Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Monday that if he were on Donald Trump's legal team, he would not have put lawyer Robert Costello on the witness stand in the former president's New York criminal trial.
Trump is facing 34 felony counts alleging he falsified business records to cover a $130,000 payment by his former attorney Michael Cohen to porn actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
The prosecution rested its case Monday after Cohen finished testifying, which included an admission under cross examination that he stole tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump organization. After Judge Juan Merchan rejected a defense motion to dismiss the case, Costello was the defense's first witness called to testify.
"Full disclosure," Napolitano told "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE." "I know Bob Costello, and he's a very fine lawyer. I don't know why they put him up there. There is this tendency on the part of all lawyers, prosecutors, and defense lawyers, to gild the lily. I wouldn't have put any defense on. When you put no defense on, you are sending a message to the jury [that] you're absolutely confident that the government did not prove its case, and the jury gets that message.
"Putting Bob Costello on, as smart as he is, basically, it's just a little fly in Michael Cohen's ear."
Costello, a former Manhattan prosecutor turned defense lawyer, was once an adviser to Cohen, who served a three-year prison term after being convicted in 2018 on charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, campaign-finance violations and lying to Congress. Last week, he told the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that key points of Cohen's recent testimony against Trump were false.
"They did so much damage to Cohen there was no reason to do any more to divert the jury's attention from the weakness in the government's case," said Napolitano, who added he agreed with Merchan's decision to deny the defense motion to dismiss.
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