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That is an version of The Atlantic Every day, a publication that guides you thru the largest tales of the day, helps you uncover new concepts, and recommends one of the best in tradition. Join it right here.
Michael Cohen is an admitted liar and a convicted felon who's overtly fueled by a thirst for revenge in opposition to Donald Trump. That he's so frank about his motives and previous may very well make his testimony appear extra credible to jurors.
First, listed here are three new tales from The Atlantic:
Revenge of the Fixer
For the previous week in New York, Michael Cohen has been a precious—and fraught—star witness in Donald Trump’s legal trial. The protection has tried to painting Cohen, Trump’s ex-lawyer and fixer, as a jilted lackey—which he overtly is. To get a way of his animus towards his ex-boss, look no additional than his T-shirt depicting Trump behind bars, his admission in court docket that he as soon as referred to as Trump a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain,” and his two memoirs—Disloyal and Revenge—that trash the previous president for his many transgressions.
Nonetheless, Cohen’s openness about his previous and his motivations—partly pressured by the general public and legal nature of his earlier offenses—may very well make him appear extra credible to a jury. His argument in court docket boiled all the way down to: I dedicated crimes at Trump’s behest—and suffered penalties—as a result of I'd have finished something for him. That transparency made him seem like “the agent who was held accountable, whereas the principal has escaped accountability,” James Pattern, a regulation professor at Hofstra College, informed me in an e mail.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to a few years in jail for crimes that included mendacity to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow and violating...
That is an version of The Atlantic Every day, a publication that guides you thru the largest tales of the day, helps you uncover new concepts, and recommends one of the best in tradition. Join it right here.
Michael Cohen is an admitted liar and a convicted felon who’s overtly fueled by a thirst for revenge in opposition to Donald Trump. That he’s so frank about his motives and previous may very well make his testimony appear extra credible to jurors.
First, listed here are three new tales from The Atlantic:
Revenge of the Fixer
For the previous week in New York, Michael Cohen has been a precious—and fraught—star witness in Donald Trump’s legal trial. The protection has tried to painting Cohen, Trump’s ex-lawyer and fixer, as a jilted lackey—which he overtly is. To get a way of his animus towards his ex-boss, look no additional than his T-shirt depicting Trump behind bars, his admission in court docket that he as soon as referred to as Trump a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain,” and his two memoirs—Disloyal and Revenge—that trash the previous president for his many transgressions.
Nonetheless, Cohen’s openness about his previous and his motivations—partly pressured by the general public and legal nature of his earlier offenses—may very well make him appear extra credible to a jury. His argument in court docket boiled all the way down to: I dedicated crimes at Trump’s behest—and suffered penalties—as a result of I’d have finished something for him. That transparency made him seem like “the agent who was held accountable, whereas the principal has escaped accountability,” James Pattern, a regulation professor at Hofstra College, informed me in an e mail.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced to a few years in jail for crimes that included mendacity to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow and violating campaign-finance legal guidelines by making hush-money funds—considered one of which went to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels. He testified that, through the 2016 election, when she was contemplating publicizing the story of her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, Trump ordered Cohen to “care for it.” In flip, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 of his personal cash, which he claimed was later reimbursed by Trump.
On the stand, Cohen largely remained calm, although he had some shaky moments. He admitted throughout cross-examination that he had stolen tens of hundreds of {dollars} from the Trump Group, pocketing a number of the cash earmarked for a tech firm. (When a prosecutor later probed him, he mentioned that he had been indignant as a result of his bonus was minimize.) The protection repeatedly tried to assail Cohen’s credibility—an apparent method to undermine a person who had beforehand lied below oath. Cohen testified that he had spoken with Trump in October 2016, through Trump’s bodyguard’s telephone, about paying off Daniels. Trying to ding Cohen on the main points of the decision, the protection insisted that Cohen hadn’t spoken with Trump and had really mentioned a unique matter with the bodyguard, however Cohen stood by his testimony. Trump’s legal professionals additionally referred to as into query Cohen’s money-related stake within the trial. Cohen admitted that he has a monetary curiosity within the end result of the trial, as a result of he writes and podcasts about Trump, however added that an acquittal could be higher for him economically as a result of it could give him “extra to speak about.”
