'Pure gold': Ex-Trump lawyer says fresh lies from Cohen could bring trial crashing down

Former President Donald Trump's turncoat attorney Michael Cohen has been a star witness in the Manhattan criminal hush money case, but he still has one more day of cross-examination to get through — and there are many ways he could tank.

One of the biggest, said former Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore on CNN, is if the defense team catches him in a new lie.

"This has been lucrative for Michael Cohen," noted anchor Jake Tapper, pointing out the witness has made millions of dollars on books about his time working for Trump. "The idea that there is money, there's gold in them there hills, for Michael Cohen ... there's hundreds of millions of dollars to be made and he's making some of them."

"I think it's important that you have the prosecution bring it out," said Parlatore.

"I think it's more important for them to go through the past lies, but even there, you have to cut the lies up into categories. Because if you just go through the lies, I mean, for example, you lied to Congress to minimize Trump Tower in Moscow. That's not helpful because those are lies that he was lying to allegedly help Donald Trump, right?

"So if you're saying, hey, back when you lied to say Trump didn't do anything wrong, the reality is he did do something wrong. That's not what you want to say, is it?"

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For that reason, Parlatore said, the defense will have to zero in on the lies Cohen might have told to protect himself, not Trump.

At the end of the day, he added, "The thing that would be pure gold is if they can bring out lies that he told on direct, right? If they can show that he lied about something in this courtroom.

"That's far more valuable than than all of the history of lies that he has to Congress and everybody else."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Tim Parlatore on Michael Cohen's testimony www.youtube.com