...10:18
Prosecution brings up Costello’s Friday testimony to House where he said Cohen lied
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger during cross-examination brings up Cotello’s testimony to a House Republican-run committee on ‘weaponization’ of government.
‘Last week on May 15th didn’t you go to Congress?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, he responded. ‘And you went there to publicly vilify Michael Cohen in the middle of his testimony?’ she asked.
‘I went there to testify,’ was Costello’s response. Asked if it was an effort to ‘intimidate’ Cohen, he called the notion ‘ridiculous.’
During his testimony, which came amid Cohen’s multi-day appearance on the witness stand, he accused Cohen of repeatedly lying.
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10:10
Costello called Cohen an a****** in email, court hears
Costello was shown an email he sent to his business partner Jeff Citron on June 22, 2018.
In it, he called Cohen an ‘a******’ and accused him of trying to ‘slow play’ the [most powerful man on the planet’ - Donald Trump.
Costello wrote: ‘What should I say to this a******? He is playing with the most powerful man on the planet.’
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger said: ‘That email certainly speaks for itself?’
Costello replied: ‘It certainly does.’
Costello went on to deny the prosecutor’s suggestion that he had ‘lost control of Cohen’ having tried to control him on behalf of Trump.
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10:00
Former Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith slams judge for not letting him testify for the defense
Former Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith has slammed the hush money trial judge for not letting him testify for the defense.
In a lengthy post on X, Smith that the jury needs to understand the complexities of federal election law that is central to the case against Trump.
Manhattan prosecutors say Trump hid the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about the affair as a legal expense to help him win the 2016 election.
He wrote: ‘While judge wouldn’t let me testify on meaning of law, he allowed Michael Cohen to go on at length about whether and how his activity violated FECA. So effectively, the jury got its instructions on FECA from Michael Cohen!’
Smith also took issue with how the judge did not want to separate testify on how reporting of the payments may have lined up with the dates of the election.
‘We were going to go over the reporting schedules, showing that even if they thought it was a campaign expenditure to be reported, an expenditure made on October 27 (when $$ sent to Daniels atty) would not, under law, be reported until Dec. 8, a full 30 days after election’.
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What was the date for the Stormy meetup with
PTrump? Do we know?