Entertainment
Anderson Cooper admits he would ‘absolutely’ doubt Michael Cohen
Anderson Cooper on Thursday recalled Michael Cohen’s “dramatic” cross-examination.
May 16, 2024, published at 7:00 PM ET
CNN‘S Anderson Cooper admitted he would “absolutely” have doubts Michael Cohen‘s testimony as a witness if he was a juror Donald Trump‘s hush money case, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Cooper made the admission while talking about witnessing the attorney’s “extraordinary cross-examination” in the Manhattan courtroom.
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Cooper attended the hush money trial on Thursday, May 16.
In Thursday’s edition of the network’s extensive coverage of the historic trial, Cooper explained what he saw after being in court that day.
Cooper noted a “dramatic” moment when Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche “seemed” to catch Cohen – who once described himself as the the ex-president’s ‘fixer’ – in a lie.
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Cooper called Trump’s lawyer’s cross-examination of Cohen “devastating.”
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Cohen claimed he paid the money to pay hush money to an adult film star Stormy Daniels with the blessing of the ex-president. The payments are said to have been made in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair she had with Trump before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump — who has denied knowledge of both the payment and the reported sexual encounter — faces more than 30 felony charges for falsifying company records in connection with the hush money payment.
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Cohen claimed he had a phone call with Trump about moving forward with hush money payments.
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Cooper described the attorney’s cross-examination of the prosecution’s key witness “devastating.”
While testifying about a phone call with Trump on October 24, 2016, Cohen claimed that during that call he informed the ex-president that he would proceed with the case. hush money payments.
Cooper said Cohen was “cornered by what appeared to be a lie” during this testimony.
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Blanche pointed to text messages in the prosecutor’s phone log, which Cohen claimed he did not see while reviewing the records. The text messages were between Cohen and Trump ally Keith Schiller — and took place just before the alleged phone call with Trump — discussed the prank calls Cohen had received.
“There had been a series of, I think, strange phone calls that Michael Cohen had received. It turned out to be a fourteen-year-old,” Cooper explained.
“There was an exchange of messages between the alleged 14-year-old and Michael Cohen, and then Michael Cohen texted Keith Schiller at about 7:50 p.m., sometime or 7:48 p.m., saying, “Hey, I got some dope who did that.” harassed me.”
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Cooper said he would “absolutely” doubt Cohen’s “credibility” after Thursday’s testimony.
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Cooper claimed that Cohen was forced to “edit” his original story about the phone call with Trump by saying that the conversation discussed both the hush money payment and the prank caller.
“You could see the significance of the moment and everyone in the courtroom could see it and if you weren’t aware of it, the clicking of all the reporters in the typewriters in the room was like a crescendo because the drama of the moment was so .clear to everyone in the room,” the CNN anchor added.
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CNN legal analyst Elie Honig Cooper later asked his thoughts on the “dramatic” testimony — and whether or not it would have made an impression on him had he been a juror.
“Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it’s devastating to Michael Cohen’s credibility on this one particular issue,” Cooper responded.
“If I were a juror in this case and I looked at that, I would think this guy is making this up as he goes along, or he’s making up this particular story.”
