Opinion: Trump's defense got one last shot at Michael Cohen. Did they make their case?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

63% : Merchan sent the jury to an early lunch break while he heard arguments on both sides about whether that latest evidence showing Trump was indeed with Schiller right before the contested phone call should be admitted.Get our free weekly newsletterSign up for CNN Opinion's newsletter.
43% : But they didn't knock him out* Did Trump's defense think this strategy would work on Cohen?* Michael Cohen propels prosecution of Trump past this critical thresholdInstead, the most dramatic moments of the day in Trump's Manhattan criminal trial came in a showdown with an ancillary witness -- Robert Costello, a lawyer who once advised Cohen -- who visibly and audibly confronted Judge Juan Merchan, leading to a dressing down in open court and then to the clearing of the courtroom for an even sterner reprimand.
43% : These calls are actually more important than the challenged October 24 call because they were made directly to Trump, at least one of them was longer, and they both occurred at the most critical moment in the alleged scheme -- before Cohen paid Daniels on October 27, 2016.
42% : The prosecution presented an image taken from C-SPAN video that showed Trump and Schiller had been together at 7:57 p.m. at the end of a rally in Tampa, Florida, just before that call.
41% : He tried to get Cohen to say that those topics were discussed on those two October 26 calls, asking, "With all that going on, why focus on Stormy Daniels?"But Cohen refused to budge on the content of those calls, answering, "I spoke to Trump about Stormy Daniels because that was what he tasked me to take care of, and that's what I had been working on.
39% : Editor's Note: Norman Eisen is a CNN legal analyst and editor of "Trying Trump: A Guide to His First Election Interference Criminal Trial."
37% : On Monday, the defense counsel attempted to challenge Cohen's recollections of two additional calls, which were direct calls Cohen says he made to Trump on October 26, 2016, to agree again on the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.
37% : It culminated before the lunch break with a bit of razzle- dazzle to bolster Cohen's testimony about what happened on that phone call with Schiller and Trump.
30% : The defense had put Costello on the stand in the first place because he had multiple conversations with Cohen, and Trump's lawyers wanted to show that Cohen had told Costello that Trump didn't know about the $130,000 hush money payment crucial to the case.
25% : "There were other glancing blows from Blanche: getting Cohen to acknowledge again that he stole from the Trump Organization; that he did some work for Trump in 2017, and therefore the payments to him, which the prosecution alleges were covered up in the falsified business documents at the heart of the charges, were not just for repaying the hush money; and that he initially lied to everyone about Trump not being involved in the hush money payment.
21% : Cohen had already admitted that he lied to Costello, and indeed lied more broadly to protect Trump before cooperating with the government.
21% : The payment was made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who alleges that she had a sexual encounter with Trump (which Trump denies).
17% : This payment is at the center of the 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents faced by Trump, and key to proving Trump's guilt is evidence that he knew what the payment was for.
15% : Blanche was attempting to cast doubt on the veracity of Cohen's statement that Schiller ultimately handed the phone to Trump so Cohen could talk to him about Stormy Daniels, establishing that Trump knew about the payment.

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