hi, everyone. here we go. it is 4:00 in new york. oh, to be a fly on the wall behind these closed doors. in the courthouse that has seen no shortage of famous influential or wealthy criminal defendants. 12 new yorkers and seven men and five women are right now debating the fate of a former president of the united states and they have questions. the jury in the historic trump criminal election interference hush money trial is at this moment deliberating on the 34 felony counts trump is charged with by the manhattan district attorney. just in, in the last few minutes, a second note has been sent from the jury, they re asking to re-hear judge merchan s instructions to them and earlier they are requested testimony from david pecker and michael cohen. our journalists are standing watch and they are updating us and we ll update you as soon as we know anything. as of 4:00 p.m., the juries that deliberated for four hours after yesterday s marathon day of closing arguments, more than
defendant trump himself, by the way, after weeks of revealing witness testimony, after weeks of intense cross-examination, after our legal system has been tried and tested in ways it has never before, we re now reaching the end of this trial. closing arguments in donald trump s criminal trial start after that judge juan merchan will deliver his instructions ti the jury. then those seven men and five women bill deliberate and give the result to former president. we don t know what the outcome will be. i know it sounds surreal, but it s all happening starting tomorrow morning. and if one person appears to be feeling the heat right now is clearly trump himself who surprise surprise, everyone, lashed out at the judge, the jury and over the weekend trump is pretty clearly testing the bounds of his gag order here because he knows at this point hours away from closing arguments the judge is probably past the point of wanting to derail they trial. as this case enters its final phase
president. we don t know what the outcome will be. only they decide that. that is how our system works, as it should. i know it sounds sur role. it is all really happening, starting tomorrow morning. and if one person appears to be feeling the heat right now, it is clearly trump himself. who, surprise, surprise, lashed out at the judge and the district attorney on the case as a whole over memorial day weekend. trump is pretty clearly testing the bounds ever his gag order because he knows at this point hours away from closing arguments, the judge is past the point of wanting to derail the trial and as the case enters the final phase, you could find any prediction for how it may end. the jury may find the prosecution did not make its case or be acquitted or deadlock and this could end in a mistrial. or the jury could convict trump as former fbi director james comey predicts. that would make trump the first former u.s. president to be convicted. by the end of the week, we may kn
Heres how it came to be. In may of this year, may 22nd, the New York Times had a scoop that they probably only got because they are specifically the New York Times. They sent crack reporters to an otherwise sleepy courthouse in albany, new york, not a Federal Courthouse, a state court, because that day in that state court in new york, a longtime Business Partner of Michael Cohens, A Taxicab Mogul Named Gene Friedman Who everybody called the taxi king, he was in court. He had been facing really serious charges in new york, Tax Evasion Charges in new york more than 5 million and four criminal counts of tax fraud and facing a charge of grand larceny. A big stack of charges involving a large amount of money and potentially a large amount of jail time. The story they uncovered at the courthouse that day, for some reason, friedman had gotten this huge Criminal Liability he was facing winnowed down to almost
nothing. He was able to work out some sort of deal where all of that prison time and
The days biggest political and news stories, with interviews and reporting from around the nation. Youve got Michael Cohen, of course, guilty. These are individuals who were incredibly close to the president of the United States of america, and weve got to get an answer to the question, what did the president know . When did he know it . When this crime spree was taking place all around him. Weve got to clean up corruption with this administration, and washington, d. C. , restore our democracy for the people. We played maya some sound bites of those that are coming out and defending the president , saying this is not a crime. Some to maybe some extent are saying, yeah, maybe its legally a crime, but its like a smaller crime, a 12k3450ermisdemeanor. What is your read of what Michael Cohen did . Is it significant or not, is it being blown out of the proportion for political reasons . Its extremely significant because it goes directly to whether or not a candidate, donald trump, directed