Today, former Trump fixer, lawyer, and mini-me Michael Cohen takes the stand for the prosecution. I’m not going to speculate about how well he’ll do because we’ll know that soon enough. Instead, I’ll focus on last week in the Trump porn star hush money election interference trial.

The big moment was obviously Stormy Daniels’ testimony. Cassandra covered the human side of the testimony, I’ll focus on the legal side. There were some weak moments on direct, but the defense squandered them with a rabid cross examination by Susan Nechles; pronounced necklace. They sent a woman to do the dirty work of beating up on Stormy Daniels.

It turns out that Stormy is an excellent counterpuncher, which is useful when your adversary engages in overkill. Nechles did everything but place a South African necklace around her neck. I’m talking about the petrol soaked tires used to whack traitors to the anti-apartheid cause.

Nechles is one of those lawyers who confuses quantity with quality. She spent ten minutes trying to pin Daniels down as to whether she and Trump had dinner on the night of their assignation. Nobody cares, Susan, except for the man behind the overkill, the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian.

I’m not sure if slut shaming and name calling will work with a Manhattan jury. The stink surrounding pornography and its players is not as malodorous as it used to be. For every punch landed by Nechles, Daniels had a counterpunch leading those who attended the trial to give her second day on the stand rave reviews.

The first day, however, of her Stormy-mony gave Team Trump a non-frivolous ground for appeal. Judge Merchan tried to reign Daniels in, but the witness was determined to tell her story, so she went farther that the judge wanted. There were many objections sustained but the judge chewed out the defense for not objecting to the condom question.

Check out David Kurtz’s take on Merchan’s lambasting Trump’s attorneys:

“After Stormy Daniels completed her testimony and the jury had left the courtroom late yesterday, Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments on another Trump motion for a mistrial in the hush money case.

Trump lost the motion, but the hearing was notable for the way in which Merchan raked Trump’s attorneys for not having done more to keep some of Daniels’ testimony out and prevent the jury from hearing it.

Merchan’s point to the Trump legal team was two-fold: (i) when you raised objections, I usually sustained them; and (ii) you should have objected a whole lot more. Merchan raised again the fact that he himself had sua sponte objected to the some of the Daniels testimony when he didn’t hear one from Trump. Add it all together, Merchan ruled, and Trump offered no basis for a mistrial. Motion dismissed.

One can only imagine the thrashing Trump gave his lawyers after hearing Merchan question their approach to such a key witness who had so much embarrassing testimony to offer.”

In a word: Ouch.

Team Trump’s hands are tied by their client’s refusal to admit shtupping Stormy even though he’s on the record in a California case that they did what Michael Cohen would surely call the dirty deed.

The reporters covering the document days at the trial had a field day calling them boring and dull: Sedate but important is a better phrase. In the end, this is a documents case and many of them were damming, especially the document with Allen Weisselberg’s scrawl on it.

The judge suggested that the prosecution should call Weisselberg but they’re resistant. He’s a bona fide Trump loyalist who has already perjured himself for his boss. Hit it, Boy Wonder:

I wouldn’t call Weisselberg unless the judge ordered me to do so and even then, I’d balk.

The last major witness of the week was Trump sycophant Madeline Westerhout. She was an even more reluctant witness than Hope Hicks, but she confirmed the delivery of hush money checks to the White House via Fed Ex. Westerhout was the first witness to claim that Trump made the payoff to spare his family. That, however, was her opinion: the Kaiser of Chaos never said that to her.

Westerhout should wake up and smell the coffee and stop drinking this shit:

The prosecution has sequenced the trial perfectly. They’ve saved Michael Cohen for near the end because much of the testimony thus far is aimed at shoring up his testimony. Repeat after me: It’s corroborated up the wazoo.

The longstanding feud between Lawrence O’Donnell and Defendant Trump intensified last week. On his show, Lawrence pointed out how many times Susan Nechles said “orange turd,” which is Stormy’s pet name for former President* Pennywise. Trump was not amused by seeing Lawrence in court and posted his umbrage on his scam social media site:

Trump posted this right after my show tonight. Must’ve been something I said. pic.twitter.com/fhoucNgvoO

— Lawrence O'Donnell (@Lawrence) May 8, 2024

Orange turds should be flushed. It’s even funnier when done by a proud porn star.

In the end, you don’t have to like Stormy Daniels to believe her testimony. After that fakakta documentary, I don’t like her but I believe her story. The jury need not believe her story to convict Trump. They need to believe the hush money was paid to suppress her story whether true or not.

The former Fixer cometh. I think he’ll do well as long as he doesn’t lose his cool on cross examination. He claims to be out for accountability not vengeance, but he can have it both ways as revenge is a dish best served cold. How Sicilian is that? More Sicilian than either Cohen or me.

Repeat after me: Michael Cohen’s testimony is corroborated up the wazoo.

I’ll be back with another Trump porn star hush money election interference post after Cohen finishes his testimony. Stay tuned.

The last word goes to Frank Zappa: