CNN analyst Elie Honig revealed the approach he would have used to discredit the testimony of former President Donald Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen, saying that Trump’s attorney had missed an opportunity.
Honig spoke with anchor Jake Tapper about the former president’s ongoing Manhattan hush-money trial, explaining that the best way to convince the jury that Cohen was unreliable was to point out the number of times in the past that he had been caught shading the truth.
Tapper began the conversation by noting that Trump attorney Todd Blanche had chosen an interesting line of attack, opening his cross-examination by reading off a series of insulting things Cohen had said or posted on social media about both Trump and Blanche.
“Do you have an idea why Blanche would start with that?” Tapper asked. “Because, I mean, it does kind of make it seem as though Michael Cohen is kind of just like a shoot-from-the-hip jerk and not necessarily focused entirely on Trump as a motive.”
“Well, I think it was a mistake to open the way that Todd Blanche opened. I absolutely never would have done it,” Honig replied. “It was properly sustained. First of all, it’s not the point. It’s not the point, does Michael Cohen hate Todd Blanche?”
“The point is, Michael Cohen hates and desperately wants the defendant, Donald Trump, in prison,” Honig continued. “Let me give you what I would have started with. We like to play like armchair prosecutor now that we’re no longer actual prosecutors. First question would have been, ‘Mr. Cohen, are you a perjurer?’ Okay? If he says ‘Yes,’ great! Folks, he’s a perjurer. He says ‘No,’ then you just hit him with the dozens of lies that he’s … He is a perjurer. I mean, that’s a fact. So it leaves him — it’s a win-win.”
Honig went on to say that he was “not impressed” with the rest of Blanche’s cross-examination either — but the key point was that he should have started with a question where any answer would have been a win for him and for Trump.
Source: The Daily Wire
TruthPukes Take:
- Honig went on to say that he was “not impressed” with the rest of Blanche’s cross-examination either — but the key point was that he should have started with a question where any answer would have been a win for him and for Trump.
- Honig spoke with anchor Jake Tapper about the former president’s ongoing Manhattan hush-money trial, explaining that the best way to convince the jury that Cohen was unreliable was to point out the number of times in the past that he had been caught shading the truth.
- “Because, I mean, it does kind of make it seem as though Michael Cohen is kind of just like a shoot-from-the-hip jerk and not necessarily focused entirely on Trump as a motive.
