In spite of all the doomsday hype, Michael Cohen did just fine on the stand today
Remember a week ago, when every legal expert on TV seemed to agree that Hope Hicks’ testimony had just sunk Donald Trump, and that the rest of the prosecution’s case would just be piling on? At the time, I cynically predicted that once the media realized it had admitted that the trial was basically over and had thus given audiences an excuse to not have to keep watching, the media was going to backtrack and suddenly claim that the outcome was up in the air. I specifically predicted that once Michael Cohen was about to take the stand, the media would suddenly pretend that the entire case rested on his testimony – and the media would further portray him as an unmanageably out of control witness.
Sure enough, all of that happened. But then Cohen actually took the stand, and his testimony ended up being similar to all the other Trump testimony he’s given in the past: measured and effective. At that point the media covered its tracks by pretending to be shocked that Cohen didn’t spend his testimony throwing paper airplanes at Trump. But there was still the matter of keeping the media suspense going.
So even as Cohen’s second day of cross examination today was proving to be as uneventful as his first, the media suddenly decided today that Cohen was falling apart on the stand. At one point a CNN talking head claimed that the prosecution had made a huge mistake by pinning its entire case on Cohen, and that Cohen had just sunk the case. But that talking head turned out to be Trump’s former White House Communications Director. No wonder he was doing wall to wall positive spin for Trump’s prospects.
And even as Cohen was testifying that he relied on Katy Tur to get pro-Trump stories out there, an MSNBC panel hosted by Katy Tur was busy trying to discredit Cohen as a witness. It all served as a reminder that cable news is… not news.
But after the initial doomsday hype came and went about Michael Cohen’s testimony, cooler heads prevailed. Legal experts pointed out that while Trump’s attorney claimed to have caught Cohen in a lie, he didn’t actually catch Cohen in anything. What we saw from the cross examination today was indeed just more filler, no more effective than Tuesday’s pointless cross examination.
In other words, Michael Cohen did just fine today. It wasn’t perfect but it didn’t have to be. This case never rested solely on Cohen, or any other one witness, to begin with. The case is built on several key witnesses who have each helped establish Trump’s guilt, and who have each helped corroborate each other’s testimony.
If you’re worried about what you’re hearing on cable news right now, or if you’re bothered by what you’re going to continue to hear throughout the weekend, my advice is to simply turn it off. Nothing that’s said by any talking head on TV is going to improve your understanding of this trial. Go watch a WNBA game this weekend instead. The talking heads will still be waiting there for you on Monday. And Trump is closer to conviction than ever.
