Transcripts For MSNBCW Chris 20240703

Things changed for me. Breztri gave me better breathing, symptom improvement, and reduced flare ups. Breztri wont replace a Rescue Inhaler for sudden breathing problems. It is not for asthma. Tell your doctor if you have a Heart Condition or high Blood Pressure before taking it. Dont take breztri more than prescribed. Breztri may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. Call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. Ask your doctor about breztri. And right now, the jury is coming back from lunch after having an entire morning of testimony by the start witness and to hear Michael Cohen tell it, he lied, he made threats, he killed negative stories all in service to donald trump. Good afternoon, im chris jansing, alongside my colleagues, Andrea Mitchell and katy tur. The very last thing the jury heard from Michael Cohen before they went to lunch is he was, quote, following directions. So far mr. Trump has been listening to cohen with his eyes shut, but the testimony has shifted to that critical matter of the 130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen described how donald trump was very angry about her shopping the story saying, quote, this is really a disaster. Women will hate me. Guys, they think its cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign. That says it all, doesnt it. Were going to continue to bring you live updates from inside the courtroom over the next two hours. Again, Michael Cohen is back on the stand. I want to bring in nbcs Yasmin Vossoughian outside the courthouse, also with us in studio, two criminal Defense Attorneys, msnbc legal analyst, Danny Cevallos and duncan levin, former senior staffer at the manhattan district attorneys office. Okay. Duncan, what is job one for Michael Cohen and the Prosecution Team as they move forward . They have got to keep him under control. He is an uncontrollable witness. The defense has an uncontrollable client. The prosecution has been dealing with uncontrollable witnesses. They saw it first a little bit with Stormy Daniels, she was veering off course with the questioning. Some would say more than a little, but okay. And the judge had to say to the prosecutor, please just have her answer the questions. Theyre going to have Michael Cohen is so well prepped for this testimony, he is going to be able to stick to the questions, but i think what they are trying to do is deflate the defenses story. Theyre trying to make sure that the bad stuff thats going to come out on the cross comes out first on the defense and the direct testimony. They want to make sure that the jury has already heard a lot about him. Theyre going to basically air out the dirty laundry as part of the direct. Is the worst thing that he has to acknowledge, aside from what he was doing for donald trump in the cover up, is the worst thing that he lied to a federal judge . I think the fact that hes a liar has already come out. Its sort of been part of the trial, and they will overcome that. I think the worst thing that they have to do is show he was not acting just in defense of trump. He was acting in defense of himself, in furtherance of himself. He was doing all of this to further his own career. In fact, theres testimony early in the trial that Michael Cohen, after mr. Trump won and was going to washington was despondent that he wasnt going to washington too. This is all for the election. He has to continue to hammer that home. I think throughout the direct and theyre going to have overcome that. His motive is really important because he was so upset that he didnt get a job in the administration. I think we should be careful about describing this as a fore gone conclusion about what the jury is going to decide. Do you see this as a Slam Dunk Case for the prosecution . I know we havent seen the defenses argument yet. They havent introduced their witnesses. Do you see, perhaps, some issues the prosecution might face in trying to get all of the jurors on the same page for a conviction. I think if we come back to what this case is about, it is a false documents case, and i think theyve proven the falsifying of Business Documents on the face, that the documents were false. And they have proven the intent to defraud the voters, and they have proven the intent to conceal this conspiracy between david pecker, the national enquirer, Michael Cohen, mr. Trump. They have shown the elements of it. The thing they havent shown yet and theyre trying to show it throughout testimony of Michael Cohen is that not only did mr. Trump know about this conspiracy, but he knew about the falsification of the Business Records. That one piece of it is probably the biggest hurdle that they have to show that he knew that these documents were being falsified, that he was aware of it, and that he caused the documents to be falsified. Its not a Slam Dunk Case. Its a very complicated case, and the other piece of it thats missing so far, i assume there are two more witnesses, Michael Cohen is one of them. The other witness, we dont know who it is yet, the one piece of this thats also missing is this fore gone conclusion that paying this money, this hush money is actually a crime, and thats something that should come in. Thats what i wonder about. I wonder if there might be one juror who says okay, i see what youre arguing on the documents, i understand it. But honestly, i dont like this case. I dont think its fair. I feel like donald trump is being targeted here. It doesnt seem like its worthy of this. It feels like its old. Is that potentially what could happen with one juror. Is that what the defense is hoping for . Theyre hoping for. They wont say it. Were talking about the large tent and the gray area of jury nullification. Were not in there deliberating with them, and Defense Attorneys cannot ask for jury nullification. Theres a chance the jury can go back and say, just like you said, even if the elements are there, this doesnt feel right, and i think this is a distinct possibility. The other thing that could happen is the jury is going to struggle with the definitios of things like fraud. The Jury Instructions say you have to have an intent to defraud, that includes an intent to conceal or cover up some other crime. That is broadly defined under new york law, but i can see jurors struggling with that if they feel like this is a ticky tack kind of crime, thats where they might hang their hat and say this intent to defraud really there . Or is it just that its unlawful . Let me stop you if you can. Youre talking about intent, and its in whats happening right now. Lets go inside. What was the first email, and then your response, yes, kd saved to me, were good. Meaning Keith Davidson, it was to delay execution of documents and fundings, and i used the holiday on yom kippur to delay until after the election, and after the election it wouldnt matter. According to who . According to mr. Trump. And then it goes on to say did you have a conversation with donald trump about this using your cell or land lining. He was traveling a lot. Campaigning with his own private plane. Was he still sometimes in the office when he was campaigning. Yes. Did he give you a call . Depends on the rally. Fair to say you spoke to him in person when you were able to see him, if not, you spoke to him by telephone. Cohen, if possible. Introducing a new exhibit in evidence. This is an email from me to gary farro asking him to call me. Who is gary farro. At First Republic bank. Gary farro testified a couple of weeks ago. One of the first people to discuss the payment. And heres the event. Do jurors remember when they go back, and theyre, like, oh, yeah, i remember who farro is. Or looking through their notes and trying to connect the dots themselves. I know its the job of the prosecution in closing but does this stuff tend to stick . This is a manageable number of witnesses first of all. These are people the jurors can remember on their own. We have had a couple dozen at most witnesses total. And theyre going to pass this around. The exhibits are available to them. Sometimes theyll ask for transcripts to be read back to them. Some of this is available to jurors when they deliberate, if they send out a note. Theyll do that. Can we look at this again, and they get to look at whatever it is again if theyre allowed to. So its not that they need to memorize everything perfectly, and in closing, the prosecution is going to tie all of this together for them because evidence comes out in bits and pieces, and so thats the kind of thing that theyre going to come up with in a closing argument. But, you know, as weve just heard, theyre getting into that intent. Its interesting. I know these arent official transcripts. I dont know if you noticed, theyre asking leading questions, and dont ask what is the next question, what did he say, what did you take away from that conversation. Theyre lining up that these conversations happened. But curiously not really getting into the meat of it. And all the back and forth, was he on the phone, was he on the plane, was he at a rally. They seem to be setting up that perhaps they dont have, i dont know, they dont have an actual record of these conversations. This dove tails in with the testimony that we heard from Stormy Daniels lawyer, Keith Davidson who was making the point through his testimony that Michael Cohen lacked the authority to make these payments on his own. He was saying, im trying to get my guy on the phone. Michael cohen was not doing this out of the goodness of his heart, and hope hicks, by the way, hammered that home in her testimony. She said she spoke to trump afterwards and trump said to her, yes, Michael Cohen paid for this out of the goodness of his heart. She knew that to be a lie and didnt want to call mr. Trump a lawyer. She said Michael Cohen is not like that. Out of character. Lets go to Yasmin Vossoughian, standing outside the courtroom. You have been following this every day. All morning and into the afternoon. Give us an update. Reporter so whats interesting, i think, when youre talking about specifically first off Michael Cohen, Keith Davidson, Stormy Daniels as well. I think its important to know the testimony from Keith Davidson in which he talks about this delay tactic for Michael Cohen, and he said specifically in his testimony that Michael Cohen was a difficult person, and im paraphrasing here to work with through these negotiations. Hence the reason why they brought in Dillon Howard into the negotiations. We then subsequently learned that one of the reasons why it seemed Michael Cohen was so quote unquote difficult to work with was because he was trying to delay the actual payout until after the election, which is coming to fruition in this testimony here from Michael Cohen. One other thing i think is important to bring up, guys, as were going through this, something i spoke about in the last hour, Allen Weisselberg, the elephant in the room as to why hes not testifying. Its important to keep in mind wondering how the jury is going to hear this. There was a Separation Agreement with Allen Weisselberg from the Trump Organization when he left. It was a payout of 2 million over a certain period of time. The prosecution wanted to present this Separation Agreement as evidence. And they brought this up on a friday to show that Allen Weisselberg had entanglements with the Trump Organization, hence the reason he would not be appearing as a witness. Judge merchan said thats not necessarily what the document says, the Separation Document says. In fact, if you want to show the jury and or the court that Allen Weisselberg has some entanglements you have to call him to the stand, subpoena him. Sources inside the d. A. s office, theyre apprehensive of calling Allen Weisselberg to the stand because of the possibility he could get on the stand and quite honestly lie. Because of the loyalty and the entanglements toward the Trump Organization. That was rectified when judge merchan said he would not allow the Separation Agreement to be admitted as evidence. It seems as if the jury is going to have to deduce on their own as to why it is, this one guy who could really corroborate, honestly, every single thing, as you mentioned, right, you talked about in the last hour, exhibit 35, the back and forth, how much theyre going to pay out Michael Cohen, if theyre going to gross him up to 435,000, heres the lynch pin, the guy that can corroborate the testimony from Michael Cohen but he will not be appearing on the stand. So would you put him on the stand, i wonder, danny . Because there are questions that are raised about Allen Weisselberg, and if he would lie, im not saying that he would, but if he did lie, the fact that hes already serving time does not indemnify him from perjury in this case, right . Or does it . I could see another prosecutor