Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani says, if he was with the district attorney’s team on this case, he would likely not have started with David Pecker as the first witness.
“You need to start out strong in a case like this,” he told the BBC after proceedings finished today.
“I understand the need to always start chronologically, but a co-conspirator, an unindicted one who’s testifying under a grant of immunity, is not a particularly strong witness.”
“I would have started with a law enforcement type witness, someone that is not really going to be subject to the cross-examination that Pecker will be,” he added.
Rahmani, who serves as president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm, also noted that the prosecution’s efforts to elevate this to an election interference case may not succeed with a jury that includes two lawyers.
“It’s clear the records were false business records, but to take that next step to prove they were in furtherance of, or to cover up, a campaign finance contribution, is a more difficult legal argument and they’re going to need to do a lot more than that in my opinion.
“This is going to come down to Michael Cohen,” he concluded, and whether his testimony backs up what he has said in the past and whether he has documents to prove it.