With us again on this unusual and special time on the beat that does it for us. You can find me on line. The last word with Lawrence Odonell is up next. At 10 11 a. M. Today, Donald Trumps lead lawyer stood and said, your honor, the defense rests. The truth was, there was no defense. The team of highpriced Trump Defense lawyers are actually paid by the deluded people who send in contributions in response to Donald Trumps relentless begging for money from people he promised he would never ask for money. When he began his first president ial Campaign MajorSelling Point was he was so rich he could pay for his own campaign and he was incorruptible and would never ask him or anyone else money and then he proceeded to never spend not a single penny. He loaned his campaign some money at the beginning but the Campaign Paid him back through the donations of those poor deluded people who sent the money to the liar who promised he would never ask for money. And now their money has gone to a highpriced legal team who could not come up with any defense at all in the trial. They came up with theories that they offered in Cross Examination questions of some of the witnesses who testified for the prosecution. But, an actual defense in a criminal case is not measured by questions Defense Lawyers ask in crossexamination. Those questions are not evidence. Next week when judge merchan is instructing the jury he will tell them, lawyers questions are not evidence. Witnesses answers are evidence. And, so, the Trump Defense presented no evidence. None in defense of donald trump, against the crimes he is charged with. None. No defense. The first witness they called was a technical witness who did not add any evidence or information to the case what so ever. A young Paralegal Assistant Fraworks for the Trump Defense team that created a spreadsheet of a list of phone calls. That was it. His testimony took only a few minutes and the document that he created was accepted as an exhibit in the case. That was done. Yesterday, the Trump Lawyers possibly at the insistence of donald trump, made what every fairminded observer of the trial has called the grotesque mistake of calling criminal lawyer Robert Costello. Whose Chief Currency Judging by the emails in this trial he is a close friend of rudy jewel goney. Giuliani. He was his boss and costello was working for giuliani. His turn under oath yesterday was the witness equivalent of drunk driving. At this hour last night i read you the full transcript of what the judge did when Robert Costello decided to vocally disagree with the judges ruling on objections while he was sitting there on the Witness Stand. The transcript entry that we in the courtroom all heard shows Robert Costello saying jeez. Jeez was the chosen spelling by the court reporter. That is what we heard. I can hear it in the last row of the courtroom yesterday. None of us in the courtroom had seen anything like that or heard anything like that. Especially from a witness who say lawyer and should know better. Much better. Judge merchan was chocked. Leaned forward. He asked costello to repeat himself which he said strike it, lawyer talk for never mind what i just said. Then, we found out later, the judge saw costello to continue to signify his irritation for him and disrespect for the judge in ways we could not see from the audience. The judge ordered the courtroom cleared so he can talk about it directly to costello. Clear the courtroom were the words no one in the courtroom ever heard before. Before the judge said that. Including the Court Officers. They never had to do that before. With everyone out the courtroom, we learned later in the transcript that was kept of what happened when we were all out of the courtroom, judge merchan said to costello. Sir, your conduct is contemttuous right now. If you try to stair me down one more time i will remove you from the stand, i will strike his entire testimony, do you understand me . Yes, judge, i understand. When Donald TrumpsCriminal Defense said yes, judge, i understand. He and the rest of the legal team fully understood what a catastrophic mistake it was to put an Uncooth Bafoon on the Witness Stand for for another buffon. The day before costello had specifically insulted by telling her to speak into the microphone. Ordering her to speak into the microphone when she already was speaking into the microphone and everyone in the courtroom could hear her. That was a moment to expose more of the ugly essence to costello. When the jury entered the courtroom three minutes after the witness this morning the community of the courtroom that the jury has come to know so well had changed dramatically. The presence of armed Court Officers who have been the most kurtious to all of us taking our places in that courtroom had more than doubled. There used to be one standing, there were three. At the back of the room where there used to be two there were four. There were more higher ranking officers in the room we ever seen at one time. One of the officials who has been especially helpful to members of the news media but who is rarely in the courtroom was now standing in the back of the courtroom observing everything in that room. This dramatic demonstration of extra control of the courtroom by the Court Officers was completely lost on the Defense Lawyers and the defendant and the prosecutors because they had their backs to that part of the room. Their backs to the Court Officers. They were just facing front where they could just see the judge and the witness and some of the jury. But the jury could see everything in that room. The jury could look out there and see at least double the amount of those friendly Court Officers who they have come to know. More than double of those Court Officers than they have ever seen before. The jury could not know why. They had been sent out of the room by the judge yesterday, the first time the judge decided to, as he put it, speak directly to Robert Costello about it. It was only when costello continued his disrespectful Courtroom Conduct that the judge cleared the courtroom of all of the rest of us, of the reporters, everyone else in the room and he had, the judge had a more private oneonone with costello while, of course, lawyers were all still present. The jury could not know that this huge new show of force and control in that courtroom this morning was all because of the contemptuous conduct of the only witness that Donald Trumps team brought into that courtroom to offer actual testimony in this case. And his testimony had absolutely nothing to do with the crimes donald trump is charged with. Robert costello was one of the lawyers who the prosecution star witness, Michael Cohen, consulted after the fbi executed Search Warrants at his home, hotel room where he was temporarily living and his office. When Michael Cohen became a cooperating witness in that fbi investigation it eventually led to Michael Cohen pleading guilty to crimes including Crimes Involving the payoff to Stormy Daniels that Michael Cohen said was at the direction of donald trump. Under Cross Examination today it became clear that Robert Costello was eager to be Michael Cohens lawyer, so eager he wrote a letter boasting how he was going to be the Defense Lawyer for the personal attorney to president donald j. Trump. He told his son, quote, i will be on the team. The trouble is, his emails revealed that the team was bigger than Michael Cohen. Crossexamination it became clear that Michael Cohen was not Robert Costellos primary interest. It is customary for lawyers to ask witnesses to read their own emails aloud as evidence. Assistant District Attorney tried that yesterday. On cross exam nation but costello could not do it. He could not read his own emails without constantly inserting comment on his own emails so, today, she read the emails herself. Can you please blow up the last 11 paragraph, please in yellow. And then she read, Robert Costellos email to his law partner. Quote, our issue is to get cohen on the right page without giving him the appearance that we are following instructions from giuliani or the president. In my opinion, this is the Clear Correct strategy. That is not a strategy to help Michael Cohen. Yesterday, when the District Attorney asked Robert Costello to interpret one of his emails his answer was that the email quote speaks for itself. And so, today, after reading that email that i just read to you, the attorney said, question, and as youd yesterday, the email speaks for itself, correct . Answer, sometimes. And it got worse for Robert Costello. District attorney quoted another email to his partner about Michael Cohen. Quote, this is a quote from the email, what should i say to this a hole . He is playing with the most powerful man on the planet. Now, that email certainly speaks for itself, does it not mr. Costello . Answer, yes, it does. It was clear that his interest in trying to become Michael Cohens lawyer was to be on the team not of Michael Cohen, but the team of the man who costello thinks of as the most powerful man on the planet the man who was sitting across the room from Robert Costello in the defendants chair. Robert costello left the Witness Stand in disgrace at 10 11 a. M. This morning after 42 minutes on the Witness Stand this morning establishing absolutely nothing for Donald Trumps defense against the criminal larges of falsifying new York Business records in order to illegally help his 2016 president ial campaign. The judge then explained the scheduling dilemma. He told the jury he likes to keep it by the defense and the prosecution together so that they are not separated by a day or a weekend and that he would need additional time to prepare his legal instructions for the jury. So, he pointed out that because they were already scheduled not to meet on wednesday this week that the earliest they could begin the lawyers summations without having to break them up would actually be thursday this week and that might not allow everything to be completed before the Memorial Day Weekend or send the jury off into deliberations at the end of the day on friday. So, the best way for the judge to handle it he decided was to send the jury off today. Into what will become its memorial day long weekend. That happened right after the last witness today Robert Costello left the Witness Stand. The judge spent the afternoon considering arguments from both sides about what should be included in the judges instructions to the jury that will probably be delivered next wednesday. The day after the lawyers make their final arguments to the jury on tuesday which, of course, will be the day after the holiday memorial day. So, here we are. The case is in. There will be no more evidence. The prosecution presented evidence to support every element of the crimes donald trump faces in that courtroom. The jury of 12 residents will dell iberate next dell iberate. There is nothing that is showing how they will be leaning or what evidence they think is important. They are also attentive to everything in that room. They will be attentive to the judge. They will be attentive when they hear the last words they hear before they deliberate to their this case. He hopes to keep his instructions to an hour or less. This afternoon in a hearing, lawyers on both sides argued about what the instructions should be. Did not go well for the trump criminal Defense Lawyers. And although they brought up something that the judge had ruled out of the case a very long time ago, long before the trial began, this was frustrating for the judge, judge merchan said, look, mr. Bove, this is an issue that has been going on for a very, very long time. I wrote a decision on this, my decision is dated february 7th, in that decision i directed the defense to provide notice of disclosure of your intent to rely on the defense of advice of counsel by march 11th, 2024, and produce all discoverable statements and communications within his possession and control by the same day. What that means is the judge told the Trump Defense team if you are going to use the my lawyer made me do it defense you have to tell us before the trial because there are many requirements for making that defense. That defense would essentially be, i just followed the advice of my lawyer Michael Cohen. There are technical requirements for making that Legal Defense that the lawyers chose not to do. And, so, in his mounting frustration this afternoon the judge said. Later on, the defense on advise of counsel moved into something called the presence of counsel. Which i never heard of and i was not familiar with but i addressed it. At that time i indicated you are precluded from arguing this legal claim of presence of counsel. There was no such thing. It is just a way to get around having to turn over documents related to the advise of counsel. Now, this term presence of counsel has morphed into Something Else. My decision has not changed. Mr. Bove tries to get up and the judge said please do not get up. I let you speak, right . I let you speak. All right. Judge, it was corning when the term was changed to presence of counsel. I couldnt believe when i saw it again in your submission now calling It Involvement of counsel. I understand the argument you are making i am telling you that my ruling is that jury will not hear from instruction from the bench nor are you permitted to make that argument. Period. The Trump Lawyers can not stop testing judge merchans patients and humiliating themselves professionally in their representation of the bufoon they said be side all day at that defense table. We will be right back defense t. We will be right back an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medicine directly at the source. Voltaren, the joy of movement. Were trying to save the planet with nuggets. Voltaren, because we need the planet. And we also need nuggets. Impossible. Were solving the meat problem with more meat. 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Msnbc legal analyst and author of The Trump Indictments i want to begin with the witnesses that were not called. The witnesses the defense left out beginning with the defendant. Lets take a look at what the defendant said about this today. That is everything he said about deciding not to testify in this case. Andrew, he has not figured out his public lie yet why he did not testify. Of course this Program Never pretended there was a decision to make. As soon as there was an indictment with his name on it we knew lewas not going to testify in his own defense. You have a jury sitting now and important scenes that trump is in, that the defense wants to contest. A