05-18-2024, 06:48 PM
$tevie wrote:
Cohen may not be the world's greatest witness, but he did go to jail for aiding Trump. I think that at least some jurors may ask themselves why it was a crime for Cohen to help Trump, unless he was helping Trump commit a crime.
From what I've seen, Trump learned one thing really well from his mob lawyer Roy Cohn decades ago - keep his "fingerprints" off of anything illegal by having fall guys do it for him. There's lots of circumstantial evidence to lead a reasonable person to infer beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not a rogue operation and that Trump was at a minimum closely involved and approved, but if there is a hard-headed member of the jury (for whatever reason) that insists that "beyond a doubt" in this case means that the prosecution has to have presented proof of a direct link (no inferences) that Trump knew what was happening when he signed those checks, then for them it depends on whether they believe Cohen or not. I think if the member of jury has an inclination to want a very high threshold for "beyond a reasonable doubt" then they can easily lean into not believing Cohen to rationalize having a "reasonable doubt" that Trump actually broke the law.