Stormy Daniels has sparred with Donald Trump’s lawyers | Planet America

Professor Anna Kaminsky welcome to Planet America's fireside chat thank you so much for having me pleasure to be here so what's your general assessment uh what have you made of the prosecution case that has been brought so far in New York is it any stronger or weaker than you had expected based on the initial indictments I actually think it's pretty consistent with what the indictment suggested um and the reason for that is because they had what we call a speaking indictment where in addition to the indictment that had the charges in it they actually provided us with a lot of information about the case that they had presented to the grand jury which has been quite consistent with what we've seen in front of the jurors um and so nothing really surprising so far what do you think is going to be the toughest element that the prosecution are going to need to prove to the jury to make a conviction stick by far the hardest thing for them to do right now and we have not seen this happen yet is for them to show intent so intent is an element a crucial element of the crimes that Trump is charged with and so part of what they need to know show is that he knew about this right he knew about this payment he knew that these documents were allegedly falsified and they haven't yet made that connection so that's really what we're looking for right now and that's tricky because unless someone says I did this that intent right that's an operation of the mind that we don't see on the surface so we need Witnesses we need documents to show that he had that intent that he had that knowledge Professor we have already seen quite a bit of evidence pointing to the fact that President Trump knew exactly what he was doing in managing his business and personal affairs signing all the checks still is that going to be enough do you think to prove intent well listen certainly the the the you know people who make the decision about whether it's enough are ultimately the jurors right and they haven't they haven't made that decision yet but that being said from what I can tell what we've seen so far is not enough there is not that connection they have not shown every piece of paper to the jury and they have not yet had someone come in and say I talked to Trump about this or Trump talked to me about this right and what from what we know we expect that individual to be Michael Cohen um and we have not heard from him yet and we don't know how credible he he will be so who do you think has been the most important witness so far for either the prosecution or the defense in order to build their case well it's interesting I mean you know it's not pardon the T pun right but it's not as sexy as say Stormy Daniels but the the individuals who have come in and testified about the documents um you know hope hick came in and talked about what a crisis this was these are the people that are actually testifying to the facts that really give Credence to the prosecutor's case right we know this is a document case which means we need to see the documents and so some of these more what what people might say these more boring witnesses that have testified so far and have started to introduce the documents we need those documents the jury must see those documents in order to make a decision about this case and in particular if the prosecutors want a conviction so clearly the media has paid an awful lot of attention to the evidence presented by Stormy Daniels this week but how do you think that evidence will be received by the jury well th listen stormmy Daniels is a very difficult witness for both sides um and we saw that play out you know the judge chided the prosecutors about going a little bit too far having her go a little bit too far with respect to her testimony and so the defense when they have their opportunity to cross-examine they're having to make a decision about you know how involved how deep into the facts of this do they really want to go my concern for the defense and and we saw started to see this with stormmy Daniels is that one of the hardest defenses is to say that all of the witnesses testifying against the defendant are liars all of them are not credible and so taking that approach with respect to all of the major players is a very difficult defense because you're you're asking the jurors to not just find Cohen incredible but to find Stormy Daniels incredible to find David pecker incredible and so it starts to add up where the jury starts to question well wait a minute maybe I'd find one of them not credible maybe you'd find two of them lying but it's hard to continue to find witnesses not credible and so that's a difficult defense to put forward so Professor Beyond confirming that Trump and Stormy Daniels did indeed have an affair there's all the juicy gossip that all the media are talking about have any probative value to the trial at all so it it actually does you know the the question is sort of how much of it is necessary but it does and the reason is because in order for the prosecutors to get a conviction in order for the jury to make that determination they not only have to find that these documents were falsified but they also have to find that there was an intent to commit another crime and we know here based on what the prose computers have said that the other crime that they're pointing the jury towards is a conspiracy to unlawfully affect the election and at its core that conspiracy according to the prosecutors surrounds covering up this alleged Affair and so therefore they have to have someone testify to the affair itself and in particular to some of the details to make it believable that Trump might want to go this far in order to cover it up and and professor president Trump has made it very clear that he would like to take the stand in this trial uh and he's clearly chafing under the gag orders not that it's entirely stopped him of course uh were you his defense attorney would you be encouraging him to take the stand or not well what I would say is I certainly wouldn't be advising him before I've seen all of the prosecution's case right the burden lies with the