Former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne gives us a preview of what she expects from the likes of Jim Jordan during Michael Cohen's testimony during the upcoming Congressional hearing.
January 21, 2019

While discussing Rudy Giuliani's admission that negotiations for a Trump Tower Moscow lasted all the way into November of 2016, Rudy Giuliani's litany of lies and continually moving goalposts in defense of Trump, and the upcoming Congressional hearing with Michael Cohen, former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne was asked by MSNBC's Alex Witt how credible of a witness Cohen is going to prove to be, given the fact that that he has already lied to Congress.

Alksne warned of the possibility of Republicans like Jim Jordan and his ilk doing their best to turn the hearing into a circus in order to protect Trump.

ALKSNE: I honestly think it's not a good idea... from a... now I want to know everything that happened... I want to know here, I'm dying to know and I'm sure I'll listen to every word of it, but from a prosecutor's point of view you don't really want your witness in a House committee where, you know, Jim “looked the other way” Jordan is doing a cross exam. And there's going to be ugly yelling and screaming. And it's a weird set up.

And what's happened then... even when he says I can't talk about that, or I can't talk about that, what's happened is that people like Jim Jordan are framing this case that really Mueller should be framing. And even if Mueller doesn't allow him to testify about certain things, it's going to devolve into a circus. And prosecutors' we're control freaks, we want to control the way the witness, you know, maybe he's never going to be a witness, he's such a terrible witness.

But the way it is presented to the public, or to the jury, and because of this testimony and the way it is it is never doing to happen. Let me make one more comment about Giuliani. He said, oh, what if you did talk to him? What's the big deal?

Here's the big deal, Mueller was appointed May of 2017. He testified in October of 2017. Cohen had no business discussing his testimony with the president of the United States, at all, full stop. And I am sure that no competent lawyer would have allowed him to do that. That means they probably did an end run on the lawyers at the White House and it is one more thing that's a consciousness of guilt as evidence.

Republicans have been running interference for Trump from day one, so this is nothing new. Let's hope now that it's Chairman Elijah Cummings rather than Rep. Trey Gowdy, we'll have some actual oversight from this committee, rather than endless hearings on fake "scandals" like Benghazi, but having Jordan as the ranking Republican on the committee assures we'll see a lot of exactly what she was discussing here.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon