Free you . What do you make of the fact that after attempting to at least verbally say he was going to compete to get you out of russia, donald trump then turns on you . That is tonights the reidout. Inside was jen psaki starts now. Today was day 12 of trumps criminal trial and it started with yet another hearing on his repeated and flagrant attempts and violations of his gag order, which was put in place because he cant seem to help himself from attacking the judge, the jury, or potential witnesses. Today, judge juan merchan ruled trump violated that order for the 10th time. This time for cummins he made during an interview late last month when he attacked the integrity of the jury that will determine his fate. The judge again found trump in Contempt Of Court and he find the express and 1000. 00, bringing the total up to 10 grand. Judge juan merchan said he was prepared to go further. You want if donald trump does not stop violating his order, he will be left with no choice but to consider jail time as a punishment. Judge juan merchan made it very clear he does not take that threat lately, calling it a last resort. He also said, mr. Trump, it is important to understand the last thing i want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well. Now, despite that, you might be sitting at home thinking finally someone is going to put this guy in jail. And, you would not be alone in feeling that way. No question. Heres the thing, this may also be exactly what trump wants. His whole message is that he is the victim, he is aggrieved, he is the victim of a two Tiered System of justice is. His campaign is fundraising of the possibility that he could be put in jail. In his mind, that would only keep him able to make the argument that he is the victim of the system. But, for all of trumps whining about a socalled rigged system against an, it is worth remembering if he was any other criminal defendant who willfully violated an order from the judge 10 times, he would almost certainly be sitting in a cell on Rikers Island already. Hes not. After that hearing, we heard testimony from the longtime comptroller, controller of the Trump Organization, 700 now incarcerated chief financial officer, allen weisselburg. The Testimony Cut to the heart of what the case is about, the legal case. Donald trump is not on trial for allegedly having an affair with a Adult Film Star, as salacious as that is. He is on trial for falsifying Business Records to cover up the 130,000 in hush money he paid her in order to prevent the news from getting out to the public in the weeks before and election. They dont exactly how that happened. The biggest question the defense raised so far in this case is if Michael Cohen pater Stormy Daniels 130 grand to cover up the affair with trump, why was Michael Cohen will reimburse more than 400,000. 00 return . Thanks to some financial documents presented as evidence today, we learned exactly how that came to be the case. A quick word of advice to all you wouldbe felons out there. If you are planning on taking part in a criminal conspiracy, i would definitely suggest not taking handwritten notes outlining the entire plan. But, that seems to be effective what happened here. First up is this document. A Bank Statement for the 130,000. 00 payment, which was helpfully annotated by allen weisselburg, a man who is clearly not a mastermind since he is sitting in jail as we speak. According to the notes, another 50,000. 00 was added on top 40 payments to a company for tech services, and that total was grossed up, a practice in which the Trump Organization overpaid Michael Cohen to cover his tax liabilities. Another 60,000. 00 was added on top as a bonus, apparently for a job well done. That brings us to 420,000. 00, which was repaid to Michael Cohen in installments of 35,000. 00 over the course of a year, reimbursements that, on paper, claim to be a legal retainer. Good job buying a negative story that may have hurt me in the election. Good job, we are paying a retainer for that. For good measure, we also have this separate committee, this time apparently written by Jeffrey Mcconney in which he does the same math on the official trump letterhead. On the trump letterhead. Seems oftentimes these days, you simply cant make this stuff up. We also have a number of email chains showing that most of those Reimbursement Checks for Michael Cohen were sent directly to the white house so that trump could sign them personally. All of this we learned before election day, just before lunch today. After the break, we heard from a woman who worked in the Accounting Department under Jeffrey Mcconney and allen weisselburg. She was the one who labeled those checks as legal expenses. That was all just one day of testimony. There is still a lot more to come in this case, which prosecutors now say is halfway finished, at least for their part. With Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels still yet to testify, it is going to be a pretty interesting couple of weeks, to say the least. The Southern District attorney of new york, where he led prosecutions against White Collar Criminals and he joined me now. I am not a lawyer, i tried to summarize what we learned today. I tried to summarize, i talked to a lot of smart people. I tried to summarize what we learned today. Did i miss anything, did i get anything wrong . That was a pretty good summary. What you heard today was testimony