George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said Thursday prosecutors still have not shown evidence former President Donald Trump committed a crime in the “hush money” case pursued by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Prosecutors called former media executive David Pecker of the National Enquirer to the stand Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to detail how the publication purchased the rights to stories involving Trump while not publishing them regarding a $130,000 payout to porn star Stormy Daniels. Turley noted that the prosecutors had not tied Trump personally to illegal actions while questioning the media executive about Trump’s alleged involvement in the schemes.
“The interesting aspect to me is how Michael Cohen drove these events. At one point, David Pecker said that he [Cohen] started to yell at him [Pecker], something he often does, apparently, when he wasn’t going to transfer the rights of the story to Trump,” Turley told Fox News host John Roberts. “There is this disconnect where you will have the former attorney to Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, get on the stand and effectively ask the jury to convict his former client for following his advice.”
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Terrell criticized Bragg’s team of prosecutors, led by former Biden administration official Michael Colangelo, who served as acting associate attorney general, saying they had not proven their case.
“There has been no crime established,” Terrell told Roberts. “When you are presenting a case in the opening days you are trying to get the jury’s attention. I will submit to you, John, that the jury is saying where is the crime at? Where is the evidence of President Trump doing wrong?”
“You have a person in Michael Cohen who has not been on the witness stand but he is the center of attention,” Terrell continued. “I will submit to you when he gets cross-examined, when the defense team gets a chance to cross-examine David Pecker and Michael Cohen you will see basically an explosion of credibility issues being raised.”
Turley compared the efforts to contain claims about Trump to efforts made by Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992.
“Bill Clinton had the virtual 101st Airborne of lawyers working for him putting out all of the scandals of all the women,” Turley said. “That’s what a lot of these politicians have to do. They are not criminal acts.”
