Trump's Legal Team Just Called Its 'Killshot Witness' to the Stand, Law Professor Jonathan Turley Says
Fox News contributor and legal scholar Jonathan Turley said testimony from Michael Cohen’s former legal adviser Robert Costello could finish off the prosecution’s case against former President Donald Trump.
Trump has been charged with falsifying business records in connection with payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, said he believed Trump’s defense is winning, and Costello’s Monday testimony should seal the deal, according to Fox News.
“If I think I’m going to win a case, I’m going to stop. And I think they have won this case. The problem is that this is not an ordinary case,” he said during the Fox News show “The Story.”
“So my view is that even if there’s a conviction, it would have to be overturned at this point. But this is a man running for president. Quite frankly, Costello is a killshot witness,” he said.
“You only call him if you want to killshot at trial, that you feel that you need to make sure this doesn’t result in a conviction, even though I think it’s going very well for the defense. And it went very well today for the defense,” he said.
…Committing major larceny is not a particularly appealing pitch for taking an office with the power over the purse. Then again, Cohen can claim that Congress cannot possibly corrupt him . . . he was corrupt before he went to Congress.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 20, 2024
Costello said on the stand that, according to former Trump attorney and prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump knew nothing of the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
“I swear to God Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump,” Costello said Cohen told him.
Cohen had also testified that he told others Trump knew nothing about the payment.
Trump trial goes off the rails with defense witness Robert Costello disrespecting Judge Merchan pic.twitter.com/DIAEyvsbcP
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) May 20, 2024
Before Costello testified, there was legal sparring over what the defense could ask him, as it sought to push back against claims by Cohen there was a pressure campaign against him. Judge Juan Merchan allowed some, but not all, of what the defense wanted, according to The Washington Post.
“I will give you some latitude to explore the pressure campaign so that you can elicit some inconsistencies, so you can offer some rebuttal of Mr. Cohen’s testimony. But I’m not going to allow this to become a trial within a trial as to whether or not there was, in fact, this pressure campaign and how it affected Cohen. That’s not the purpose of this trial, and I don’t want it to become that,” Merchan said.
During Costello’s time on the stand Monday, Merchan sustained at least 14 prosecution objections that blocked questions from Trump’s defense.
When the press was thrown out of the Trump trial, the judge told Robert Costello, the witness, he was acting contemptuously and threatened to strike his testimony and remove him from the stand. Costello tried to say something. “No,” the judge said. “This is not a conversation.” pic.twitter.com/MyYUGDQlYd
— Jonah Bromwich (@Jonesieman) May 20, 2024
“They have no case,” Trump said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. “There’s no crime.”
The defense rested its case Tuesday without calling Trump to testify.
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