stormy daniels in an attempt to hide their affair in the final days of the 2016 election. and they began a historic process. deliberations to determine whether to convict a former u.s. president of any of the 34 felony counts. trump was at the courthouse today where he has been every day in his trial and where he must remain every day the jury deliberates his fate. here is how one court reporter captured trump after the jury left the courtroom. todd blanche appeared to gently shake trump awake. nudging his shoulder as the six alternated filed out of the the courtroom and he was the only person still sitting down. judge juan merchan handed the case over to the seven men and five women jurors with this charge. quote. it is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. it is yours. you are the judges of the facts and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. these 12 jurors are the quote judges of the facts. only they have the power to decide whether donald trump is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. the judges of the facts have spent 22 days in a manhattan courtroom listening to 22 total witnesses. more than 80 hours of witness testimony. and seven hours and 37 minutes of closing arguments. today, judge merchan read all of the jury instructions to help the jury decide trump's guilt or innocence as to each of the 34 counts. the jury spent four-and-a-half hours deliberating and we have some insight into their deliberation process through notes they sent to judge merchan. at 2:56 p.m., the jury made four requests to review some of the most damaging witness testimony by tabloid mogul david pecker and by star witness michael cohen including david phone call with trump about karen mcdougal. his decision to pull out of the deal to transfer the former playboy play mate's life rights to michael cohen about the infamous trump tower meeting in august of 2015. about an hour later, the jurors then sent the judge a second note. court will reconvene at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. the judges of the facts will then continue deliberating, deciding the fate of donald trump. , leading off our discussion tonight is andrew weissman. former fbi general council and former chief of the criminal division. he is the coauthor of the new york times best selling book the trump indictments. also with us is adam classfeld who has been in the courtroom every day of the trial. he is a fellow with just security. gentlemen, it is a pleasure to have you here. andrew, i don't have you here onset. i am remiss to not have you here. let's talk about the fact that donald trump called into dan, whatever his last name is radio show. whatever the show is and said quote the whole thing is crazy and nobody knows what is happening. the jurors asked the judge to reread the instructions and i think that is interesting. we don't know if they want an entirety or a portion. what does it tell you? >> it tells me they are paying attention. that this jury could have if trump were actually right. that they were hopelessly biased against him. the fixes. they don't need to listen to all of these instructions again. these instructions ran on for an hour. they include detailed information ability the interpretation of the law. in concepts like, they want to understand the fine legal points of the law. and this is very common in a case to hear the jurors to want to get in more detailed explanation of certain instructions. here, under new york state law, they need to ask permission to hear any of the instructions. they don't have it in written form. so it shows they are paying attention. it shows they are meticulous. and it shows that they want to get this right. we talked about this a lot. is there a disadvantage to the fact that these jurors don't actually have their hands on the jury instructions or here is a school of thought i was thinking about. maybe it helps the prosecution that the jurors don't have the jury instructions because there is some complexity to the legal concepts that are here. >> you know, in the federal system it is left to each judge to decide whether they want to send a written copy back or not. i think there are upsides and downsides. there are some things where you don't want them to get it hung up on certain words and the facts. there are upsides and downsides. in new york, they are not allowed to send that back as i understand it. that is why the judge rereads certain portions and that is very common. we are officially now in the tea leaf part of the case. which is where we will all be looking at what is going on. there is no question i agree with adam that this is a good note in terms of assessing the jury. we are still a long way away. but the big picture is the one you said. if you start with donald trump denigrating the process, you know, all three of us do not know what is going to happen. but all three of us who have been in the courtroom day in and day out, we know to our core that this is a fundamentally fair process with good lawyers on both sides. and an imminent judge presiding over it. so, you know, that i think is the real take home message. no matter what happens in the case, it has been handled superbly. >> so adam, there is something you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago. it's the unlawful means definition. and i'm actually thinking if i'm the prosecution, i would want the jury to actually have this specific definition because if you look at it, it says that there is no requirement for the jury to unanimously find or agree upon the unlawful means by which donald trump was able to corruptly reach the felony that they have in this case. and that gives the jury the opportunity to consider three different ultimate ways by which this happened or a myriad of ways this happened. is there enough clarity to dough think going into the jury deliberations after the closings? do you