Michael Cohen’s former lawyer, Lanny Davis, said Monday that could be enough to secure a conviction in former President Trump’s admissions trial. .
Davis argued in an MSNBC interview with guest host Reverend Al Sharpton that the jury didn’t even need Cohen’s testimony to reach a conclusion.
“The testimonies and documents speak for themselves,” he said. “David Pecker, a Donald Trump supporter and loyalist, testified that Hope Hicks had money that Donald Trump instructed her Michael Cohen to give to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet before her election. ”
President Trump faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business documents in the case, the first criminal trial for a sitting or former president. Prosecutors alleged that President Trump illegally concealed a hush money payment he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels just weeks before the 2016 presidential election to keep her silence about allegations of a past affair, but the president denied this.
Questions have been raised surrounding Cohen’s testimony, given his conviction for lying under oath and the harsh cross-examination conducted by Trump’s lawyers earlier this month. Davis represented Cohen in the case and said in 2019 that he had instructed Cohen to admit to lying.
“In February 2019, I said, ‘Michael, the only way you can be believed is if you admit your lies, come under oath in front of Congress, and admit it on national television,’ and he did,” Davis said.
“So the long journey with Michael Cohen continued, including being cross-examined by the same type of prosecutor and the same type of defense attorney about his former employer, Donald Trump.” “He was cross-examined in the case against (New York) Attorney General Tish James and the judge found him credible and truthful.”
Davis said the “smoking gun” in the case was not Cohen’s testimony but the evidence of Alan Weisselberg, the former Trump Organization chief financial officer who signed a document on file showing that Trump had paid Cohen a refund in return for keeping Daniels quiet. insisted.
“The documents speak for themselves. “Trust your lying eyes are what will happen in the jury room,” he said. “They don’t have to use anything Michael Cohen said.”
“All the jury has to do is believe (Weisselberg’s) documents and know that they show that Michael Cohen was reimbursed for the crime of paying Daniels before the election,” he added. “And that’s enough for them to convict beyond a reasonable doubt without having to rely on Michael Cohen at all.”
Despite his confidence in the evidence, Davis did not predict the outcome of the case. Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday, with jury deliberations occurring shortly thereafter.
If found guilty, President Trump could face up to four years in prison and could be designated as a felon. Davis called his claims against the former president, the Republican Party’s presumptive White House nominee, “damaging our democracy.”
“There is a lot of evidence here that would allow a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt,” Davis said. “But no matter what happens, I will respect the jury’s decision.”
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