Jay Weber Show transcript 5-20-24 7:10am
The outrageously silly ‘hush money’ trial might rap up this week.
Last week ended with Alvin Bragg’s team completing its prosecution case-and now it’s up to Trump’s legal team to determine how much of a defense case they ‘feel the need’ to put on.
My advice to them is even if you think you have this ‘won’ because Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels were such terrible, and terribly unbelievable, witnesses...
I’d still put on a defense of some sort and parade a few people past the jury who will confirm-from the witness stand-that Cohen and Daniels were lying in much of their testimony last week.
We had Cohen’s former attorney, Bob Costello, testify in front of congress last week about how much lying Cohen has been doing-
And this guy has the ‘receipts. This was Cohen’s personal defense attorney, as he-Cohen-was trying to get himself out of other legal jams-
He was a very credible witness in front of congress and would be devastatingly effective in front of a jury, I’d think.
Trump’s team should call bob Costello, at the very least.
But as of Friday, Trump’s attorneys-and the judge-were sounding like this was going to be a quick defense case-either way-
And by the way-there’s no chance trump testifies.
The MSM breathlessly suggested over the weekend that there was still a chance of that happening: there was-never- a chance Trump was going to be testifying, here.
Putting him on the stand would be dumb-especially now that we’ve seen the prosecution’s case-and how it came up short in numerous ways.
Johnathan Turley, on Friday, suggested that jurors could feel like Alvin Bragg has insulted their intelligence here- by expecting them-the jurors- to convict trump of a crime.... without ever clearly stating which ‘crime’ they should convict Trump of:
So-why would trump testify?
It’s almost never a good idea to have the defendant in the case-any case-testify on his or her own behalf-
And so, they certainly aren’t going to suggest trump do it. Trump is the client and has ultimate ‘say’ over how he wants his attorneys to represent him, and so, ‘the Donald’-could- overrule them and insist he be put on the stand-
But that’d be a stupid move, and everyone knows it.
Remember-Trump has been sued, has sued, has counter-sued, has been engaged with the legal system in some way-as a billionaire real-estate developer- his entire adult life.
He’s not dumb enough to try to testify in his own defense when there’s such a strong sense that Bragg’s case has gone so badly.
Trump has nothing to gain if he testifies, is the bottom line. So why does it?
The defense, instead, could call other witnesses-and i believe-should at least call a few to really hammer in the point that Daniels and Cohen are liars and extortionists.
Don’t allow-anyone- on the jury to think you don’t have a defense case. That’d be my bottom-line advice.
My posture to those jurors would be we could keep you hear until the fourth of July parading people across the witness stand proving what liars the accusers are and what a joke of a case this is....
But instead...since Mr. Bragg hasn’t proven a crime, anyway, we’ll try to keep this brief and only briefly call...three witnesses. Five witnesses. Whatever.
Wouldn’t that be a smart way to approach it?
But after consulting with the attorneys on Friday-Judge Merchan suggested that this trial could be ready for closing statements by Tuesday-
Meaning ‘whatever Trump’s team told him’, they aren’t going to call many witnesses.
That’s another strong suggestion Trump won’t testify. If they put him on the stand, he’d be there for several days, as Bragg’s prosecutors tried to drag out his testimony and catch him in some lie or ‘gotcha’ situation.
But Bragg simply didn’t prove anything criminal occurred, here. In any way.
Instead, he proved something we all already knew- and that isn’t illegal: Michael Cohen, to keep this ‘one time sex’ with stormy Daniels a secret, paid her 130-thousand dollars in hush money- very likely at the generic suggestion that ‘he handle it’...from Trump.
He got her to agree to a non-disclosure agreement. She accepted. There’s nothing illegal about that.
But-that! -is all that Bragg and his team have proven. They want to claim that it resulted in a fraudulent ‘bookkeeping’ entry...that then constituted federal election laws being broken- that weren’t broken- but somehow- Bragg charged Trump with 34 felonies for breaking.
The entire thing is and invented smear campaign-using the state courts of New York.
And again-falsifying business records is only a crime in New York if it was done in the commission or cover-up of another crime. Bragg’s indictment didn’t say what that other crime was-
And prosecutors still haven’t identified it for the jury.
Folks-Alvin Bragg’s case is ‘over’. He has presented it. He went four weeks without ever telling the jury what the actual ‘crime’ was here. Now he wants them to convict trump of ‘something’, anything.
This is where Turley says- the jurors should be insulted, here.
Meanwhile, as Biden’s regime colludes and coordinates in numerous efforts to try to ruin and disqualify trump from a second term-
That same team is struggling to play defense, themselves, against several crimes’ joe Biden and his family members have committed.
Last week- the most overtly partisan attorney general in u-s history- Merrick Garland- advised the white house and DOJ-not to- turn over the tapes of President Biden’s deposition in his own stolen documents case.
And in this instance-Joe Biden really did steal govt documents- some of them classified. He broke real felony laws as a senator and vice president. And he’s not being prosecuted for it.
The investigation into Biden’s stolen documents only came about because he and garland decided to claim president trump took and kept classified documents he shouldn’t have: but Donald Trump at least has an argument for why he can keep them, legally, and it could be a good one.
As president, he had virtually limitless power when it came to declassifying documents.
Joe Biden had no such powers as a senator or vice president-and so-he has simply been stealing govt documents over the years and keeping them.
When it comes to the ‘documents’- Joe Biden has been a federal law breaker for years. Flat out.
But it’s already been decided he won’t be charged for that. His scummy ag-, Merrick garland has already announced Biden gets a pass on his serial criminality.
However-as part of that investigation, you’ll remember, the special investigator says down with Biden for an extended deposition.
This is the deposition that led Robert Hur to say Biden wouldn’t be charged for the laws he broke...because he was a confused old man. Remember?
Well- congressional investigators who have been looking into his corruption for years now-want to hear those tapes.
Last week-Merrick Garland and the white house blocked their release-claiming Biden’s ‘executive privilege’.
And I’m guessing most Americans don’t understand the true ‘outrage’ in this move, either: folks-
This was a criminal investigation in which Biden was the alleged law breaker. He doesn’t have any executive privilege over a legal deposition he sat for-in this instance.
But! The transcripts of the deposition have already been released! Remember?
We already know what Biden testified to, during Robert Hur’s deposition. It was released in written form-because republicans want to hear what caused Hur to label Biden ‘too confused’ to be charged. The white house refuses to release ‘the audio’ of a deposition that we already have the ’text’ of.
And- the kicker is- Merrick Garland, his scummy AG, claimed last week that the ‘audio’ fell under executive privilege because of the ‘way Biden chose to answer the questions’...vocally in his own voice...
Get it?
Because no one else in the legal community does.
Talk about parsing.
One final point to be made here- which I’m stealing from David Harsanyi of ‘the federalist’.
He says- if that audio proves Biden wasn’t ‘a confused old man’ in this deposition-Biden and the white house should-want the public- to hear it, no?
Because-it would help prove Biden’s as sharp as he ever was. Perfectly fit to keep being president.
So clearly the audio-does expose-Joe Biden as a confused old man. They don’t want it out-for voters to hear- before the election.
story credit: Real Clear Politics
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of segment here > The silly ‘hush money’ trial might rap up this week