It said, you cannot under new york law convict solely on the basis of the testimony of an accomplice. michael cohen s testimony alone is insufficient to be able to reach a conviction. then, when you saw the four ask , specifically, for the trump tower meeting in 2015, which i always say is the original sin. that is where they hatched the catch and kill scheme. then, when they read pages six through 35 of the jury instructions, that included all of the credibility of witnesses, accessory accomplice instructions, and it read, here is your misdemeanor falsification, here is how you make it into a felony, new york election law, here are the unlawful means, and you don t have to be unanimous on the unlawful means. it was nicely tied up in a bow, and that s how the jury came to their verdict. speedy. katie and locklin are sticking with me. i want to get your reaction to my next guest, clark brewster. lawyer for stormy daniels. plus, why she wore a clipper
Map for how to follow the evidence that they ll here. it s not to tell them what the verdict will be, that ll come at the closing. what the government did today was layout for them the story that they ll here over the course of this trial, and trump s lawyers had the opportunity to respond and basically said it s all a bunch of nonsense based on michael cohen s lies. interesting, we will hear michael cohen s lies. interesting, we will hear from michael cohen s lies. interesting, we will hear from the michael cohen s lies. interesting, we will hear from the first - michael cohen s lies. interesting, | we will hear from the first witness in a moment, david packer this phrase catch and kill is something we will all be repeating at nausea and i m sure afterwards, just talk us through the rule of him and why he s being called first. he s being called first. david packer was he s being called first. david packer was at he s being called first. david packer was at the he s be
Trial. by the way, jose, i never refer to it as a prosecutor as a story. stories are fiction. this is fact. let s go back to vaughn because, vaughn, the jurors are hearing about another person who could be an important character in all of this, potential witness for the prosecution. fill us in. reporter: karen mcdougal, a former playboy model who is alleged to have had a ten-month affair with donald trump. she was paid in 2016 as well $150,000 to keep her story silent as part of this alleged catch-and-kill scheme. she was paid directly by ami, which david pecker was the head of. karen mcdougal s story is different from stormy daniels because donald trump nor michael cohen ever actually reimbursed karen mcdougal i should say ami for that $150,000 payment.
Damaging to his campaign, especially with female voters, they say that s when this whole catch and kill scheme was hatched. and they say that donald trump lied over and over again when he was trying to cover up that scheme in business records. now the defence essentially said, look, there is no crime here, donald trump is innocent, he wasn t involved in any part of the accounting for that payment, michael cohen did that on his own, and he said that essentially, there is no crime of trying to interfere in an election, it s called democracy, todd blanch said. what s really interesting was at the end of the closing argument, both sides appealed to jurors, asking them to use their common sense in this case. asking them to use their common sense in this case. thank you very much for that, sense in this case. thank you very much for that, nada sense in this case. thank you very much for that, nada tawfik, - sense in this case. thank you very. much for that, nada tawfik, hugely signifi
Scheme. we think it s illegal. it s not. the national enquirer, that s their business model. they ve been doing catch and kill for a long time. the issue here again is how the trump campaign or trump himself and the organization went about documenting it and whether or not the issue is going to be was this really a campaign contribution? how old it have been? should the mon any have been reimbursed to michael cohen through trump campaign funds. if you follow the logic of the case, that s essentially what the d.a. is saying. temidayo, we ve been told that the prosecution throughout the course of this trial will present a lot of detail that hasn t been made public. we ve gotten a lot of the details from michael cohen himself related to these payments. in fact, michael cohen went to jail for his role in the payments. how much of his legal history related to that federal case in
With the days of the week, other than that i m fine. speak to the prosecutor began opening statements by painting that case as a criminal conspiracy while trump s defense argued the case should never have been brought in the first place. john: the prosecution calling david pecker to the stand for the former national enquirer publisher who was accused to have a catch and kill scheme. every senior correspondent live outside the state supreme what with all the goings-on. eric. hello. welcome back from new york. good to see you back in the studio here. the first witness for today has finished. that was as john said, david pecker. part of the prosecutor s say critical conspiracy with the defendant former president donald trump. pecker, the former head of american media incorporated which is the publisher of the
national enquirer spent on as witness to describe what is called an illegal scheme with donald trump to buy negative stories about him to help the trump election campaign. pecker explain the process at the tabloid how the stories are prepared and their case sometime spot and how it was up to him to okay paying for the juicy stories. one of those juicy stories was from former playboy playmate karen mcdougal to. they claim she had an affair with trump which the inquirer bought for $150,000 but did not run as part of that catch and kill scheme. trump defense lawyer told the jury that the former president did not violate the law. the former president thought that checks to the lawyer michael cohen over his legal expenses and not his prosecutors claim to reimburse cohen to pay stormy daniels. i have a spoiler alert. there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. it s called democracy.
Back to august 2015 where prosecutors will ultimately ask him about a trump tower meeting between him with michael cohen and donald trump. where the allegation is that the catch-and-kill scheme was first concocted. it was a year later when karen mcdougal s story, the former playboy model who alleged a ten-month affair with donald trump, and stanlsz who had an alleged one-night affair with donald trump, ultimately those stories were bought either by ami or through michael cohen before the 2016 election. the opening statements really laid the foundation for both sides about where they intend to take this trial. for the d.a. s side, they made it clear they are going to call up stormy daniels and michael cohen and paint a construct of a conspiracy, a long-hatched conspiracy to protect donald trump politically from damaging stories, and one that included an acknowledgment by donald trump that he would eventually
Pecker, the prosecution suggested, will testify that he contacted dylan howard, the editor in chief, about the stormy daniels allegations and directed howard to communicate are cohen that stormy daniels had come to the national enquirer with interests of selling their story to them and based off the previous conversations about the catch and kill scheme, he directed howard to engage with cohen about her story and the fact she was looking for $130,000. it was at that point in time where cohen then directly worked with daniels lawyer to set up a side arrangement that did not involve the national enquirer. so dylan howard is another name folks will become very much familiar with, especially as it pertains to david pecker s testimony as he kind of used him as a right hand through all of this in 2015 and 2016. and we believe they ve just called it a day. they ve just said that court is
Reporting that it will be david the publisher of the national enquirer that s who i would call when i was preparing last week. that s the first witness i would call because coming out of those opening statements where you say what you will prove, you ve got to grab that jury by the lapels the way they are going to prove this case is to say there was an agreement to make these payments to influence the election. how do we know that? because starting in trump tower in 2015, michael cohen donald trump, and david national enquirer agreed to a catch and kill scheme. and when the stormy to influence the election to avoid bad stories. and when the stormy daniels thing came along in october 20 when he it was just another step in that the unfolding of that agreement, so that is if true, a good place to start with because he gives you