taking that chance. If youre playing conservatively as the prosecution, the risks may outweigh the benefits and they have clearly made that decision. I was in court when the judge asked, did anyone make an effort to subpoena him. It was a genuine nope from the prosecution. They havent looked into it. It was something they didnt even consider apparently. Well, they considered it, but they didnt seek to subpoena him. So they have made the decision that they can put their case in without him, and they must realize that there is going to be a very loud silence from a witness like Allen Weisselberg, and expect the defense, possibly, to capitalize on that in their closing. Let me get into the i have to get into this. This is really interesting. Michael cohen is being asked about resolution consultants, and the purpose of the account when he was giving this to First Republic bank, and its important, lisa rubin is inside the courtroom, we have seen these documents before, but hoffinger, the description of the account was it truthful, cohen says no. Did First Republic bank know what this was for . Cohen, im not sure if they would have opened it to say, hey, to pay off a porn star in a nondisclosure agreement. Did you ever finalize this . Cohen, it dawned on me its the name of a company of someone i know and didnt think he would appreciate if i used it and changed it to Essential Consultants llc. Why is it important for Michael Cohen to testify that he was being misleading to First Republic bank. Why would First Republic bank not be chill with this payment if they knew what it was for. Banks are regulated. More than ever, banks are heavily regulated and they have questions when you want mortgages. Generally speaking, you cannot get loans for this purpose. Banks are heavily regulated, and in fact, i know from Money Laundering trials and otherwise, theres a whole beehive of activity that goes in the back office, the antiMoney Laundering unit where those folks are watching what we do. They will file things like an s. A. R. , Suspicious Activity Report without the customer knowing about it. It doesnt mean a crime has been committed. Theres a lot of regulation going on. Do they catch everything . Reportedly there was an sar, i believe the evidence shows there was an sar filed. But that goes to show, thats actually a classic example. An sar gets filed. Nothing appears to have come of it, but theyre watching, checking these things out, and Michael Cohen knew then that you cant get a loan for this purpose. You cant conduct Banking Transactions for these purposes, so he deceived the bank, and that deception will eventually be passed on to donald trump at least as cohen will tell it. Duncan, you mentioned the comment about Michael Cohen and pants on fire. Anybody who has dealt with Michael Cohen, thats not an unusual state of being for Michael Cohen. But going back into the document, this is an email from Keith Davidson to Michael Cohen. Michael, i have been charged by my client to send you the message. No payment was received. You said funds would be wired and no funds have been received. My client has informed me she will cancel contract if no funds are received by 5 00 p. M. Today. My intelligent was to continue to delay as per mr. Trumps demand. Is part of this here, and this is Stormy Daniels going to say shes going to get her story out there. She probably understands her story no longer has value if they delay, delay, delay, and the election is over. My favorite part of this was delay until after yom kippur. Use that holiday. Theres an expiration on her story without a doubt. The prosecutors are trying to show repeatedly that this was about the election. Thats why at the end of his direct earlier, it was so damming when he recounted the story that trump didnt care if melania found out about it because this was about the election. All of this gets back to the same point. Now this gets serious because just now, this is from Keith Davidson to Michael Cohen. Please be advised that my client deems her Settlement Agreement canceled and void. What did you understand that to mean . We were losing control over the settlement. Were you very concerned . Very much so. Heres a text message, october 17th, 2016, from dylan howard to Michael Cohen, im told theyre going with the daily mail, they, cohen testifies is Stormy Daniels. That incentivizes them to move faster and get the money to her. And hes going to deceive a bank and try to get a mortgage for the money. Keith davidson knows who theyre dealing with in being willing to fay. Theres one other complicating factor, that Keith Davidson testified that he was quitting the case. Not only was it going to be void but also he was saying im not representing her anymore, and so they had to wrangle him back into this and get the deal signed quickly. So right now this email the text message from dylan howard, not taking my calls. Michael cohen, youre kidding, who are you trying to reach. The agent, obviously. Keith davidson. Now theyre not only losing control of it, theyre losing control of their contact with Stormy Daniels. Things were spiraling out of control, and thats why there was this feverish pace, and this all happened on the heels of Access Hollywood, and you can see how the prosecutors have set this up very well. Because we all know the story already, as hes testifying to it, we have all heard it from a number of different witnesses. Weve heard it from the perspective of Stormy Daniels, her lawyer, mr. Pecker, the banker, and all of these pieces fit together, and they have done a good job of waiting to do this. What did you understand about ms. Daniels story that would end up in the daily mail . Thats what we were told and thats what i relayed to mr. Trump. You see now in some ways how fortunate, whatever you want to call it for donald trump, that he did not text, that he did not send emails. Now they have call logs. But they only have one tape, right. Exactly. You have a call log that says calls were made. You dont have the contents of the call. The jury is going to be asked to infer or decide if Michael Cohen is being truthful about his testimony. Look at the dates, whats going on, does it sound credible. And the defense will say are you going to believe this man, this liar, they dont have the proof. Look at the circumstances, when the calls were made. This stuff is brought up all the time in court cases, Circumstantial Evidence. Theres this misconception that somehow Circumstantial Evidence is less powerful than direct evidence. Its usually more powerful. Direct evidence is someone saying they saw something or heard something, that can be unreliable. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable. Michael cohen is unreliable. But Circumstantial Evidence, the documents dont lie. The documents come in. They have been authenticated, theres corroborating evidence. The prosecutions vision here has always been that by the time Michael Cohen testifies, all the other documents will mitigate and it says cohen testified, i called mr. Trump in order to advise him of the situation, cohen, because i didnt forward the funds shes declaring the agreement void and were not in a position to delay it post the election, which is what he wanted me to do. Cohen says and the matter, the story was going to go to the daily mail. The call was short. Eight seconds asks hoffinger, i left a voice mail for mr. Trump. Did you believe you could delay the transaction, no, said cohen, and so now theyre introducing more evidence. They wanted the money, and they wanted it now. Not a breathtaking amount of evidence about what donald trump directed or instructed. Dont get me wrong, i think theres enough evidence that this obviously goes to the jury. I think theres enough evidence from cohen that donald trump told me to do this, that or the other thing, but not a ton. Not a ton of detail around conversations, which is a little surprising to me. But like i said, i think its enough. It gets them there. This is a voice mail. Donald trumps attorney could say he never got the voice mail. He didnt hear it. Hes making it up. We have used that excuse before, sometimes its legit, sometimes it isnt. There was a conversation this morning before they came to court about Jury Instructions and when you talk about reasonable doubt, and people having common sense or maybe looking at plausible versus implausible when you look at the time line of things, you look what was happening concurrently, what is a reasonable explanation for what that phone call is about, is that what theyre reasonably allowed to look at when youre considering reasonable doubt . When you think about reasonable doubt, the defense doesnt have to come up with an alternate theory of what the voice was. Have they proven beyond a reasonable doubt that this voice mail is what they say it is, or do you have doubt that it could be Something Else . If you believe that its reasonable possible it could be some other reason for a voice mail, some other reason for a phone call, Michael Cohen himself told you he talked to donald trump constantly throughout the day. If you believe its any of the other infinite reasons he might have called donald trump, then you argue they have not met their burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. This is going to be a lot about reasonable doubt in the closing. Thats going to be closing. Texts between cohen and Melania Trump, this is october 17th. You mentioned, hoffinger, on october 17th, you left a voice mail for donald trump. This is a text message from melania to me, Michael Cohen to melania. Good morning, michael, can you please call d. T. On his cell. Thanks. Michael cohen says, of course, and then hoffinger asks, did you speak to donald trump after on october 18th, and cohen responds, well get it at any moment now. Were going to find out. Were going to wait and see how this document uploads. Interesting there was a text message between Melania Trump asking Michael Cohen to call donald trump. D. T. Is what everyone calls him. Yes, he did speak to donald trump after the october 18th call. Hoffinger asks on the day or evening, did you make an appearance on wolf blitzers show. Cohen said, i did, in order to respond to a series of topics that affected mr. Trump on the campaign. So hes juggling a lot of Different Things at this moment, Michael Cohen is. I want to bring in jay lee miles, with 40 years of experience as a trial consultant, an expertise in Jury Selection and witness preparation. She has worked on many high profile cases, including michael jackson, r. Kelly and robert blake. While were waiting to fill in the blanks a little bit. Look at two things, how well prepared was Michael Cohen, and how good of sense does the prosecution and defense have right now about where the jury might be, what they might be looking for . Does anybody know whats in the mind of the jury at this point . Great questions. Not easy to answer. So i was surprised to be reading, and i have been following along, that mr. Cohen has been calm, answering direct questions with direct answers, keeping it short. Not being emotional. Not being too personal. And i think thats also, you know, very important for the prosecution that he does that. I mean, he knows how important a witness he is. If you want, i would be happy to explain what we would do to prepare a witness like that who knows so much is riding on him. I dont want to interfere with your questions. Well, i do we talked a little bit to lanny davis who actually was involved in some of the conversations and the preparation for this. But i wonder how you think the jury might be reacting to that. It seems very calm, very straightforward, which frankly is a very different Michael Cohen. There was almost a prebuttal with many of the witnesses so far who had derogatory things to say about Michael Cohen questioning, you know, supposedly hes a lawyer or making other kinds of comments like that that he only was a fixer because he first broke things, and then he had to fix them. So i wonder where you think the jury, how they might respond to that, and what sense at this point in a trial either side might have on where the jury is. Given that so many of the jurors get a lot of their news from all the major feeds, i would be surprised that many didnt know a lot about mr. Cohen and what his views are, things he said in the past. I imagine theyre very interested, obviously so much rides on his testimony. Are they looking for more corroboration, especially since mr. Weisselberg isnt going to be testifying, i understand. But i think theyre anxious for the cross because if youre on the other side, obviously youre looking to get under his skin, and i hope from the defense, excuse me, from the prosecutions perspective, theyre going to get ahead of that and handle that before he goes for cross by the defense because