think there is enough clarity for the jury? >> i think there is going to be clarity because this jury is seeking. they are asking for the instructions. and, specifically, this instruction. unlawful means. if they are not clear about this, i would expect they will ask for more instructions. this is an instruction that took on a life of its own. after it became public today, a lot of commentators took it out of context making it sound like the judge was turning the concept of jury unanimity on its head. but that's not what this does. and it is really an interesting moment. last week, no person other than trump's own attorney had said that this was a usual instruction. i actually brought the transcript from last week. the judge should be required to make a specific finding. so it is very clear what happened at trial. the judge asked him, do you agree that is not ordinarily required? and he replies certainly. and at that moment, he makes a concession. this is how it happens. under this election law conspiracy, you can, the jury has the discretion to decide which were the unlawful means. and in this case, there is a wide variety out there. the falsifying business records. this is one choose of your adventure for the jury. the jury can decide that all the shell companies that he created after calling donald trump and going into first republic bank, that those bank records, they can find that federal election law was violated. they could find the tax authorities were misleading. and, if that is too many options for the jury, that's the nature of the case. that is the widespread nature of the concealment that went into the disguising of this hush money. >> that is a buffet of criminality. but one thing that has been a critical part we heard through the closings and that we have seeing woven throughout the jury instructions is this issue of witness credibility. something that stood out to me was that accomplice as a matter of law jury instruction taylor made for corroborating evidence. they were asking for david testimony and i'm stuck on that fact. not only the meeting, the trump tower meeting where they agreed to the catch and kill scheme with the national enquirer that set the table for the buffet of criminality. but they also sought information about why. why the national enquirer would not sell the life rights of karen mcdougal. why they ripped up that agreement. a lot of this seems to me, andrew, that david pecker is the person who will corroborate. >> it is useful for everyone to go back and think about how we were reporting on this case when we heard david testimony. that everyone was sort of taken aback. this is so solid you have a witness independent of michael cohen saying he had as a principle with donald trump, as a principle, michael cohen was a staffer who is going to carry out the instructions of that agreement. and, maybe even more surprising, is that donald trump's counsel didn't really cross-examine david pecker in terms of his credibility. so you are left with this jury note saying us tell us more about what david pecker specifically said. he was the first witness so this was many weeks ago. but it was very much a little bit like hope hicks' testimony which was also damaging which is also something that donald trump's counsel didn't really challenge. finally, just to your law point, new york has the rule which is that you do have to have corroboration of an accomplice. you cannot be convicted solely, the keyword is slowly on an accomplice's word. i will say de facto, that is really the federal system as well. though in the federal system, we don't have that. where the only witness is michael cohen who is an accomplice. you always would have some very strong corroboration. but i completely agree with you the note, well, it is just tea leaf reading. and no question if you are a the prosecutor, you think this is a good note. it is going to the heart of the case. it is going to a clear piece of evidence that was not challenged. and, it also did ask for some testimony from michael cohen which suggests they didn't write off his testimony as the defense asked him to do. >> and maybe it becomes an apples to apples comparison. thanks for joining us tonight. and for joining me this afternoon for our msnbc live stream. we will have one when the verdict comes out. thank you so much for being here. and coming up, donald trump's favorite federal judge aileen cannon, a trump appointee who is overseeing the classified documents and espionage case in florida just gave criminal defendant donald trump another procedural win in that case. how is special prosecutor jack smith likely to respond? 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[ surprised scream ] don't panic. gift easy with etsy. i don't want you to move. i'm gonna miss you so much. you realize we'll have internet waiting for us at the new place, right? oh, we know. we just like making a scene. transferring your services has never been easier. get connected on the day of your move with the xfinity app. can i sleep over at your new place? can katie sleep over tonight? sure, honey! this generation is so dramatic! move with xfinity. this is a reminder that donald trump was scheduled to go to trial on federal charges we related to illegal retention of classified documents last monday. may 20th. that trial date has come and gone and it doesn't seem like trial will be rescheduled any time soon. now, the florida federal judge who donald trump appointed is once again ruling in his favor in the case. judge aileen cannon denied a motion by special counsel jack smith seeking to prohibit trump from making inflammatory statements about law enforcement. claiming that the search was an assassination plot. judge cannon rejected jack smith's motion on procedural grounds writing the court finds the special counsel's conferral to be wholly lacking in substance and courtesy. any future