Right . You would have a pretty good sense of what he was going to be asked and a pretty good sense of how he was going to answer it. None of this goes perfectly from a prosecutors perspective. Danny will tell you, none of this goes perfectly from the Defense Attorneys perspective. This is why you have redirect. This is why you have final arguments, this is why as danny said earlier, you keep a list of defenses and some fall out along the way and some get better. As much as you plan, you have to be flexible. Is the prosecution happy with the cross . If i were the prosecutor here and they wanted to spent 3 1 2 days saying the same thing, my view would be let him have it. Keep doing it. I think at some point, jose, youre losing your jury. I take anas point, sometimes you lose your jury, but you never try to. My goal is to never lose my jury. And if youre saying the same thing over and over for days on end, i think youre losing your jury. There is an agony in a crossexamining of a witness like Michael Cohen, ive struggled for the defense, ive struggled with this myself. Sometimes you get a witness that has so much bad history, normally just criminal history, you dont have a cooperating witness with a podcast and two books, but it is kind of in the same basket, sometimes you have an embarrassment of riches in terms of Cross Examination material. One thing i struggle with is just organizing it. Because when you organize a Cross Examination, especially in my early lawyer years, i think a lot of lawyers do this, you script out this rigid script of questions youre going to ask and you get about three questions in and everything goes kablooey. You cant have a rigid script. Some guys, you know, some folks will get up there and they can wing a Cross Examination. Those people are super humans, i dont know how they do it, but for the most part, you have an outline. You cant stick to the outline. Things happen. And keep in mind that every question you craft, the guy on the other side of that question is going to look to zing you. Hes not doing improv with you, not doing yes and, not trying to help you, hes trying to hurt you. So, if youre too rigid in your script and have too many things to get into, it can be chaotic, it can be really, really daunting. A lot of folks have opined with Michael Cohen, there is so much material to go after him about. Thats kind of the problem. I think were seeing that over the last couple days, they just have so much material and the other thing that the Defense Attorneys fall victim to, im one of them, you get so into your case, you start thinking of every single time this witness has been inconsistent, you start hyperfocusing on it. Thats how you get to points like in the Stormy DanielsCross Examination, focusing on things like, you lied about whether you ate dinner, did you eat dinner, how was dinner you didnt have dinner, did you . You hyperfocus on that and you think it is an aha moment. But youre so in the case that maybe that point about dinner, which seems so important when youre in your law office at 3 00 in the morning writing it out maybe isnt that important to the jury. If i may, i think there is one tell from the prosecutors side, im not seeing them objecting. Im not seeing them ask and answer. There have been a few. A few when the questions are improper, but basically you asked me earlier, ana, how would a prosecutor feel, you can sort of tell how they feel. Theyre kind of sitting back and letting the defense do their thing, they have nothing to hide, ask them anything you want, if they really thought this was killing them, they might be speaking up more often. There is testimony right now about, again, lies to congress or his testimony before congress, blanche asked, you repeatedly said to congressmen and senators you accepted responsibility for the crime . Cohen, correct, and i was going to prison as a result. Blanche, but do you agree with me that lying under oath is not accepting responsibility . Cohen, can you clarify your question . Blanche, do you agree with me that when you plead guilty of a crime, you were lying, thats not accepting responsibility, is it . Cohen, i accepted responsibility and i am suffering the consequences as a result. Blanche, under the guidelines you get time off for accepting responsibility . Cohen, you do. You get a reduction. Yasmin, take it away. Who else have we missed inside that courtroom . Reporter so, i want to talk quickly and bring folks up to date on what theyre talking about to remind folks when it came to Michael Cohens congressional testimony back in 2019. It was with regards to a New York Ag Lawsuit against then president trump, in which Michael Cohen did in fact lie under oath to congress, despite the fact that he had said that he was accepting responsibility, although they later realized he had lied. I actually found this letter that i wanted to read for folks quickly, a letter to ag Merrick Garland from james comer, referring Michael Cohen to the doj for lying to congress saying, as indicated in the 2019 letter, cohen, while testifying under oath before the House Oversight committee, made willfully and intentionally false statements of Material Fact that were contradicted by the record established by the Justice Department and cohen made statements to the Oversight Committee that were contradicted by witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the Subject Matter in particular cohen lied at least six times. So Michael Cohen lied to congress in his congressional testimony to the House Oversight committee at least six times. This is what todd blanche is looking at and trying to get into, not only kind of lying under oath in a court of law, lying to congress as well. One other thing that they talked a lot