Some of Michael Cohen's trial testimony may prove unbelievable to the jury, but not for the reasons you may have heard. His testimony raises two issues in my mind. The first issue is the degree of Michael Cohen's credibility as a witness in this trial. The second question is the effect of Michael Cohen's testimony on reaching a verdict.
Much ado has been made about, well, one telephone call on I believe it was October 24, 2016. On the transcript, the big brouhaha sure doesn't seem like much more than one telephone call and the witness handled it well on cross-examination last Thursday. On the air, cable media freaked out, and in print, columnists wrote like they needed oxygen. The emotions brought out by Todd Blanche's cross-examination of Michael Cohen over one telephone call seemingly erupted and captured the attention of columnists and cable media.
They do not seem to have been reading the trial transcripts. Kudos to the New York State Court System for posting them so that anyone with online access can read them, and a big thanks to the Washington Post for making them truly accessible and even searchable. I have been reading the daily trial transcripts on the Washington Post website, and I have read all of Michael Cohen's testimony.
Michael Cohen comes across mostly as unbelievable in the transcripts. I did not think this would be my reaction, but after reading the transcripts, it is.
The prosecution understandably rehearsed his witness testimony with Mr. Cohen, but in his case the preparation must have been very extensive, so much so that he actually testified that he remembered just about every phone call, every text, and every EMail that he sent or received over the course of years, so long as the Assistant D.A. asked him about it. Nobody remembers those things from years ago, and some of us do not even remember what we said or wrote last week. So Mr. Cohen's recollection of them all is incredible, unbelievable, unconvincing from reading the trial transcript. It is true that Todd Blanche's cross-examination was long and tedious. It was so meandering it became infuriating many times. But perhaps a long cross-examination of Michael Cohen was appropriate here, given the long recitation of calls, texts, and EMails during the Prosecution's direct examination of Cohen.
That said, Michael Cohen's testimony was credible in corroborating other witnesses and documentary evidence on important points. He corroborated the plan directed by the defendant to pay witnesses to keep quiet at a critical point in the 2016 presidential election, and then to lie about it in order to cover it up, not just in their records but also in what they said about it publicly.
The talking heads and opinion artists had a different reaction to all that of course. Their big takeaway at first was they were impressed that Michael Cohen handled himself well because he did not erupt, forgetting that this jury has seen Michael Cohen only when he took the witness stand in this trial. They had nothing to compare his performance with, unlike the pundits who were impressed by his controlled demeanor.
Until the one phone call of October 24th. Then their hormones apparently woke up. They responded now with emotion to the words and gestures during Todd Blanche's cross-examination and Michael Cohen's spoken words about one telephone call. That changed their opinions from "good job, Prosecution" in presenting your case, to "How is the D.A. going to overcome this October 24th telephone call?"
The difference in reactions between my reading the trial transcript, and people who heard and saw the cross over one telephone call, struck me. We live in a time when people no longer think as much as they once might have, instead they go with their gut reactions, their emotions, much more than they ever did in the past. The O.J. Trial is a good example here, I think. Everyone "knew" that O.J. was a murderer, or at least that was the prevailing opinion on the matter. Until. Until everyone could see that O.J. could not get his hand into a glove years later, at trial. Then they acquitted him.
That brings me to the second question I have, which is the effect of Michael Cohen's testimony on reaching a verdict in this case.
Emotions generally seem to rule in reaching important decisions more often than reasons and thinking do. I think that explains the difference in reactions in the O.J. Simpson Trial. I think that also explains the difference in reactions to Michael Cohen's trial testimony this past week.
I am not saying that there will be the same result in the Election Corruption Trial in NYC as there was in O.J.'s Trial. If the results did end up being the same, though, it would not surprise me.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2024 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
COMMENTS IN RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ... Continued.
This article continues from the article published earlier today sharing my Comments as examples of Responding to the federal government's Request For Information regarding our personal experiences with the consolidation of healthcare services in this country.
Turnover of professionals. Before consolidation, I observed that the nurses who assisted my caregiver tended to remain the same from visit to visit. Before consolidation, the nurses tended to be familiar with my chart on each successive visit, and in many cases had first-hand knowledge of what symptoms and conditions I may have presented in the past, with memories refreshed no doubt from my records including my chart. For example, I have made it a point to say when a nurse or a tech or whoever draws my blood, to say that as long as they keep talking to me, we're going to be all right, and they did. In fact, they remembered my saying that because they had heard it from me before, of course, even though my blood was not drawn regularly and still they remembered.
After consolidation, the nursing turnover was so great and often that the nurses did not know me or my chart, including my reaction to having my blood taken.
The patient portal. This innovation has been with us for years, but I do not recall it existing before my local family practitioners' office where I was a patient for some 25 years, consolidated with a private equity firm.
I resisted using the portal for a long time because I was used to my physicians contacting me, and not the other way around. I ended my resistance to the portal when the futility of resistance became obvious; after the portal went into effect, my physicians' office no longer telephone me to let me know such things as test results were ready. After consolidation and the portal took effect, I had to access their portal if I were going to know that test results, for example, were ready.
In my experience, the advent of the patient portal altered the relationship between doctor and patient. Before the portal arrived following consolidation with the private equity firm, the emphasis of my relationship with my physicians flowed from their office to me, I was the reason for their existence.
After the portal arrived following consolidation, the emphasis of that relationship flowed from me to their office and nothing, absolutely nothing including the test results example I have mentioned, could happen unless I, the patient, approached their office through the so-called patient portal and not otherwise. I learned this when I tried – unsuccessfully and often – to telephone..
Thank you for your consideration of my Comments.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2024 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
Posted by Dennis J. Wall on May 07, 2024 at 12:50 PM in Comments on Proposed Rules, Regulations and rules of administrative agencies. | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: #Comments, #HealthCareConsolidation, #PrivateEquity, #RequestForInformation