Michael Cohen, the star witness in Donald Trump's hush money case, appears to have made an impact on some members of the jury, according to CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen. Eisen, an attorney who has been attending trial proceedings, observed "six jurors who were nodding or smiling, or agreeing with Cohen at one point in his testimony."
Cohen's testimony, considered a key part of the prosecution's case, could persuade jurors that Trump was directly connected to the falsified business records used to cover up the money he paid for the silence of Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress he allegedly had sex with. And while he was expected to fall easy prey to cross-examination by Todd Blanche, a seasoned lawyer on Trump's defense team, Cohen appears to have exceed the low expectations.
Prosecutors "very skillfully played the expectation game throughout the trial," said Eisen, comparing the dynamics to that of a presidential debate. "They elicited criticism of Cohen from every witness. The jury is the ultimate audience for the expectation, and they surpassed the jury and the judge's expectations."
The testimony's effectiveness might have also been helped by a subpar performance from Blanche, who tried to pin Trump's former fixer as a man driven by financial profit and petty grudges but instead came across as meandering and off-topic. Cohen, who spent three years in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to his involvement in the same hush money scheme at the heart of the Manhattan trial, simply acknowledged questions about whether or not he said or posted certain things about Trump with "that sounds like something I would say."
Several jurors reportedly found such exchanges amusing, which may be a bad omen for Trump.
"You could see the judge berating Blanche," said Eisen. "And then he ordered the questions struck from the record, and the jury did hear that."
