Former Trump-associated lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified at length for the prosecution in the Manhattan criminal trial of former President Donald Trump, comes with as much baggage as American Airlines on a holiday.
But Cohen, an admitted liar and former convict, was credibly positioned by the prosecution as a dirty fish because that’s precisely the kind of creature that thrived in Trump’s dirty water. Cohen lied and did time for it, but he’d lied on Trump’s behalf, he claimed — and that gave him a sort of credibility as a witness that wouldn’t otherwise align with his own terrible track record with the truth.
Making the media rounds after Trump’s conviction, Cohen is now playing Monday morning quarterback to Trump’s various legal defenses — all of which have been losers lately. In the last three high profile cases, Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in the falsifying documents “hush money” case, the Trump Organization was found liable for fraud in a New York civil case, and the presumptive GOP presidential nominee was held liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump used different lead lawyers in each case.
The latest, Todd Blanche, has said that his side was unable to “get a fair trial” in the falsifying documents case, echoing Trump’s claim and the MAGA narrative about all Trump’s legal troubles. Responding to that claim in an interview, Cohen slammed Blanche for being too intimidated by his own client, the defendant Trump, to execute his job as Trump’s attorney.
Cohen: Todd Blanche is like the male version of Alina Habba… pic.twitter.com/GkiXE5aRAs
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 4, 2024
Cohen ripped into Blanche in a monologue that included some mimicry of Trump, calling Blanche’s claim “truly amazing.” Cohen said he had developed a nickname — noting that Trump is fond of coining insulting nicknames — for Blanche after the trial, calling him the SLOAT. That is, the “stupidest lawyer of all time.”
Cohen cites as evidence Blanche’s alleged failure to keep track of something as rudimentary as peremptory challenges during jury selection. (A peremptory challenge is an objection to a prospective juror for which no reason need be assigned — there is a limited number for both sides, after which no more are granted.)
It’s a critical element of jury selection that no competent lawyer would lose track of, Cohen asserts, insinuating that Trump’s grandiose sense of privilege convinced him that he had unlimited challenges — and his cowed lawyer was reluctant to tell him otherwise. Doubling down on his insult, Cohen called Blanche the male version of Alina Habba, the attorney who represented Trump in the civil fraud case in which he was ordered to pay $355 million.