Even of receipt ricket 2w5rd potential witnesses. the d.a. office says they don t want this to be out in the stream, and todd blanche made a very trumpian argument here. it sounded like a political argument i hear from some of the republican lawmakers who support donald trump he said, look, my client is frustrated he doesn t want to be here, and basically cut off about judge. he said we re not talking about news trace, but this kind of rhetoric specifically. nevertheless, they went back and forth a bit. before the judge weighed in, making two things clear. first, he made it clear he did not want to get to the point of having to impose a gag order he wouldn t have imposed one today, even if asked because it raises so much concerns about first amendment concerns when you have particularly a candidate running
Prosecutors for the state. they argued that joe tacopina, kind of the most public facing attorney for dump during this whole process might have a conflict of interest that may lead mr. trump to want to disqualify him as part of the legal team some years ago it wasn t clear whether it was 2016 or 2017, that stormy daniels had reached out to had is law practice about he potentially representing her they have might have had privileged communications that would put him in a conflict of interest position here when that question was raised, he stood up and made his own argument about that, saying he never personally spoke to stormy daniels. she only communicated with paralegals in this office. anything she communicated with him or his office was voided out about i the fact she discussed all of it in her book, voiding any claims of privilege that
The payments as income to the new york state tax authorities the conduct i just described, and that which was charged by the grand jury is felony criminal conduct in new york state. true and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure they are all the more important in manhattan the financial center of the world. that is why we have a history in the man hearn d.a. s office of vigorously enforcing white collar crime nigh office, including the talented prosecutors you say earlier today, has charged hundreds of felony charges this can be said to be the bread and butter of our work we have charged falsifying business records for those who violated federal bank secrecy
To charge it do you believe you have new evidence that let to you charge this or why now as you i just mentioned, we ve had available to the office additional evidence that was not in the office s possession prior to my time here as to part of your question about the federal, i would say they have a strong and profound interested in new york state this is the business capital of the world. we regularly do cases involving false business statements, but the bedrock, the basis for business integrity and a well financials business marketplace is true and accurate recordkeeping. new york state business records. [ inaudible question ] reporter: tax pumps, which you made your statements you
Laws we have charged falsifying business records for those seeking to cover up sex crimes and we have brought this charge for those who committed tax violations at its core, this case today is one with allegations like so many of our white collar cases, allegations that someone lie again and again to protect their interests and evade the laws to which we are all held accountable, as this office has done time and time again, we today uphold or solemn responsibilities to ensure that everyone stands equal before the law, no amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring american principle. i ll now take questions. we ll have a limit of questions, no follow-up questions. i will call on you thank you.
Now, because mr. bragg brought it so it was the time to do it is when michael cohen pled guilty and went to jail for it the little fish and the big fish got away so it s just not going to happen now. and that are bragg did it. any thoughts about him personally as we see his family come under political attack? well, it s heartbreaking. he s just doing his job. i just looked at my phone. i just got a very offensive tweet, or email. an email, you know, about my appearance today and it s a little bit racist so it s i know that office, i was there for over 30 years. they re ethical. they don t prosecute cases that they are political that s just the office it s been so it s an unfair critique of him. thank you very much
Clifford, stormy daniels and after several rounds of conversations with him about purchasing her life rights for $130,000, what i did, each and every time, is go straight into mr. trump s office and discuss the issue with him when it was ultimately determined, and this was days before the election, that mr. trump was going to pay the $130,000, in the office with me was allen weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the trump organization he acknowledged to allen that he was going to pay the $130,000, and that allen and i should go back to his office and figure out how to do it everybody knows what happens. michael cohen is sent to prison in this case pecker is immunized. why did they go through all
Relatively just to try to describe possibly garland s mindset when he comes into office and is considering a menu of crimes possibly to investigate against trump. separately from that, it s important, and i 100% concur that the basic notion is not about the payout or the affair, it is precisely about the very serious matter for just the reasons mary says, it could have altered a presidential election that entire scheme beginning, as they now have the ability to made it, but it s not in the indictment with the agreement with the national enquirer in 2015 and going into the white house that is not trivial, nor have i said anything close to that for the last several weeks and i was asking you to try to explain to us why merrick garland might have passed on it.
reporter: you expressed a year ago that you expressed reservations for the case what was the question in your mind that needed to be answered in order to bring the case to [ inaudible question ] i m not going chapter and verse into the thinking. i believe the time period you re talking about, i hadding in office for a couple months the investigation, in my view, was not concluded, and the conduct in particular is a basis for the charges today. since that time we ve had more evidence made available to the office and an opportunity to immediate with additional witnesses. as i said earlier, i ve been do this for 24 years. i don t bring cases prior to a thorough and rigorous investigation. now having done so, the case has been broad. reporter: your predecessor took a hard look at the case and decided not to federal prosecutors decide nod
That what do you think the point is of this investigation, that we learn all this, because cohen is under criminal investigation, he s larged, sentenced, he goes to prison. pecker is gived limited immunity the federal government gives him a limited immunity, i don t know if i m using that term, but he has immunity to testify in the federal case what do you think they were looking for? cohen wasn t running for office. do you think there was some point where prosecutors and investigators were pursuing the facts wherever they led, and then that stopped short? if you could just see that effort with the same witnesses and same facts with what was unsealed today well, what we thought at that time was going on was a couple of things. first of all, david pecker was very tied in at that time with