CNN anchor Anderson Cooper admitted on Thursday that he would “absolutely” have doubts about former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony if he were a member of the jury.
Cooper made the comments while speaking to CNN legal analyst Elie Honig about a notable moment during Cohen’s cross-examination the anchor described as Trump’s lawyer catching Cohen in a lie.
“Absolutely. I think it’s devastating for Michael Cohen’s credibility on this one particular topic,” Cooper told Honig when asked if he thought Cohen’s testimony about his attempted phone call to Trump was not trustworthy.
MICHAEL COHEN ONCE SWORE TRUMP WASN’T INVOLVED IN STORMY DANIELS PAYMENT, HIS EX-ATTORNEY TESTIFIES
Cooper’s admission came as both pundits discussed Trump attorney Todd Blanche’s questioning of Cohen, who alleges that he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels on direct orders from then-2016 presidential candidate to conceal an affair Trump and Daniels had.
During testimony with prosecutors on Tuesday, Cohen stated that he had called Trump’s former bodyguard Keith Schiller on Oct. 24, 2016 to get in touch with Trump about the payment to Daniels.
However, as Trump’s legal team questioned Cohen on Thursday, Blanche pulled out records of text messages that Cohen sent to Schiller shortly before phone call. The text messages revealed Cohen asked to talk to Schiller about a 14-year-old prankster that was harassing him.
The records indicated that Schiller told Cohen “Call me,” just ahead of the phone call, which Cohen testified earlier was meant for Trump about the payment. When Blanched asked Cohen what the call was about Cohen admitted the call was partly about the 14-year-old harassing him.
“Part of it was the 14-year-old … but I know Keith was with Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified.
Trump’s lawyer followed up by accusing Cohen of lying during the exchange, a charge that Cooper seemed to agree with. He also expressed his belief that many other people present in the courtroom saw it that way as well.
“You could tell the import of the moment and everyone in the courtroom could tell, and if you were unaware of it – the clicking of every reporters’ in the room typewriters – it was like a crescendo because the drama of the moment was so clear to everybody in the room,” Cooper said.
“If I was a juror in this case watching that I would think, this guy’s making this up as he’s going along, or he’s making this particular story up,” the CNN host added.
