client-attorney confidentiality and a justice department attorney for 40 years likely a crime committed and the privilege doesn t apply and the judge went through and accepted that argument. maybe it s jill banks are right with an investigation and it s happening quietly. we don t know about it. to return to your question but that s unlikely. i don t want to see an alvin bragg situation where trump runs out the clock and taken advantage of cautiousness on the part of government officials because the show has to get on the road. i want to focus there. i ve bb asking the questions of katie and you, neal, dan goldman on and off television and after the segments i have reason to
better not testify, in effect, and that witness said a judge has to tell me what to do. now that s what s happening here. do you support this white house effort to block these witnesses from testifying? i absolutely believe that the president has executive privilege and he has the right to identify who those people are within his administration or who have served in his administration whom he wants to exercise executive privilege over. if you look at it, and this is what frustrates me about adam schiff and his dishonesty, to suggest this is somehow obstruction of justice whenever single president in our nation s history has practically claimed executive privilege, it s just more dishonesty on schiff s part and more hyperbole. to be clear, every president s claimed it but the courts have not backed it as a blanket rule. nixon claimed it but the courts ruled if there s criminal wrongdoing that privilege doesn t apply. i just wonder because you ve been a chief advocate for transparenc
phone calls, because it s never pleasant to see the sausage being made behind the scenes. still, what are the chances that we ll ever know what s on those recordings? well, if they contain evidence that prosecutors can use, if they ever charge michael cohen, then you may very well hear them played in open court. what s really puzzling is that with regard to at least the tapes in which president trump may have had any claims of privilege, it looks like his legal team waived that privilege, which, you know, typically you would want to argue and keep as much out just like you said because it s very uncomfortable to know something you said on a recording could be played out. why did they do that? i think that yeah, it could be that they saw the writing on the wall and saw that the special master who is reviewing these privilege claims
might find that the immunity sorry, the privilege, there s an exception called the crime/fraud exception where if it s showing evidence of a crime, the privilege doesn t apply. it might be a p.r. move that they didn t want that statement being made and are letting it go, but it is odd that they haven t asserted the privilege given what a big deal they made about the seizure of many of these documents and items. joe lockhart, you know p.r., there s an issue of getting it out early on your own terms? yeah. i mean, listen, if you listen to rudy giuliani, he said it was exculpatory. i m not sure that s the case. i think it is puzzling. i don t know a real p.r. you know, i think these two things together, though, are interesting because they all go back to the same thing. with manafort you have him holding out, waiting for a pardon or at least thinking he s going to get one. cohen seems to have made the decision or at least his legal team has that that may not be in the offing and loo