the entire practice, while legal,
may not have been ethical,
where you only pay $0.20 on the dollar for your
real estate holdings.
And so the question is who is more credible?
Because at the end of the day the receipts are
going to show that the payments occurred,
as Michael Cohen testified. Now then you get to motive,
intent, Mens Rea and then act as rare,
those sorts of areas where again,
New York, we talked about this last time,
criminal law, civil law. It gets tricky because New York
doesn't do things like Texas does.
That's why they're not as wealthy as we are at
the largest economy.
And at the end of the day,
many of the things that we might consider civil charges
here for certain acts are criminal charges.
There, they're trying to show not only collusion and misrepresentation
or fraud,
but they're also trying to show that these payments were
misrepresented to the IRS.
How do you classify things,
right? I say, hey, I parked my car outside.
Is it a car? Is it an SUV?
Is it a van? Is it a pickup truck?
We just say car coke
here. Is that Doctor Pepper?
Is it a Sprite? So they're trying to get Michael
Cohen to come in and bring that together for everybody
so that we can all be on the same page
that these payments were for the purposes that prosecution says
not for any.
Has he done that so far?
So far, I think Michael Cohen's done a pretty effective
job.
We don't have cameras in the courtroom,
but based on the testimony,
he's done an effective job of painting that picture for
the jurors.
And then it comes down to emotions.
Who is more credible to the jurors?
And it's going to be tough for the defense because
at the end of the day,
the jurors are not going to be able to completely
divorce themselves from the prior ideas
of, hey, this is the person who brags about
certain behaviors with Stormy Daniels.
And now he's saying that,
well, that didn't happen. He's person who brags about underpaying
or not paying people,
and that's how to build the wealth.
But this time the payments were legitimate and they were
for bonuses.
Can a rational person as a juror,
say, look, I don't believe some of the stuff he's
done,
and I know he's a liar,
but this makes sense. This makes sense.
Can a rational juror do that
100%? And that's where it becomes a challenge of putting
people on the juror's stand as opposed to just bringing
one and one. Here are the receipts when you bring
a person on the standing,
and then the defense is just going to say,
this person just told you they're a liar,
why are you going to believe them today?
The leopard changed its spots just for you today.
No. So at the end of the day,
the defense's job is going to be to show that
Stormy Daniels is paid for by
whoever's offering the highest dollar
call girl for the prosecution before call girl for whomever.
And that Michael Cohen is just trying to honor a
plea deal.
Because that's another aspect of this that doesn't come in
is these legal elements where sometimes these plea deals have
continuing stipulations of cooperation with the Department of Justice and
other entities where people say is,
is this confidential informant reliable or are they just trying
to keep out of.
And do you think the prosecution has made their case
or
at the end of the day,
they've made it with the receipts,
legal opinions, 10 seconds we have there.
Their receipts have made the case.
Their witnesses are their strongest and weakest points.
All right. Doctor Dietrich von Beatenfeld,
University of Houston, Downtown, thank you for joining us tonight.