A typical paradox lies on the coronary heart of Trump’s legal case, Pattern informed me: “To get on the reality in prosecuting legal enterprises typically requires counting on liars.” Typically, being a convicted felon would make a witness far much less credible. However the truth that Cohen has already served time in jail for admitting to crimes associated to hush-money funds really provides to his credibility as a witness right here, Valerie Hans, a professor at Cornell Legislation Faculty and an knowledgeable on juries, informed me in an e mail; jurors gained’t need to surprise if Cohen is testifying as a part of a plea deal to keep away from jail time for these expenses.
In distinction to the prosecution’s parade of witnesses, Trump’s protection group offered solely two witnesses earlier than resting its case earlier as we speak. (Trump himself didn’t testify.) One of many witnesses was Robert Costello, a lawyer who as soon as did some authorized work for Cohen. He was positioned to be a Cohen-antagonist, and he claimed that Cohen beforehand informed him that Trump “knew nothing” in regards to the hush-money cost to Daniels. However within the strategy of making an attempt to impugn Cohen, Costello “succeeded in impugning himself,” Pattern informed me. The decide scolded Costello after he reportedly informed the courtroom to “strike” one thing from the document and continued to talk after objections had been sustained. “The circus-like debacle of Costello’s testimony is a microcosm of why the protection referred to as so few witnesses,” Pattern defined.
Cohen’s historical past of fealty to Trump, and his willingness to bully and lie, is properly documented. That his previous could be an asset could appear unusual—however the prosecution is banking on him. After Memorial Day weekend, the jury will convene and start their deliberations. Their determination to convict or acquit a former president will largely hinge on whether or not or not they assume they will belief the phrase of Michael Cohen.
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As we speak’s Information
Trump’s protection rested its case in his New York legal trial. Closing arguments are set to start subsequent week.
Rudy Giuliani and 10 different Trump allies pleaded not responsible to conspiracy, forgery, and fraud expenses in an Arizona legal case associated to their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential-election outcomes.
One man died and a number of passengers suffered accidents when a Boeing airplane flying from London to Singapore encountered extreme turbulence; the plane plummeted roughly 6,000 toes inside the span of 5 minutes.
Night Learn
Illustration by Nick Little for The Atlantic
The Massive AI Threat Not Sufficient Individuals Are Seeing
By Tyler Austin Harper
“Our focus with AI is to assist create extra wholesome and equitable relationships.” Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and government chair of the courting app Bumble, leans in towards her Bloomberg Reside interviewer. “How can we really train you how one can date?”
When her interviewer, apparently bemused, asks for an instance of what this implies, Herd launches right into a mind-bending disquisition on the way forward for AI-abetted courting: “Okay, so for instance, you would within the close to future be speaking to your AI courting concierge, and you would share your insecurities. ‘I simply got here out of a breakup. I’ve dedication points.’ And it might provide help to practice your self into a greater mind-set about your self” …
What Herd offers right here is way more than a darkly whimsical peek right into a dystopian way forward for on-line courting. It’s a window right into a future by which individuals require layer upon layer of algorithmic mediation between them with a purpose to perform probably the most fundamental of human interactions: these involving romance, intercourse, friendship, consolation, meals.
Billie Eilish wears sun shades and squats in entrance of a blue gradient background
Pay attention. Billie Eilish’s new album, Hit Me Laborious and Mushy, sustains a temper of longing that could be very now, Spencer Kornhaber writes.
Watch.Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (out now in theaters) proves that this blockbuster franchise retains evolving for the higher, Shirley Li writes.
Among the many many absurd particulars of the hush-money case are the alliterative, considerably zippy pseudonyms that Daniels and Cohen apparently utilized in a nondisclosure settlement. Trump glided by “David Dennison,” and Daniels was referred to as “Peggy Peterson.” Earlier within the trial, Keith Davidson, Daniels’s former lawyer, testified that he had give you the monikers—and that David Dennison was the identify of an actual particular person on his high-school hockey group.
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