that was not so dramatic. Not as dramatic and salacious as some of the testimony we have heard before. We are certain to occur in the coming days but it goes to the core of the basic Criminal Charge here, which is falsification of Business Records. And, i think based on what happened today and how uninspiring The Cross Examination was because the documents largely speak for themselves, the prosecution has basically proven the basic case, which is falsification of Business Records, which people can argue is or is not the crime of the century. It is a misdemeanor and the new york law that convinces it as a misdemeanor and we can argue and see how the evidence comes in with respect to the next phase, which is whether that could be accelerated into a family if it was done for the purposes of concealing or furthering some other crime, Election Law Crime or tax crime. The fundamental case, the elements of which were laid out, you know, crystallized form today in court i think were made out. You have the representation that these things were legal fees based on everything of legal services. You dont have any document and that effect, you dont have any detailed Business Records as you and i were saying before we started recording today. The bane of the existence of any practicing lawyer, and i am a practicing lawyer, once again, is to do detailed records of how you are spending your time and why the client needs to pay you what you are charging the client appeared there is no detail of that period, there is zero. Every lawyer in america have to do that. I have never worked on a matter for any claim where there wasnt a formalized agreement and an understanding of what you could pay for and why. You have none of that here. You also have as you mentioned, the fact that Michael Cohen was not just paid for the reimbursement. Lawyers all the time, we have photocopying fees, we have binding fees, we have other fees we have to get reimbursed for. We dont get paid double for that. Which is his tax rate, by the way. Michael cohen stepped up for the team, took a hit for the donald trump fraud team and paid out of his own money based on a home equity line of credit, money for the hush money for this person and that was after taxes. In order to make him whole, he had to be paid not just the reimbursement amount but also an amount that was pretax would make him, put him in the same position as he was in otherwise. That is not a legal fee. That is not how it works. What struck me also, nonlawyer, again, the allen weisselburg. They wrote out exactly how this reimbursement would work , which, presumably for the prosecution, is pretty damming. It is very strong. At some point we will get into the question, not today necessarily but how formidable is the testimony of Michael Cohen going to be and i think the prosecution has done a great job of laying the foundation of corroboration before Michael Cohen testified. Hes going to come up on the stand and say it wasnt legal fees, it wasnt a retainer, it wasnt legal services, it was for this other purpose, which the prosecution alleges was illegal. And, rather than cooperating him after the fact, they have corroborated him before the fact. Also, as you and i and others have been talking about for months now, Michael Cohen has some baggage. But a single witness who has testified who knows Michael Cohen has set the bar so low for Michael Cohen that i dont know that he has to do as much as we all anticipated he needs to do. He doesnt need to on the totality of it. Let me ask you about the gag order. The judge threatened, of course, if he violates it, he could put him in jail. What does that look like . People have been speculated it could be an hour. Is it an hour in jail, is it Something Else . It could run the gamut. It is an interesting thing not for this time necessarily but the statutory aces in new york, the law is that you can find for Criminal Contempt 1000. 00 per violation. It might strike some people as odd, it strikes me as a little odd but we are not in the position to change the law at this moment, that the next step after a 1000 absent fine is not a 2000 wasnt fine or some other intermediary step, it is separation from the liberty for up to 30 days. The judge is between a rock and a hard place. I thought what you read before was absolutely stunning. You have a sitting judge who, i think people understand that a judge in his position doesnt want to put donald trump in jail for a period of time. He doesnt want to have to be in that position. The interesting thing is that he said it and he was very honest about it, he was forthright about it, which, to me, means hes serious about it. If you are the judge, though, if hes sent to jail for an hour, does he really care . He may get something out of that. That is my theory. He may want that. I dont know. We are in uncharted territory. Weve never had a former president of the United States who has an actual rate to secret Service Protection and a secret Service Detail for the duration of his life, whether he is president or not. In that circumstance, no one wants to, the judge least of all, wants to figure out how we deal with that. I dont really know. I do think, i never have any quibbles with you. I quibble with you. You can quibble any time. You are the legal expert. This is not legal questions, i dont think, not withstanding his bravado and his comparisons of himself to Nelson Mandela or anyone