about, guys, blame shifting. Theyre trying to kind of paint Michael Cohen as an individual who does not take responsibility for his own actions, right . You went after judge pauley publicly, you went after other individuals publicly, as well. You went after the fdny, you called them animals online, you do not take responsibility for your actions, instead you are shifting blame. Thats what it seems the defense is trying to get at in this Cross Examination. You lie and you do not take responsibility for your own actions, hence what youre doing here. That is what, of course, theyre trying to get at with this Cross Examination. Yasmin, blanche just asked, so you blame a lot of people over the years for the crime you were convicted of. Cohen, yes. Are correct. Your accountant, the judge, you blamed the judge, you blamed president trump. Cohen, yes, sir. Does the outcome of this trial affect you personally . Cohen, yes. Joining us now is jeremy soland, former manhattan district attorney. Thank you for being with us. This is an interesting line of questioning. Is the outcome of this trial affecting you personally . Yes. What is that intended to theyre working with what they have. They only have so much. One big point is the credibility of Michael Cohen, the agenda being i abhor this man, detest this man, i want to see the worst things happen to him, he made me go to jail, he made me be the fall guy, i can make money off this, which i have and im admitting to making money off this and i lied to my wife, i lied to congress, i lied to court under oath. So whatever they can, they got to keep going after him. If you diminish him and make him look like a bad guy, what does it do . It steals away that this is really a falsifying Business Records case and make it the Michael Cohen case. If you cant believe Michael Cohen, you cant believe this whole house of cards. It is what comes after that what seemed to be a moment in court with that question, does the outcome of this trial affect you personally, and cohen says, yes. And im still trying to figure out why blanche decides to just move on, right after that. This is where he goes, his very next question. Do you or your lawyers say anything to judge pauley that you felt pressured by the government to make a guilty plea . Cohen, did not. Blanche, by the way, your wife had nothing to do with the Leasing Agreements . Cohen, some of the millions were solely in her name, some of the medallions, corporations were in her name. Blanche, when you received monthly payments, the checks were made to you or your wife . Cohen, the corporations, the names, 16. Im wondering what the strategy is here, ana, he didnt let that moment sit with the jury, he moves on. Well, part of this is balancing letting the moment sit with the moment happened. And he now gets to use that. And i think one thing that is really important for us to remember is the jurors are instructed on credibility and credibility does not just have to do with truthfulness. It doesnt have to do with whether someone lied or not, it is whether theyre believable. Hes getting into another area which is not just the lying, but the bias and motive. And so when they get that instruction, the jurors, they get that instruction, theyre going to be told all about all the Different Things they can consider with respect to credibility and these are big areas. That bias, that motive, the reasons why he does things just for himself, those are the things that the jurors are going to be looking at and considering when they consider the credibility, the believability of cohen. This is very smart by the defense. And this is one of the pillars you were talking about earlier, the different pillars that the defense has to erect. When they ask him does the outcome of this trial affect you personally and he said yes, and then they go into the medallion taxis, and the millions of dollars he lost as a consequence of being involved in this, that is a different pillar. It is a different pillar, but there may be a salutary reason for switching it. Mr. Blanche got the answer he wanted, it was a bad answer. A witness on the stand, under oath, admitted he had a personal interest in the outcome the case. The witnesss interest in the case should be to tell the truth. And that justice be done. Cohen said, no, i really care what happens here, i want this guy in jail, i want this guy convicted, so, blanche took the answer as we were taught to do as prosecutors, put it in his pocket, and moved on. Im not sure it is a terrible strategy, frankly. Because, ana, if you want to dwell on the good answer that you just got, it could get worse, right . Maybe cohen recognizes what he did and said and then tries to clean it up, if you ask him another question. You got answer you want, move on. On summation, thats a great point, on summation now, you can say, you know why he said that, here are the reasons why, it is not in evidence and youre allowed to tell your story on summation. Why we got that answer is not in evidence and thats a great tool for the defense on summation to hit on and hit on and hit on, just like theyre going to all these other things about the agenda and the money and as you said credibility in all its forms. Is there a point in Cross Examination where the jury is going to feel like this has been tied up in a bow in terms of what the defense is trying to accomplish in their Cross Examination . There is, no magic wand that i can say, oh, you got it, were done, thank you very much. I wish it worked that way. So does the prosecution. It doesnt. You have to be able to gauge that. It is not always easy. As a Defense Attorney and prosecutor, but more so the Defense Attorney, sometimes you go and hit and you hit and you got to stop. It doesnt help and