Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg thought securing a guilty verdict against Donald Trump was a cinch.
A Democrat judge who donated to Joe Biden and a jury pool pulled from Manhattan were the recipe for a rigged show trial.
But now a jury expert just hit Alvin Bragg with this one nasty surprise.
Bragg’s case is a house of cards
Alvin Bragg’s cockamamie legal theory that Donald Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by securing a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with Stormy Daniels depends on the testimony of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
Cohen paid Daniels the $130,000, but Bragg is claiming that Trump covered up a campaign finance crime by listing $260,000 in payments to Cohen as being for legal services when Bragg claims it was a reimbursement for the NDA payment.
None of this is a crime, but biased rulings by Joe Biden donor Judge Juan Merchan allowed this sham case to proceed.
Bragg is in big trouble counting on Cohen
Michael Cohen is the most troubled witness a prosecutor could ever put on the stand.
Cohen previously pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.
In a hearing to try and win early release, Cohen then said he lied when pleading guilty.
Bragg’s case also served to damage Cohen’s credibility by painting him as a deranged, loose cannon with an ax to grind against Donald Trump.
During this case, witnesses testified that Cohen was prone to anger and wanted to “kill himself” when Trump didn’t pick him for Attorney General or some other high-ranking administration position.
Jury consultant Carolyn Koch said the jurors would be shocked to see how little credibility Cohen had once Trump’s lawyers got through with him on cross examination.
Why Cohen’s testimony won’t help Bragg
Cohen recorded himself discussing the National Enquirer paying Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about an alleged affair with Trump to bury it.
This payment wasn’t a crime and isn’t part of the indictment.
Koch explained that the audio itself still can’t erase all the doubts about Cohen’s motives and veracity.
“Well, audio is good,” Koch stated.
“And audio is like a document. But jurors are going to respond to the case like a mosaic. So there’s pieces of the puzzle and I use the analogy like a Jenga, a Jenga tower; the audio is an unfinished conversation and there is a big difference between contemplation and consummation. And so, like, I always think about, you learn it in law school, it’s unjust enrichment,” Koch added.
Koch explained that there were major gaps in the conversation, which will play to Trump’s defense that Cohen acted on his own when paying Daniels the $130,000 NDA fee.
“You talk about, hey, ‘would you paint my house? I‘m thinking about painting my house,’” Koch added.
“And the guy paints your house, but ‘I didn’t give you the green light yet.’ So if there’s missing information on Cohen’s cell phone and he’s not the most credible person, well he’s not credible. He has credibility problems. That’s a problem. What’s missing?” Koch continued.
Koch revealed that most jurors take their jobs seriously and don’t like connecting the dots to send someone to jail unless the case features an act of unspeakable evil by a defendant who the jurors won’t be able to sleep at night if they set free.
“Most jurors will hold the government to its burden to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Koch continued.
“And witnesses have to have some quality and some credibility. I think they’re going to be a little stunned that that’s a little bit lacking here. I have seen jurors connect the dots, but they’re in cases where it’s like a serial killer and he‘s abducting Girl Scouts and they know he did it and they’re willing to lighten up that burden of proof because they can’t sleep at night,” Koch concluded.
That’s not the case here.
Trump is accused of a non-crime through a convoluted legal theory about conduct from eight years ago.
A fair set of jurors won’t feel the weight of the world on their shoulders to convict Trump.
That’s bad news for Bragg’s chances at a conviction.