we havent seen the Michael Cohen today that were seeing, you know, on his tweets, et cetera. And i think that he could lose a lot of credibility with the jurors if he doesnt handle crossexamination well, and theres so many questions they could ask him to do damage to him. And i think heres some context about why they were reaching out to Michael Cohen to go on an Evening Cable Show to talk about things that involve the campaign and donald trump because that morning, our friend and colleague, tom llamas was interviewing donald trump on a Different Network at the time, and asked, have you crossed the line in the past with women ever, and donald trump, the candidate, said on october 18th, 2016, i dont think so. I have Great Respect for women. I have tremendous respect for women. These people come up for maybe a little fame or other reason. I think we have to be very vigilant and care for people that are voting. Michael cohen goes on television to explain Donald Trumps behavior toward women. And we talked earlier about the differences in the way men and women just remember that testimony that according to Michael Cohen, he said, well, men will think im cool, but women will hate it. Its a disaster. I remember in the after math of this, or in the lead up to it, they were really worried about women. Throughout the campaign. And they sent ivanka out to try and shore up support among women. They sent her to a very specific place, youll know it well, the suburbs of philadelphia, where they thought they needed to lock down suburban women, you know, middle class women. Thats where they won, pennsylvania. Because pennsylvania was a state that was absolutely crucial for them to take. If they didnt take pennsylvania, they werent going to win. And they won with the suburban women and on noon that day, i was talking to the former Clinton Campaign manager, the former governor, and he said to me, i said, how does it look, and he said were not doing well. Were losings suburbs around philadelphia, i said if you lose that, youre going to lose the election, and he said youre right. Melania, who almost never went out by herself, went in the closing weeks, closing days of the campaign. I was there. And she gave a very brief address to what i would call not a huge crowd of women but got tremendous amount of publicity that melania was out there on behalf of her husband. Im going back into the documents. This was october 30th, 2020, so this was after the Access Hollywood tape. Its after Michael Cohen is trying to squash. 2016. 2016. Im sorry, october 14th, 2016, my bad. Trying to squash the Stormy Daniels story, this was a big deal. I went down there to get reaction to donald trump and Access Hollywood and her father. I went to get reaction to her fathers behavior to women. Did i get a question, yes, did she answer, no. Ivanka was sent on the Campaign Trail because specifically women was an issue, and it all goes to underscore the moment that they were in when the Stormy Daniels story was out there or potentially out there, that they didnt want anything else damaging to come up that could hurt their chances in november. Look at this testimony. Theyre trying to find a way to spread money around, make the payment, theres no reason to keep this out there, just do it. And meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure it out. That is conversation with mr. Trump. You know, in a way i think let me just finish this i just want to say when you talk about he had spoken to friend, individuals, very smart people, just pay it. Thats exactly what they were talking about. What is the plausibility, what makes sense to people, it makes sense that their friends would say just make this thing go away, right . Yeah, but lisa rubins comments from inside the overflow room, weisselberg asked cohen if ami would pay it. Weisselberg said we need to figure out a way to fund this. One way weisselberg floated is to see if anyone wanted to take it as credit on an invoice on a Golf Membership or event. If the purpose however was to remove the trump name, that wouldnt work. Cohen suggested to weisselberg he could pay it. He was not in a position to do it because he was forwarding four prep schools for grandchildren, and one was for a wedding or bar mitzvah. It was impossible because each entity had a trump name on it because it was a golf course, and i said to weisselberg, why dont you pay it, and he said he was not in the financial position. How did you resolve it, cohen says because of the daily mail i said, okay ill pay it. Hoffinger said did you speak to donald trump, and i said i would front the money and he was appreciative. Dont worry, you will get the money back. I knew i needed to defend donald trump, which is something i have done for a long time. I would not hang out 130 grand for an nda. October 23rd at 4 52. Voice mail from Allen Weisselberg to me. Was there a reason he was calling you. Cohen says regarding the funding and regarding how this was going to get done to fund the nda. Hoffinger said did you speak with Allen Weisselberg the next couple of days. Cohen says yes, finalizing the details. Talking about another call. This was at 7 23. Ill wait for the document to populate to figure out what exactly was happening. These are the Bank Statements and handwritten notes, talking about how theyre going to pay off Michael Cohen. 180,000 paid to red finch for Tech Services hes called it, and the second page, exhibit 36 on trump letter head, Michael Cohen, 27th, pay through january 2017, a bonus of 50 grand, you see here on the screen. 