Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Chasing Shiny Things

Remember the "document with Weisselberg’s handwriting on it”? It’s all I heard about for a week. But that was like a week ago. 
"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 Trums behalf because he was worried her revelations would harm his campaign," wrote Davis. "That total $210,000 was then doubled by Weisselberg on the document, equaling $420,000 ... 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." 
Given the simple math of these payments, argued Davis, "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." 
Ironically, the phone call that Trump supporters were treating as a large moment discrediting Cohen now appears instead to bolster him, as the prosecution — over the attempts of the defense to stop it — produced photographic evidence partially backing up Cohen's account that Trump was present around when the call happened.
But this week it’s the “bombshell” that Cohen “stole” money from Trump (which Cohen testified to last week), while the real explosion is the witness Trump called who single-handedly destroyed whatever defense Trump might have put on.

Meanwhile the record of the payments to Stormy Daniels is so clear a child can understand it. Which explains why nobody on cable TeeVee or Twitter seems to be able to. We can only hope the jury isn’t as stupid.  Trump’s defense is that the payments were legal fees. The notes from Weisselberg belie that. Especially since Trump signed the checks 12 times. He, who hated to pay for anything, knew what he was paying for.

That silence spoke more loudly than Cohen’s confirmation of what he’d said a week earlier. At least to the jury, who are presumably paying attention.

The media? Apparently they can’t be expected to do more than chase shiny things.
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