non-emergency motion will not be filed absent meaningful timely and professional conferral. that is judge cannon taking the side of donald trump's lawyers who made that argument. in their response. as the washington post notes, smith wrote in a footnote to the motion that prosecutors contacted trump's lawyers but his lawyers do not believe there is any imminent danger and asked to meet and confer next monday. judge cannon said nothing about the risk of threats and danger of law enforcement officials. this is another example of judge cannon's slow walking decisions on a growing number of pretrial motions. in a new profile of judge cannon. she is described as an industrious and inexperienced insecure judge to reluctance to rule decisively has permitted one of the most important criminal cases to become bogged down in a log jam of unresolved issues. she has largely accomplished this by granting a serious hearing to almost every issue. no matter how far-fetched mr. trump's lawyers have raised playing directly into the former president's strategy delaying the case from reaching trial. joining us now is bradley moss who represents people in the intelligence community. and andrew weissman is back with us. bradley, when i last spoke with you monday i think it was, we didn't have any movement from judge cannon at all. in response to jack smith's motion to modify donald trump's bond conditions. then we get this order which was remarkably insulting to jack smith. but that is par for the course. i have seen judge cannon. i tweeted bradley that this is a form over substance issue. she could have set a hearing after doing a very quick briefing schedule on this. didn't jack smith confer with donald trump's lawyers and say we don't think it is an emergency in. >> comes back to the phrase we have been talking about since the beginning. so yes. there were alternate options judge cannon could have taken here. she could have asked jacksmelt's team to submit declarations about the nature of what they viewed as the threat from these statements from donald trump. that was a path she could have taken. she chose not to. she didn't do what donald trump wanted which was immediately order some kind of sanction hearing. but she did basically tell jack smith, go back, do at least something to show me you quote unquote conferred with donald trump's team and provide me with something more. put more meat on the bone before you bring this to me in a non-emergency form. is that with a no discretion? sure. was it an unforced error by jack smith? a little bit. they could have done it a different way. would other judges have done what she did? probably not. >> we have to speak about a double standard. there is a procedure that has to be followed but in this instance, this motion to modify the bond conditions alleges something that is of serious security and safety for law enforcement officers who executed a duly authorized search warrant that was done in coordination with the united states secret service. so, in order to be able to curb what is happening with trump, is there a fear there will be a first amendment issue that will be raised by trump's defense? >> well, i can't believe i'm about to say this. but i disagree with brad. bradley. i think this is something that is absolutely outrageous. i think this is a kind of thing that is going to be when she ultimately denies judge i think this will be taken up to the 11th circuit. this is something the government obviously cares deeply about. the attorney general of the united states talked about how this was a dangerous and false misrepresentation by the former president. endangering law enforcement is the kind of thing that is the reason that you go into government to try and prevent and make sure that you are upholding the people's safety. for her to have put this off when it was a matter of safety, on a ground, it is not even a technical ground. there was conferral. for the defense to say i don't think that is an emergency. does the judge think it is? so i think this was one where the judge is dead wrong. she is making up the procedural issue. i think it is the kind of thing that will be used by jack smith rightly on appeal. and it shows this same kind of cavalier disregard for law enforcement that caused judge cannon to be reversed not once, but twice by the 11th circuit when this investigation was just beginning. she is really playing with fire here. and playing with people's lives. >> i will give you the chance to respond. i'm going to out-number you i think right now. i agree with andrew. this is a foregone conclusion. we know she is going to say this motion cannot be well taken by jack smith. she will say it is a first amendment issue here. but this definitely is a serious risk to the lives of the law enforcement officers. remember, jack smith has been fighting the disclosure through the discovery process of the identities of many people that have participated in this. >> i hope to see when the department does refile this. when jack smith's team comes back with a new motion. i would like to see a lot more substance. not necessarily just debrief. there have been plenty of rulings and analysis on that and the other cases in manhattan and in dc they can use as a foundation. but, put some meat on the bone and call judge cannon's bluff. she and the trump team have kind of been wishy washy on they that there is a threat to law enforcement. get agency declarations if need be. show her. here is the threat. here is every time he made these remarks and it got amplified. here is how the threat matrix was increased. here are the various threats the agencies received, et cetera, et cetera. call her bluff on that. that gives you a much better grounds for appeal if she were to deny it on the merits. >> andrew, there is a tipping point to your point that the 11th circuit has bench slapped her repeatedly. is this the one that is the tippin