(DCNF)—Key documents lacking former President Donald Trump’s signature may pose issues for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case, criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala told CNN on Monday.
Trump is confronting 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business documents relating to payments to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence regarding an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election. Aidala noted that Trump’s signature is present on a check while other key documents were never personally signed by the former president, suggesting the possibility a jury could find “reasonable doubt” over Trump’s involvement when compared to former attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness in Bragg’s case.
“You just have to attack, attack, attack those witnesses and look, what you’ve got to say is, Michael Cohen should be a co-defendant,” Aidala told host Anderson Cooper. “If you believe what the prosecutors just said, Michael Cohen should be a co-defendant, not a witness. He has so many reasons to lie, so many reasons to pin this on someone else, to keep himself out of jail, which he was unable to do in the federal case.”
Cohen, who is a crucial witness for prosecutors, pleaded guilty to giving false statements, as well as charges like tax evasion and campaign finance violations in 2018. Cohen first said he paid Daniels with his personal funds and that neither the Trump campaign nor the Trump Organization paid him back, but he subsequently testified to Congress that the former president directed him to make the payment, which he received reimbursement for, according to Reuters.
“I think [Cohen’s credibility] has a tremendous impact,” he added. “Look, there is paperwork that corroborates the people‘s evidence, and that‘s obviously hurtful for the president. But my understanding is, it’s not paperwork with Donald Trump‘s handwriting on it or his signature on it, except for a check. So the defense could merely be, hey, Michael Cohen did all of this. He never told his client. He just said, look, I need money for this, I need money for that. And you know, one of the witnesses who is going to testify at this trial testified for the feds and he said that the money that was given to Michael Cohen was for Stormy Daniels and for legal fees. That’s a reasonable doubt.”
Trump also faces charges for his handling of classified documents he allegedly kept despite requests to turn them over. The former president is also confronting election interference charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Trump was also indicted in June 2023 over his alleged mishandling of classified documents retained at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. In early August 2023, the former president was hit with another indictment over his alleged attempt to interfere in the 2020 election and alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
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Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
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