During his cross-examination of Michael Cohen on Thursday, Donald Trump’s attorney shouted at witness Michael Cohen, “You lied!” It was a moment that received breathless attention from the media, which attached great significance to the defense claim that Cohen omitted part of a call he made to Keith Schiller, Trump’s security aide, in October 2016 – almost eight years ago. The evidence showed that Cohen had asked Schiller for help in dealing with a threatening text messenger (who later claimed to be 14-year-old).
Cohen had not mentioned that exchange with Schiller while being questioned by the prosecution. He had testified to that being a call when he asked Schiller to hand his phone to Trump, who did not have his own cell phone. This was the crucial exchange, using Schiller’s phone, when Trump told Cohen weeks before Election Day, to go ahead and pay Stormy Daniels the $130,000 to keep her quiet.
Missed in the hype by talking heads on cables of this dramatic “Perry Mason moment” was the fact that the Trump lawyer’s melodramatic shout was not evidence to be considered by the jury. Just a lawyer shouting. Also missed was reporting on the most crucial document in the entire trial – the Weisselberg Document, which has been introduced into evidence and will be studied by the jury.
Here is what it shows:
- In Allen Weisselberg’s own handwriting, a memo shows that a total of $210,000 was to be reimbursed to Michael Cohen for money owed to him by Donald Trump, including the $130,000 in hush money Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf because he was worried her revelations would harm his campaign (according to Trump friend David Pecker and top Trump aide Hope Hicks, among others).
- That total $210,000 was then doubled by Weisselberg on the document, equaling $420,000. (Doubling so that Cohen can pay income taxes on the total “reimbursement” at an estimated 50% tax bracket and be made whole.)
- Then Weisselberg, a former executive in the Trump Organization, does the elementary school math to arrive at Trump’s monthly installment payments over a year to repay Cohen – $420,000/12 equals $35,000 per month, the amount of the checks almost all of which Trump wrote to Cohen each month in 2017 while a sitting president from his personal checking account.
Yes, $35,000. The same amount as Trump’s checks that are in evidence. It's just simple math: $210,000 times two, divided by 12 = $35,000. Nothing is mentioned about legal fees.
There is no other reasonable conclusion, I respectfully suggest, the jury can draw other than that these were reimbursement payments by Trump, not legal fees; and therefore, he lied when he repeatedly publicly stated, as recently as last week, that they were legal fees, not reimbursements.
I cannot be sure that the jury will conclude from the Weisselberg Document that Trump lied when he called these payments legal expenses. But the inference is as strong as the classic example of convincing circumstantial evidence: If the jury fell asleep and there is no snow on the ground, and they wake up and there is snow all over, they can “convict” on the conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it snowed overnight.
Previously, Weisselberg lied under oath in New York’s civil suit against Trump and was apparently willing to go to jail for perjury rather than testify. And this jury won’t necessarily know that. (Just as they might not know that Trump promised he “would” testify but – surprise! – he lied.)
The jury won’t get to hear Weisselberg but they will have in the jury room, during deliberations, the Weisselberg Document. I am guessing they will give it a long, long look. And then decide whether it snowed overnight – Trump lied about thinking he was paying “legal expenses” and he did so to conceal the campaign finance crime to deprive the American people of important information before they voted for president in November 2016.
