‘It Carries a Ton of Weight’: Grasso on Judge Merchan’s Warning to Cohen Amid Trump’s N.Y. Trial

EXCERPT:

GRASSO: “From this current judge, it carries a ton of weight. It’s time for Michael Cohen to put on his big boy pants and stop acting like a child in the schoolyard. The leverage that the judge has here isn’t to jail Michael Cohen. New York law wouldn’t permit that kind of authority with respect to a witness. But what the judge could do, and I think if Michael Cohen forces him to do it by continuing to fail to heed the warnings from the district attorney’s office, to knock it off when it comes to publicly using social media and television and radio appearances to poke the bear in terms of Donald Trump prior to his testimony in the conclusion of this trial, that the judge certainly has the power to remove Michael Cohen from the gag order. That’s the underlying leverage of the court. And while the judge did not specifically say that today, he alluded to it in a previous written decision, finding defendant Trump liable for contempt violation. This judge is serious.”