180 grand for the Tech Services and the 130 to Stormy Daniels, times two for tax purposes. To take out the loan, Michael Cohen is going to have to pay taxes on it. That comes out to 410 grand. If youre going to pay over a 12month period for quote unquote legal purposes, whats that month to month. Weisselberg does the math and puts it at 35,000 a month starting in january 2017. Mic to invoice, i dont know what that means right there. These are going to be key documents that im assuming are going to come up soon. Theyre trying this almost like a Money Laundering case. Theres no allegation of Money Laundering because that requires some sort of dirty money to start with. This was all legitimately earned, clean money, so they cant charge anyone with Money Laundering, but theyre trying it in the same way. Back to the point about the bankers. This never would have gotten through a bank. Banks, number one, wouldnt have agreed to it in the first place on the face of it, but they will turn down whats called a pass through account. They will not open an account for you to put money in for it to go out. They make no money off it, and its a huge Money Laundering risk. They filed a Suspicious Activity Reporting. We know that there were a lot of inditia of a Money Laundering case. At the end of the day, the invoices are going to come in to prove the falsity, and cohen is being brought in to show the direction of it. Why isnt it bank fraud if youre getting a mortgage with false statements, youre putting up the money, lying about the purpose, but its okay as long as youre putting up real money . I dont know. It wasnt established really on the direct examination that it was going to be a pass through account. They said its an llc. It is an llc. On the face of it, theres nothing actually incorrect about what Michael Cohen was saying to the banker. It was just that it had to be done quickly. Were starting a new llc. It wasnt a lie as much as an omission. Remember, were in state court as opposed to federal court. Its not to say the manhattan d. A. s office doesnt bring bank fraud cases. They do all the time. This is a much cleaner case to bring the way they did. They obviously didnt want to get into the extraneous topicings. Tax issues, banking issues, and i think theyre trying to bring a pretty sprawling case and make it as narrow as possible. They are keeping this tight, which makes it really interesting to me, danny, going into the fact, and i saw you chuckle a little bit, but the idea of creating an invoice for a Golf Membership or an event, but of course if you want to remove the trump name, that doesnt work. Why is all of this here . The sheer high jinx of all of these transactions is really helpful to the prosecution because its almost keystone cops like, the way these people did business. Its bizarre, and to me, something that really jumps out at me is how hard Michael Cohen really tried to push this to after the election, and the implication is clear, they were going to stiff her after they got past the election, let her do whatever. Which, by the way, begs the question, if you werent worried about it after the election, why not pay her directly, get into a Settlement Agreement, whatever happens, if it gets traced back to you after the election, so be it. Youre not in this position, but theyre too clever for themselves with all of these shenanigans. Its remarkable, and i think it helps the prosecution because in many ways its just so clumsy. You couldnt make up a document like that in a movie where you actually have people handwriting on it, heres double it up for taxes, it literally says times two for taxes. Its the persona of Michael Cohen, he was not exactly a white shoe lawyer. This is weisselberg. But its Michael Cohen and weisselberg. I mean, these are their conversations, we can do this but its a trump golf course. I think if youre talking about hi jinx and shenanigans, i love your use of words, its also maybe relatable or gives it more credibility when you hear somebody saying, well, ive got prep School Tuitions and ive got summer camp. I dont know about the prep school business. Prep school costs a lot of money. 70 grand a pop in some schools here in the city. Let me ask about the defense. Why havent we seen a lot of objections . That is a question for the ages. There have been many times i think they could have objected. When it comes to the prosecution asking leading questions on direct. Thats a judgment call. You dont want to appear to be hiding anything by objecting too much. Theres a strategy there. The more you object, the jury might see you as having something to hide, but that being said, i think i can fairly say even the judge himself has opined that there arent enough objections from Defense Counsel because he said as much. Its really tough to criticize their style of not objecting. But when you dont object, you dont preserve the issue for appeal, and arguably going back to the stormy issue, which to me representing, Stormy Daniels testimony represents the first major appealable issue. To what degree has this been waived on appeal. Not a lot of objections. Not sure what the strategy is. These are all able counsel at the defense table. I am surprised they havent objected more. I want to bring in retired New York State Supreme Court judge jill konviser, there have been a handful of objections, the side bars we were seeing on some days have not been present. What do you think is going on . I think Defense Lawyers have to be careful not to alienate a jury. And one of the ways they alienate a jury is if they keep popping up and jumping on their feet and objecting and getting sustained objections. I agree with your panelist who said the only issue so far is some of the information that was not objected to earlier by Stormy Daniels. That created an issue. But objections are strategic. And judges do not like to get involved in a Defense Posture or a prosecutors way of trying the case. They want them to try their cases. They know better than the judge in terms of what they need. So the fact that they are not objecting is strategic, i would think. It is rare for an Appellate Court to say a case gets reversed on an evidentiary issue like failing to object. Why theyre not, i cant guess. Theyre going to have free reign on crossexamination whether they object or not. But i suspect theyre trying not to alienate the jury. We certainly saw the surprise from judge merchan during the Stormy Daniels testimony, and he raised questions about for example, why you wouldnt object to the conversation about the use of a condom. How does judge merchan approach what we do expect to be very different on crossexamination than weve seen on direct for Michael Cohen . The judge should stand down on crossexamination. Crossexamination is one way to get at the truth. If youre in my courtroom, and youre a defense lawyer, as long as your question is lawful, i will let you ask it. I would expect judge merchan to do the same thing. You heard earlier in the case, the prosecutor arguing its beyond the scope of the direct examination. Thats an objection i would never agree with. Defense lawyers can do or say or ask any question they like so long as its a lawful question. Even if theres an intense back and forth as a judge, you just let it go. You dont have to let