Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen told MSNBC that he thinks former President Donald Trump is taking a risk by having his oldest sons testify in his New York fraud trial.
Cohen, who testified earlier in the trial, told the network that it made no sense to him that Trump’s legal team would put Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump on the stand again before Don Jr.’s scheduled testimony on Monday.
"It makes no sense to me,” he said. “What's the strategy here that they're trying to employ? First and foremost, as you appropriately and accurately stated, the issue of liability has already been decided. This is specifically a case about disgorgement. How much?"
Cohen argued that both Don Jr. and Eric Trump already flirted with perjury on the stand when they were called by the New York attorney general’s team and called out Ivanka Trump for repeatedly saying she could not recall details about the questions she was asked.
“They keep talking about Joe Biden’s cognition, she’s the only one who seems to have forgotten things 30 times,” he said.
"What I will tell you is that Donald Trump, he has to know that this is a stupid strategy. It's only a strategy that benefits him, for whatever reason, and I don't know the answer, it can only benefit Donald,” Cohen told the outlet.
"Which is interesting because, as a parent, you would think that his goal would be to protect his children," he added. "Instead, what he is doing is he is putting them in the line of fire. They're all perjury traps. None of them, including Ivanka, who has no idea what's going on anywhere."
Former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade also questioned the choice of Trump’s attorneys to mount a defense by relying on the testimony of his sons.
While the testimony will allow the Trumps to “provide the narrative they want to tell” and go on the “offensive” in the case, “I think it's going to be very difficult for Donald Trump Jr. to really have a lot of credibility here,” McQuade told MSNBC.
"His whole strategy, when he testified previously, was to distance himself from knowledge about these things. That it was all about the accountants, ‘I don't really pay much attention to this, sure, maybe I signed off on these things,’" McQuade said.
"But remember, he gave that press conference at the end of his testimony where he said 'I relied on accountants to do, wait for it, accounting,'" she added. "It's going to be difficult for him, I think, to now say anything with any authority, other than to repeat what he's already said."
Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb predicted “more posturing and contentiousness” from the Trump family once the defense portion kicks off, he told The Messenger.
But former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner told the outlet he thinks Don Jr. may have a tougher time on cross-examination in his defense case than when he was called by the AG’s team.
“It is very hard to use a witness who has previously testified that he does not remember important details of an event to provide exculpatory details about that event,” Epner said.