eventually there is diminishing returns and you got to walk it back. It is not so easy in the moment when youre taking that Water Fountain and it is turning into an open fire hydrant of information. It is not always easy. If i may, as a prosecutor, i felt there was no such thing as too much evidence. You dont know when you hit the point. You have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt to unanimous jury. How many more witnesses are going to do that . Did i do it eight witnesses ago . I want to keep going as a prosecutor. Mindful of what jeremy is saying, you may have already crossed that threshold. Sometimes at least in federal court, where i practice, the judge would stop you. But i wasnt going to stop me. Speaking of which, when you talk about the arc of witnesses, Michael Cohen is supposed to be the prosecutions last witness. Thats what they have told judge merchan. And so, ana, what do you make of that choice . I dont think it should come as a surprise to anyone that theyre ending with him. When i heard they were thinking they may have one other witness after him, i was surprised. Because you want to start strong, you want to end strong. And so in their mind, theyre ending with their strong witness, theyre ending with this witness that ties everything together. But a flawed witness as we have pointed out as the defense has pointed out. Definitely a flawed witness. Why . What theyre going to do, which others have sort of said, is theyre going to say to the jury he comes to you as a person, just like anyone else, and we, the prosecution, dont get to pick our witnesses. And i can tell you this both from experience of my own in practice and having watched tons of trials, juries convict all the time based on the testimony of a witness who has multiple convictions, has lied, and has admitted ive lied. But please believe me, jury and the jurors say, okay, we will, and well convict. And interesting that now blanche is focusing in on cohens relationship with his wife and all of these payments that came by and the Bank Accounts that were created. And blanche says, without taking and talking about communications with your wife, do you know if your wife found out about what you did with 130,000 . An objection, objection was sustained. Blanche, you said the funds were taken from the Home Equity To An Llc . Correct. Blanche, you testified on monday, just a few minutes ago, that you decided to go this way because it was quick and because you wanted to conceal it from your wife . Cohen, correct. You said she had no knowledge of the heloc in 2018 . No, she didnt have knowledge of the heloc, she didnt have knowledge of the transaction. Did you have a practice of dealing and deleting communications generally around 2018 using encrypted signal et cetera . On signal it does so automatically. Did you have a habit of asking your wife to delete your communications . On objection, that objection sustained. I just want to point out, i think it is rich that Donald Trumps defense is going after Michael Cohen for lying to his wife. Because that in part is what this sort of all stems from. And, again, jurors should be only listening to what is in the four corners of the courtroom, but if youre in new york, you know donald trump, marla maples, his whole history, donald trump isnt testifying, you shouldnt believe donald trump. Did the fact that trump opened his defense opened with a statement that he had not had the relationship with Stormy Daniels, in this case, as an opening salvo, did that, do you think that was a mistake or was this something that could help in this part of it . I think that likely was in large part done at the behest of the client as opposed to the right strategy and thats when you as a Defense Attorney have to say to your client, i run the show, this is my house, this is my courtroom, im in the trenches, you want to do what you want to do outside of the courtroom, thats on you. In the courtroom, im the one who calls the shots. You open that door and that, in part, is why donald trump will not testify because it will open up so many doors if we dont even know exist because thats the man who he is. And hes going to say that and hes going to do it. Lets go back to the courtroom right now, todd blanche asks Michael Cohen, you gave a statement under oath you never asked for a pardon from trump. And cohen says, i never asked for it. I spoke to my attorney about it because we had seen on Television President trump potentially prepardoning everybody to bring an end to this. I reached out to my attorney to ask him if this was legitimate. Blanche, so you provided testimony, prepared remarks and under oath and said i never asked for nor would i accept a pardon from president trump. Cohen, correct. Is that did he get him in a contradiction there . Maybe perhaps. It is a little bit unclear from the question, but harkening back, ana, bias, inconsistency and hes a convicted perjurer. If those are your themes for cross, and i think picking more than three themes is hazardous. If those are your themes for cross, this arguably fits into one of them. But the questioning is not all that crisp here and the answers are not all that crisp here. And so it is hard, you know, hearing it as you read it to know whether or not it is resonating with the jury. And were reading from the transcript, it is not the official transcript coming from the court reporters, which well get later. It seems to be an inconsistency. Question would be, how many do you need . Diminishing returns again. I want to bring in michael rothfeld. Hes a coauthor of the fixers. You worked on a team that broke the story, which set the stage for the criminal trial. First ever facing a former president. Is there information youre learning in this case