DAY 18



Michael Cohen is set to retake the stand Thursday, the third day this week he is doing so as a star witness in former President Trump’s hush money trial.

He will undergo further cross-examination by Trump’s attorney, who at the start of the proceeding attempted to paint the former president’s ex-personal attorney as someone who profited over his hatred of his former boss.

Cohen is expected to be the prosecution’s last witness in the historic trial, which has stretched into its fourth week.

Michael Cohen is expected to be the prosecution’s final witness in their case in chief, though they may later call a rebuttal witness if Trump has an expert testify in his defense.

“We had indicated that, potentially, that we could call another witness, that was going to be another book publisher, but we’ve decided that we really don’t need to do that,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said during a sidebar conference on Tuesday.

The exchange was out of the earshot of reporters but surfaced in the court transcript.

“So, Mr. Cohen will be the last witness,” Steinglass said.

Cross-examination of Cohen from Trump’s attorneys is expected to last most, if not all, of Thursday.

Court will not meet on Friday so Trump can attend his son’s graduation, so it is possible Cohen will need to return on Monday.

— Zach Schonfeld

08:38 AMMay 16, 2024
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rrahman
Long lines form at courthouse for Cohen testimony

The lines to get into the courthouse to catch a glimpse of Trump’s hush money trial were already long at about 5:30 a.m. this morning.

Members of the public and the press were huddled underneath umbrellas to face the rainy weather.

Despite the early hour, most members of the public will likely not get in due to a very limited number of seats inside.

By 6:30 a.m., police appeared to already close off the line.

—Lauren Sforza

Unconfirmed:

Russian Market
@runews
BREAKING: 
In Slovakia, the wife of #Cintula, who attempted on Fico's life, has been arrested.
She's a REFUGEE from UKRAINE and incited her husband to seek revenge against the pro-Russian politician.
Wow....
6:40 AM · May 16, 2024


https://twitter.com/raymo_g/status/1790758997647061187

Texas Scorecard by  Daniel Greer   | May 15, 2024

Texans for Lawsuit Reform’s history of moving against Ken Paxton culminated in a failed impeachment. Had it succeeded, it could have established a playbook for nullifying the power of Texas voters.

During the impeachment trial of the Attorney General of Texas in September 2023, Tony Buzbee cross-examined Ken Paxton’s former employee turned hapless informant.

    You were involved in staging a coup, weren’t you? That’s what you were up to. That’s the reason you went to the governor’s office, that’s the reason you were talking to TLR, that’s the reason you were engaged in conduct like removing your boss’s name from agency letterhead, you were staging a coup.

This spirited moment early in the trial followed the rushed impeachment of Attorney General Paxton by the Texas House at the end of the legislative session. Less than a week after Buzbee’s cross of the rogue employee, the Texas Senate acquitted Paxton.

Following the trial, Buzbee appeared on a podcast.

After he described the House’s weak case, Buzbee explained the dangers of a weaponized impeachment process. Someone could be elected statewide, then impeached and removed from office. This would be done through a process that bypassed the voters. “It would come down to 30 people, 31 people in the Senate deciding statewide officials,” Buzbee said.

In an interview with Texas Scorecard, Paxton pointed to Texans for Lawsuit Reform as the driver of this new political playbook. He pointed to their failure to defeat him electorally in the 2022 Republican Primary.

“It was embarrassing to them, how much they spent, and the fact that they support somebody that got third place, almost last place, with a lot of money and a lot of their efforts,” he said. “But instead of making things good with me and trying to work things out in the future, they decided no, let’s work on this internal plot. Let’s do everything we can to take him out another way. The voters have spoken, but we don’t believe in what the voters have said.”

More: https://texasscorecard.com/investigations/the-coup-how-texans-dodged-an-attempt-to-kill-their-power-in-2023/