The Source With Kaitlan Collins: Maggie Haberman & Elie Honig On The Hush Money Trial

Source:CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.

"CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig reacts to the prosecution and defense arguing about how jury instructions should proceed in former president Donald Trump’s hush money trial." 

From CNN 

"Robert Ray, a former member of former President Trump's first impeachment legal team, joins our legal panel to share his thoughts on how he thinks the defense team is doing so far in Michael Cohen's cross-examination."  

From The New Democrat

Just to start off: CNN has one of their national political analysts, as well as New York Times political reporter Maggie Haberman there, to talk about Robert Costello's testimony and the impact that might have on the jury. She's a great political reporter, one of the best in the business, but she's not a lawyer. 

And then CNN has one of their top legal analysts, perhaps their senior legal analyst Elie Honig there to criticize the Manhattan DA about how they're handling the jury instructions. And they sort of get into the impact of Donald Trump not testifying at his own trial, with their defense lawyer Arthur Aidala sort of spinning and arguing that it might not be so bad if he testified for himself before because he's accomplished things that no one else has before. With again political reporter (not lawyer) Maggie Habberman stating the fact that: 

"The last time that Donald Trump testified for himself, it cost himself 83 million dollars. With Aidala firing back: 

"But that was in front of Judge Lewis Kaplan." with Haberman saying: "But it's the jury that rewarded Jeanne Carroll the 83 million." 

Again, with the legal analyst Elie Honig having nothing to say on that. 

But as James Earl Jones with his great manly voice said about CNN in the 1990s: "This is CNN" well, this is CNN now. As someone whose been a regular viewer of there's since Donald J. Trump became a major political player back in the 2010s, it's hard to follow their thinking right now. And they have people do other people's jobs and why they would have a defense lawyer there to back up everything that the prosecutor said, when the prosecutor is take the defense's side, is beyond me. 

Partisan Republican lawyer Robert Ray, was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night to talk about Robert Costello's testimony. Not even he could come up with a good spin and try to argue something like: "This is how Robert Costello helped the defense." 

Jeffrey Toobin gave his excellent analysis essentially arguing how big of a disaster that Bad Job Bob Costello was for the defense. With Robert Ray, who used to work for Ken Starr back in the 1990s investigating Bill Clinton, but who now acts as Donald J. Trump's top defense lawyer every time he's on TV to talk about Mr. Trump's legal issues, said that he would've only asked Costello two questions relating to Michael Cohen, if he had Costello on the stand. But didn't say anything like how great and useful Costello was for the defense. 

I wish I had the written text, link, or video of that Jeff Toobin-Bob Ray CNN appearance from last night. But it doesn't seem to be available online right now. But you can see Bob Ray from his MSNBC appearance last week talking about Michael Cohen. And that should give you an idea of what kind of partisan Republican defense lawyer that he can sound like. And that link is on this post.

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