prosecutors they have the burden of proof the defendant does not have to testify and in fact has a right not only to choose whether or not to testify but also for the jury to be instructed that they may not hold it against him if he does testify certainly in a case like this it's dangerous water for the defendant to testify as it is in all cases um but it's sort of yet to be seen what the right decision would be what the smart de decision would be because we haven't seen the prosecution's entire case so what do you think of the defenses claim that with stormy Daniel's super detailed testimony that's kind of going to Force Trump to not testify in his own defense because he'd be worried about cross-examination about stormmy Daniels related material and that that potentially could be grounds for appeal if he's convicted well so listen depending upon a judge's ruling there's always the argument that a defendant's right has to testify has been chilled because of decisions made by the court right depending upon what the court has said that the prosecutor may cross examine the defendant about if the defendant chose to testify and so that it's not surprising that the defense is asserting that now um however that doesn't mean that they can't ask the court to narrowly tailor some of the questions that the prosecutor would be permitted to ask so in particular given the judge's um you know reaction to some of Stormy Daniel's testimony it was clear that the judge thought that some of that testimony was sort of outside of what needed to be presented to the jury and I can imagine that if the defense attorneys made an argument made an application to the court and said you know listen we if our client testifies um and and the prosecutor is permitted to ask about this we want it to be you know more narrowly tailored I have a feeling the judge might go along with it now after seeing uh stormy Daniel's testimony that being said one of the risks of testifying as a defendant is that pretty much everything is fair game outside the judge's rulings with respect to Prior convictions and prior bad acts and how do you think the Judge should be handling Trump's repeated breaches of the gag order clearly uh in a political sense it seems like he wouldn't mind being packed off to Riker's Island for a few nights would the judge be wise to be putting that in his mind that this is maybe something the defendant actually wants you know the gag order is a real distraction for the defense in particular um you know trying a case trying a case of this magnitude is exhausting it's time consuming um it it takes literally every part of your being as a defense attorney and a prosecutor for that matter but as a defense attorney when you're in trial that's all you're doing is eating sleeping and breathing the case and something like having to deal with your client and potential other issues ancillary issues is a Time suck it really affects your ability to focus on the issues of the case so you know with respect to this gag order whether the judge would actually send him to Rikers the judges certainly indicated that that is a possibility uh whether that will happen we just don't know yet so do you think that Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen should have both also had gag orders placed on them by the judge just for the sake of the Integrity of the trial this has been a question that's come up before and it's a good question right should be even Stephen right both sides should be told you're not allowed to discuss the case and the difference is is that what the court is saying the court has said with the gag order you know whether you agree with it or not is the court is saying to the defendant that I am going to make sure that I maintain the Integrity of this courtroom and of this process and I am concerned based on the prosecutor's allegations that when you talk about these people you may scare them away from testifying or testifying truthfully um and therefore I want to prevent that from happening which is different from just talking about it um the judge is making a distinction there and that's where the balance between the individual's First Amendment right to free speech and then protecting the Integrity of the Court comes into play so Professor it does seem as though we've got at least another two maybe three weeks of prosecution witnesses and evidence to come we don't really know what happens beyond that to the timeline of the case but what will you be looking out for most during that period two big things the first is we've got to see all those doc docment right we need to see all of them we need to see everything that substantiates those 34 counts and the second of course is Michael Cohen how does he play to the jury how does he come off does he own up to some of the things that he's done does he still come ac across as credible that's going to be really important and then of course when the prosecutor closes their case does the defense decide to put on a Case finally with the complexity and the magnitude of this case do you think this trial is ultimately a what the jury comes up with now or what the appeals court comes up with in the year time you know it's really going to be both this is a historic moment in our country's history um and the determination by the jury will be forever the determination by that jury and so in the first instance that that is what matters um and as we've seen you know the appell at court does not always react quickly and in particular the Appel Court does not react quickly after conviction after trial they this is something that they take their time to consider so although if there was a finding of guilt if there was a conviction we know most certainly there would be an appeal that initial finding of guilt and that sentence is really what's going to be impactful you know in the near future Professor Anna Kaminsky thank you for having a fir side chat with us thank you for having me

Channel: ABC News (Australia)

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Keywords: Australia, abc, abc news, news

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Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024