else, he does not want to spend any, he does not want to spend the night in prison. It is very uncomfortable. Theres lots of problems he would face personally and otherwise and aesthetically and grooming wise that i dont think he wants to get into. He likes to talk a good game and say i will be a martyr but i dont think he wants to go and so it will be an interesting cat and mouse game appeared he may want to go for an hour because he has been fundraising off of it. Let me ask you. The trial, they resume tomorrow morning. There are some big witnesses who weve not heard from yet. Michael cohen is a big one. Who else are you watching for . Stormy daniels testimony will be interesting. I will say, im at risk of being disabused of this depending on how the testimony goes, i think the most reported testimony has already taken place. These witnesses, david pecker. With you, supported one . In some ways, yes. He basically told the story of how all of this , all these machinations were important to and relevant to and or for the purpose of winning the election. You have some holes here, you had Hope Hicks Testifying in part that, you know, she got some hits for the defense, which the prosecution probably didnt love, sitting part of the recent donald trump engaged in the conduct what he wanted to spare his wife fumigation. That doesnt help to prove the prosecutors case. But, you have all these witnesses talking about the money, talking about the documents, talking about the purpose of the documents, the lack of document tatian of this being a retainer and is being legal fees and then the overwhelming amount of evidence, which is or in place of the document to be evidence but still, i think, overwhelming evidence that this was done close in time to the election because donald trump cared about the election more than anything else and that is why he engaged in this behavior. These other witnesses will be interesting. We will talk about them. And, the cross from a Lawyerly Perspective is going to be fascinating and a popcorn eating event. But, i dont know that they are going to be as important given the testimony that has taken place so far. Preet bharara, you can quibble with me anytime. I welcome it. We dont argue, we only quibble. Thank you so much for joining me tonight. Coming up, if these walls could talk. What todays testimony revealed about what was happening inside the white house as donald trump was signing the checks at the heart of this case. Former senator Claire Mccaskill joins me in just 60 seconds. Seconds. We came to his house. Then we got to work. We replaced his windshield. And installed new wipers to protect his new glass. Customer looks great. Thank you. Tech my pleasure. Vo we come to you for free. Schedule now for Free Mobile Service at safelite. Com. Safelite repair, safelite replace. Right now you can get a free footlong at subway. Just buy any footlong in the app and get one free. Just scan the qr code and Enter Promo Code flbogo it only works from The Other Side of the screen, buddy. You still got a land line in your house. Order now in the subway app. Were talking about cashbackin. Not a game were talking about cashbacking. Were talking about. Were not talking about practice . No. Cashbacking. Word. Were talking about cashbacking. Cashbacking. Cashbacking. Cashback like a pro with Chase Freedom Unlimited. How do you cashback . I think it is fair to say that there is no place more symbolic of the dignity and prestige of the presidency than the oval office. It is where Franklin Roosevelt signed the Declaration Of War after pearl harbor. It is where john f. Kennedy affected the u. S. Response to the cuban missile crisis. It is where george bush addressed a grieving mission on the evening of 911. It is also where donald trump again and elicit scheme to repay the house money used to silence and Adult Film Star. In a meeting with Michael Cohen in february of 2017, trump confirmed he would reimburse him by check on a monthly basis. At the Trump Organizations former controller testified today, each check was drawn from trumps personal account, which, as Preet Bharara said, is not exactly normal and then we had to get it down to the white house for the president to sign it. So throughout the entire year of 2017, trump was managing this coverup, signing these checks, while juggling his official responsibility since president. Its kind of a bizarre juxtaposition when you think about it. One of the checks is dated september 12th. That was the day trump was hosting the paymaster of malaysia at the white house. Another is dated the same day trump spoke with Vladimir Putin by phone discussing syria and north korea. One check was from a date trump was a brat, meeting with israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu in israel. Another was from the date trump decided he would move the American Embassy in israel to jerusalem. I worked for two president s and i can tell you neither of them were juggling Response Abilities of that office with a coverup of illicit hush money payments. But, still, trump was. This trial has already revealed so much about that alleged criminal scheme. We have learned a lot but it is also revealing so much about the kind of President Trump was and the county would be if he were to return to the oval office. Joining me now was former democratic senator Claire Mccaskill of missouri. Claire, thank you so much for taking the tim