NEW YORK - It's crunch time for Donald Trump's defense team as they take another stab at Michael Cohen, the key witness in the criminal trial in which the former president is accused of fraudulently covering up his affair with a porn star to influence his first presidential bid.
It will be a vital day for Trump's lawyers who are vying to prevent jurors from believing Cohen's account that he broke the law at the real estate mogul-turned-president's behest.
From the start, the defense team, which unlike the prosecution does not have the burden of proof in the case, has sought to cast Cohen as a disgruntled ex-employee out for blood -- and Thursday is their big chance to nail it down.
Meanwhile Trump, the first former US president to be tried criminally, has complained that his current effort for another White House term is stymied by the court proceedings.
He's taken to bringing an entourage of Republican lawmakers and higher-ups to trial, aiming to bring the campaign to the courtroom and increasingly brand the case as politicized.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records with the intent to further other crimes in the run-up to 2016's presidential election.
Todd Blanche began questioning Trump's fixer-turned-foe on Tuesday afternoon under the watch of his high-profile client.
After an aggressive start, his line of questioning dulled and meandered as the afternoon wore on, with yawns betraying some jurors' fatigue.
The defense attorney was largely deferential when the witness -- himself a former lawyer who is not unfamiliar with courtroom strategy or proceedings -- sought to evade direct answers.
Cohen has a reputation for a temper that could hurt him on the stand -- his testimony during Trump's civil fraud case last year proved chaotic -- but on Tuesday he was mostly measured in responding to Blanche's questions, which at times veered convoluted.
After a day off the defense will resume Thursday morning, and it's possible they're saving their heat for when the jury has had some rest.
Prosecutors have indicated that Cohen is their last witness in the case.