Former United States Attorney Brett Tolman said Monday prosecutors were giving attorneys for former President Donald Trump more leeway in cross-examination by keeping former attorney Michael Cohen on the stand.

Cohen, a former fixer for Trump who previously pled guilty to charges of lying to Congress and was accused of perjury, testified Monday in the case regarding a $130,000 payout to porn star Stormy Daniels. Tolman said that prosecutors should have limited Cohen’s exposure on the witness stand.

“They’re very worried about cross-examination, that’s why there’s such an effort to script everything that is being said. Some of my most difficult witnesses that had credibility, I wanted them on the stand and off very quickly,” Tolman told “America Reports” co-hosts Sandra Smith and John Roberts. “It’s shocking to me that they are spending as much time as they are with Michael Cohen. If I were them, I would get them nuts and bolts of what they think you can offer and limit the scope of cross-examination, because remember, Sandra, cross-examination is limited almost exclusively to what comes out in direct examination. You go into his credibility, but other than that, the longer they go, the broader they present the cross-examination.”

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Tolman earlier noted that Cohen was attempting to deprive Trump of a potential defense while being questioned by prosecutors about his involvement in the payout to Daniels.

“It’s fascinating to watch a prosecution be so willing to put a convicted perjurer on the stand and there’s no question in my mind that some of the first questioning is going to be about obviously his inconsistencies, his lies that he has told,” Tolman said. “But you’ll notice something intriguing is happening: He is trying to lay the foundation for him actually not being Trump’s lawyer, to articulate that he was something different. And the reason is not just because he needs to paint Donald Trump as the micromanager, he can’t afford, in a case like this, advice of counsel is an actual defense, so he is trying very desperately to separate himself from the practice of law with Donald Trump and that needs corroboration and there is nobody that’s going to corroborate that he wasn’t his lawyer and so all statements he makes has to be corroborated in front of the jury and if they can’t do that, then that is the definition of reasonable doubt.”

The former attorney also noted that, despite Cohen’s continuing testimony, prosecutors were not making their case. (RELATED: Former US Attorney Says Prosecutors’ Attempt To Rile Up Trump With Stormy Daniels Testimony Could Backfire)

“You will notice that Cohen discussed at length his interactions with the media about the stories and his interactions with folks, but you just don’t have the testimony yet that outlines the underlying crime that they have to prove or that the actual payment is anything other than a shakedown,” Tolman said. “If there is some suggestion that it’s a shakedown, then you’re going to lose some of the jury, so right now there are so many holes that they’ve got to start fixing and plugging these holes or as a prosecutor, you are thinking this ship is going down.”

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Harold Hutchison

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