it go. Its a matter of personality. If a witness is being torn down inappropriately, a judge can certainly say cool it, but it is the tone that he or she may decide is inappropriate, but not the question itself unless its a lawless question. Jill konviser always good to see you and talk to you. Thank you. Thank you. Additional call at 7 23 p. M. Between weisselberg and cohen. This is on october 25th, 2016. Hoffinger says this is a call, cohen says first, had to do with the Stormy Daniels matter, significantly urgent. And then Keith Schiller, tall guy from 2016. Cohen says i called mr. Schiller to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it. By the way, donald trump and Keith Schiller were always together. There was testimony last week from Stormy Daniels that schiller was outside the door. They were locked hip to hip. Every time that i saw donald trump keith was there. What was the plan for how you would fund the Essential Consultants account. Cohen said i had a heloc on my apartment, and that was paperless, meaning we wouldnt receive documents in the mail, cohen said and i elected to use money that was in the heloc, because my wife, the ceo of the household, would not understand if there was 130,000 missing from our joint bank account. She would ask me and that would be a problem for me. When trump paid me back, i would deposit it, and nobody would be the wiser. Cohen says if this matter wasnt resolved it was going to be catastrophic to mr. Trump and the campaign. Hoffinger asked did you have a Call On October 25th with d. H. And pecker. Cohen says it was all about the resolution of the nda. Cohen says this will further isolate women from the candidate. Hoffinger did you make a request at that time. Cohen said if he would be kind enough to make the payment, why not ask. What did he say. Not a chance, says cohen. Hoffinger said, did he say way, recounting peckers words, corroborating testimony, i didnt get my money back on the 150 grand even though that did not matter. I cant do it again, it could cost me my job. Hoffinger, how did you leave things with howard on that call. Make sure its locked down. Were going to take care of it. Hoffinger, whos going to take care of it. I was. Are these screen shots of the messages between you and mr. Pecker. Cohen says yes. An exhibit that shows a list of calls between david pecker and Michael Cohen. Do you see a flurry of calls between yourself and david pecker. Cohen, i do. On why there were so many calls blames the apps signal. Signal is terrible with keeping phone calls. They drop all the time. Also factual. Cohen says, yes, about the resolution of the Stormy Daniels matter. Between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson. What was the goal. To ensure that that occurs, im assuming the deal, so i can tell mr. Trump the matter is under control. Cohen, i was hoping ami is going to make the payment. You knew they were not. Cohen says, thats correct. Why did you have the phone call after Business Hours . Cohen says to discuss the finalization of the funding and the particulars for the funding of the execution of the nondisclosure. Hoffinger, did you settle up an account for Essential Consultants. Cohen said i went across the street and told them i need to do a transfer. This is color, trump is conferring with bove, fairly frequently throughout this line of questioning. Hes getting more animated. Hoffinger said before you did that, did you speak to mr. Trump. Cohen says i did. Hoffinger, two calls on october 26th, 2016, around 8 30 a. M. Cohen says, i did, he wanted to ensure once again he approved what i was doing. Hoffinger would you have made that payment to Stormy Daniels without sign off from mr. Trump. Cohen says no. Hoffinger said why not, because everything required mr. Trump sign off. In addition to that, i wanted the money back. Thats key, guys, would you have done this without sign off from trump. Cohen testifies no. He says i always went to donald trump to make sure these things were cool. And in an admission that any of us can understand, i wanted the money back, Michael Cohen says. We have also had a lot of testimony that donald trump was a Micro Manager who signed checks to reimburse cohen for the hush money payments. He knew where every penny was spent. Again, does it define credulity to think that cohen and weisselberg are cooking this all up and donald trump isnt told about it, hasnt signed off on it or hasnt figured out whats going on with all the money . Yeah, in a way what this testimony is doing is taking a very strongly circumstantial case and giving the direct testimony because we know all of this through other testimony thats come out. We know trump is a Micro Manager, we know that through all of the testimony of people who have worked at the Trump Organization. There were a few witnesses that talked about how he was on top of everything. They have read excerpts about how he negotiated everything down to the paper clip. So we know hes a Micro Manager, paying close attention to things. You dont think its fishy these checks are being sent to Keith Schiller, checks being sent to his home instead of white house mail. This is something on top of things, micro managing everything. We dont need Michael Cohens testimony to establish any of that. Its extra. It turns this into a much more, much stronger case but the Circumstantial Evidence around everything Michael Cohen is saying is already there. Fun color on october 6, 2016, when Michael Cohen calls donald trump to get sign off for the 130,000 payment, this is the day he went to the opening of his d. C. Hotel. He has his kids on stage, a big Ribbon Cutting ceremony, goes on and on for a while. Leaves stage, at the end of it, the entire stage collapsed. Remember that moment from 2016 . And now maybe everything is going to collapse here. Its also, to your point, duncan, also until the books brought in by the publisher last week in the testimony, was his advice, dont ever pay more than you need to. Watch every penny. This is a point that the prosecution is clearly going to hammer on. We have this testimony today out of Michael Cohens own mouth that he presented him with a 100,000 bill that he never signed and didnt pay. Hes notorious for paying lawyers. Continuing to pay. Well, when its important to him. 130, i guess. They have laid out this case that you have this number, 35,000. That is a magic number because it shows the falsity and