Fireworks As Trump Lawyer Tries To Block Key Photo Evidence Of Trump And Bodyguard From Jury

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

There were fireworks in court when Trump attorney Todd Blanche tried to block the jury from seeing a photo of former President Donald Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller that could help bolster ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony.

Cohen’s testimony continued on Monday in the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial after a week that see-sawed between damaging direct examination of Cohen and cross-examinations by Blanche that took chunks out of Cohen and his credibility.

That cross included a fairly devastating moment in which Blanche confronted Cohen about stealing money from the Trump Organization, and Cohen freely admitted he had.

But just before the lunch break, prosecutors located a piece of evidence that could back up some of Cohen’s most powerful testimony about speaking personally to Trump.

The New York Times team of Maggie Haberman and Jonah Bromwich described the tense scene in their live updates:

Jonah Bromwich
May 20, 2024, 12:47 p.m. ET

The prosecutors have found pictures of Trump with his bodyguard Keith Schiller on Oct. 24, 2016, right around 7:57 pm. The defense had sought to suggest that Michael Cohen had talked to Schiller that night instead of Trump, as Cohen originally testified. Now, the prosecutors will fight to get this piece of evidence in, which shows that Cohen could have talked to both Schiller and Trump on the call, as he testified he did earlier today.

Jonah Bromwich
May 20, 2024, 12:49 p.m. ET

Todd Blanche argues that the defense never said or implied that Schiller and Trump were not together that evening.

Maggie Haberman
May 20, 2024, 12:53 p.m. ET

Blanche’s voice rises into a higher register as he argues his point.

Jonah Bromwich
May 20, 2024, 12:58 p.m. ET

“I think it’s relevant,” Justice Merchan says, but he does not decide whether he will allow the evidence in. He says he wants to research another legal issue the defense raised, a hearsay issue, during the lunch break. Hearsay is secondhand information — but the prosecution has argued that the evidence is not hearsay because an earlier expert witness laid the foundation for this evidence to be shown to jurors. We’ll see what the judge concludes after lunch.

Jonah Bromwich
May 20, 2024, 12:59 p.m. ET

This evidence would go some way toward defanging an argument that Todd Blanche spent a lot of time on: He suggested that Michael Cohen had lied about speaking to Trump on Oct. 24. So it’s no wonder Blanche was fighting as hard as he could to keep this piece of evidence out.

Judge Juan Merchan is expected to rule on the evidence after lunch.