'Historic': Ex-White House lawyer believes Cohen is immune to Trump's main line of attack
Michael Cohen has nothing to lose when he faces down Donald Trump — and the showdown is going to be "historic," an ex-White House attorney who's worked closely with the man said.
Norm Eisen, who worked with Cohen during the first impeachment case against the former president that involved allegations of foreign interference in the 2016 election, believes him to be a 'truth teller" — and the fact that he's spent time in prison already means Trump's team's potential attacks on him are vastly weakened.
"Look, prosecutors have to make cases when there's a conspiracy with former participants in the conspiracy," Eisen, a CNN contributor, said.
"Michael is better situated than the cooperators in some of my cases because he's not working off any jail time. There's one less vector of attack on him.
"So I think he's going to exceed expectations."
Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who has already spent time in prison after pleading guilty in 2018 to tax evasion involving payments made to adult movie star Stormy Daniels, is expected to be the star witness in Trump's current trial.
The former president is facing 34 charges of business fraud and campaign finance violations involving the payments, allegedly paid to keep Daniels quiet about a sexual relationship she had with Trump.
Cohen could be called to the stand any day.
"[Cohen] was my first witness when I investigated these identical allegations for the first impeachment of President Trump," Eisen said.
"I spent days with him. His story has never varied from that first time I talked to him about these issues at the beginning of 2019."
During Cohen's sentencing, Judge William Pauley scolded him, saying, “Cohen pled guilty to a veritable smorgasbord of fraudulent conduct" and “lost his moral compass,” adding that “as a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better.”
Even so, Eisen believes that Cohen he has been humbled — and won't lie.
"I think that Michael Cohen has the ability to come across to this jury as a truth-teller," said Eisen. "It's gonna be a tough cross [examination], no question."
He points to the testimony Cohen gave when called to speak under oath in Trump's civil fraud case, in which the former president was hit with nearly $500 million in damages.
A "less-forgiving factfinder" might have come to a different conclusion and denied "a single word of a convicted perjurer," wrote Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.
"This factfinder does not believe that pleading guilty to perjury means that you can never tell the truth," he added. "Michael Cohen told the truth."
Eisen is convinced Cohen will do it again.
"I think he has the intelligence, the discipline and he's genuinely remorseful. But that is going to be a very historic cross-examination for the ages and what I think is shaping up as the trial of the century."
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