theyre going to say, even without Michael Cohens testimony, do you really think that this person whos not paying 100,000, whos Negotiating Everything down to the penny for paper clips, whos clearly a Micro Manager, and everybody says it, do you really think hes just signing these 35,000 checks and not asking any questions. Even without Michael Cohens testimony, they have a pretty strong case that he knows what that number means. With it, its all explained. And so thats really what they have done is now theyre giving the punch line to the joke. They have gone beyond sloppy book keeping. They have. The defenses argument is going to be hes in the white house, hes busy, hes dealing with other things. People put checks in front of him. He signs them like a lot of bosses do. The checks go back. I think that cuts both ways. At the same time, i dont know about anybody else, as an observer, less as a lawyer, it concerned me that the president of the United States was still doing trump business and having checks sent down and signing them in the oval office. It goes to show, it can cut both ways, it either shows that hes such a Micro Manager, he insists on signing the checks himself, even with this convoluted way of sending them down to the white house or the defense may argue, look, the Guy Signs Hundreds of checks, hes just signing, not really looking. The defenses options are narrowing by the minute. They have a few left, but its going to be tight. It was testimony from westerhout that he didnt know what he was signing some of the time. Yes and know, that he was busy. There was something for the prosecution, something for the defense. You got a little of both for westerhout. He signed a lot of checks and there wasnt a lot of testimony about him raising his hand asking where is this going. Have we gotten to the point where the prosecution has shown that donald trump directed a criminal conspiracy that would buy the silence around stories that could end his campaign . You got close to that today with what Michael Cohen is testifying. You couldnt get much clearer than that. I dont think theres any doubt to the transactions. You cant deny the transactions from cohen to daniels, trump to cohen. Theyre going to get to the white house meeting where allegedly donald trump agrees to all of this. I would just have to say, you cannot believe Michael Cohen, but when you have Allen Weisselbergs own handwriting in the exhibits. Andrew weissmann talking about how he thinks these are devastating. You would be hard pressed to say that weisselberg would do something outside of Donald Trumps knowledge. Weisselberg is serving a second sentence. You could also say hes a criminal. Certainly you could say hes a criminal, but hes a criminal on behalf of donald trump. These handwritten notes saying heres what were going to pay Michael Cohen back. This is a polling company, as you said, right, duncan, and then to say that were also going to pay him for the taxes he took out. Its a very specific number obviously. I just dont see where the daylight is from these documents. If theres a smoking gun in this case, is this it . This document proves the falsity of the Business Records on the face of it. The number itself, the grossed up figure shows falsity. Its not a reimbursement. We know that. Its easy. That part of the case is a Slam Dunk Case. Remember, the d. A. s office didnt bring that case because the statute of limitations had run on it. They brought it as a felony because it was tone in the effort to conceal this conspiracy. Theyve proven the conspiracy, too the missing pieces that donald trump ordered them to do this, and the defense is going to say, Allen Weisselberg acted on his own. And worked with Michael Cohen. I just think at the end of the day, the jury is going to reject it, much like they have shown. Because they have supplied Michael Cohens explanation for it. They dont need to supply weisselbergs explanation for it as well. They dont need both. We know donald trump didnt like to have things written down, and this is one of the ways in which writing something down with any level of specificity can prove to be very problematic. We want to go back out before we hit the top of the hour to Yasmin Vossoughian whos been following all of this today throughout the trial. Put all of this in context. Always following it, guys. Following along as you are as well. A couple of things that are standing out to me. We know there was two phone calls made to donald trump on october 26th. Thats an important day, besides being katy turs birthday. One was a minute and a half long, one was three minutes long. The jury is thinking we have to rely on Michael Cohens credibility to deduce what that conversation was about. Then you double back. This is one of the reasons why, danny can back me up on this, one of the reasons testimony from Michael Cohen towards the end of the trial, towards the end of course is incredibly important. Its time to gather all of the testimony we have heard, some of the boring witnesses, the publishers, reading from Donald Trumps words himself. You mentioned specifically talking about how frugal donald trump is, down to the paper clip, how he counts every dollar, signs every check. Madeleine westerhout testified to that as well in the white house. All of the checks being shipped from trump tower to the white house for the former president to sign even while he was president of the United States, and then there are the relationships. It goes to what all of you were talking about, which is do you really expect Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen who everybody has testified to up until this point, all the other witnesses have testified to being so close to donald trump, not operating without his approval would make a decision to this magnitude without involving him, guys. As we go to break, the question is asked, did you wire 130,000 to Keith Davidson the next day, and Michael Cohen says i did. Well take a quick break. Be back with more ongoing coverage of Donald Trumps Hush Money Trial after this. Hush money trial after this ella fashion moves fast. Setting trends is our business. We need to scale with customer demand. In real time. jen so we partner with verizon. Their solution for us . A private 5g network. ella we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. marquis with a custom private 5g network. 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