Trump dealt CRUSHING blow at trial

you're watching the legal breakdown so today's trial date is wrapped we've got some especially incriminating testimony against Donald Trump but first for those watching Glenn and I will be doing daily comprehensive coverage of Donald Trump's criminal trial so if you want to follow along please make sure to subscribe okay Glenn as for the testimony against Trump there was one thing that David pecker said that was especially incriminating against Trump can you speak on that yeah David peer you know remarkably but perhaps not surprisingly admitted that this stuff that he was doing these catch and kill schemes where he was paying people to um bury deeply damaging information about Donald Trump that clearly would have hurt him in his candidacy David pcker said you know what these things were not even in the business interest of Ami his company or the national Inquirer they were to help Donald Trump not be damaged in his Run for the president boy that is some powerfully incriminating evidence for let me call David pecker what he is one of Donald Trump's co-conspirators so it was David pecker Michael Cohen and Donald Trump in this conspiracy to try to hide this information from the American voters and in a very real sense Rob us all of the full value of our vote so you know what it's interesting Brian that Donald Trump has not seen fit to criticize David pecker openly either in the runup to the trial or during the course of the trial I have an idea of why that is but nevertheless Pecker's testimony was pretty devastating to Donald Trump and so can you speak about how that lends itself to the charges that Trump is contending with yeah so what people need to keep in mind in is all of this testimony from David pecker is what we call uncharged misconduct because David pecker was not involved in the Stormy Daniels payoff or the coverup of the Stormy Daniels payoff which involved falsifying business records which is a crime under the the laws of the state of New York um and ultimately the entire thing was done to gain unfair advantage in the election violating election campaign laws which is what bumps these crimes up to felony charges now David pecker was involved in the doorman payoff I'm not going to go through the backstory of that there was some uh information from a New York doorman that Donald Trump may have had an outof wedlock child the reporting is that ultimately proved not to be true but nevertheless David pecker paid to kill that story so it didn't hurt Donald Trump he was then intimately involved and in many ways took the lead on the catch and kill Caren McDougall piece of this but all of that is just kind of setting the T a in the Trump trial these are like the appetizers and what the prosecution is proving to the jury is that Donald Trump was in this conspiracy with David pecker with Michael Cohen to engage in this criminal scheme for political advantage and then they're going to get into the meat of it which is the stormmy Daniels payoff the falsifying business records all done for political Advantage not for personal Advantage he wasn't trying to hide this in information from his family that has already been proved a couple of times over this was about politics so um right now the David pecker testimony was to give the jury an idea of how Donald Trump went about this corrupt scheme and then the prosecutors will shift into the charge defenses which directly involve Stormy Daniels and further proving this is the fact that it would actually have been better for David pecker and the national Inquirer to to report on these salacious stories so the fact that he not only didn't report on them but killed them is just a testament to the fact that this really was simply only exclusively to help Donald Trump in his campaign and that is really where David pcker kind of drives an another nail into Donald Trump's legal coffin because it takes away the argument that well all of this was really just um the national Inquirer doing business the way it ordinarily does business but you know what it ordinarily does business for profit and this was not uh working to the financial advantage of Ami or the national Inquirer now David pcker wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his own heart you can bet you know after he was done sort of corruptly indeed criminally getting Donald Trump elected once Donald Trump was in the Oval Office you know David pecker was going to expect a little bit of advantageous treatment coming out of the oval office indeed coming out of the federal government RIT large so you know let's not say let's not mistakenly believe that David pcker was in this for altruism or just because Donald Trump was his very good friend right uh Glenn there was a moment yesterday that I wanted to discuss with you there was uh this moment where it became clear through testimony that hope hick and Sarah Huckaby Sanders were coordinating strategy on whether to extend Karen mcdougall's contract this is the hush money contract while they were working in the White House meaning while they were taxpayer funded government officials what are the implications of that Revelation well first of all you have to wonder if hope Hicks and Sarah hucke Sanders might have a little bit of liability or exposure but we don't know yet because hope Hicks hasn't yet testified but at a minimum it is deeply disturbing and unseemly and just generally abusive of what government officials and employees are supposed to to be doing they're supposed to be working on behalf of the American people for our benefit and instead what they're doing is scheming and conniving perhaps even conspiring though whether criminally or otherwise to try to continue to hide damaging information from the American people about Donald Trump and you know if if that is not a a an absolute perversion of what government employees are supposed to be doing I don't know what is and here's the thing Brian yes we heard from David pecker who is a friend of Donald Trump but really more of a business associate but we are about to hear from Hope Hicks who you know was very much a confidant of Donald Trump she was in the room often certainly on many many many occasions that David pcker was not in the room and she is likely to have some direct statements from Donald Trump about this whole uh you know sad episode and those statements might be sharply incriminating we don't know yet because you know we haven't really had much of a preview of hop pic's testimony it seems like the prosecution by and large has kept that under wraps in a way they weren't able to keep under wraps the David peckers of the world and certainly the Michael cohens of the world who you know talks all day you know early and often about how he is AG grieved by Donald Trump and I don't blame him he was a co-conspirator of Donald Trump he was complicit in these very crimes that are being charged now and he Michael Cohen was prosecuted convicted and imprisoned for among other things these campaign Finance violations Donald Trump all the while is out playing golf and going to fundraisers I would be pretty damn AG grieved too if I were Michael Cohen but again we know a lot about what Michael Cohen is going to say when he hits the witness stand but we know very little about what hope Hicks uh is going to say and that's coming up probably as early as next week by the way just a quick note on Michael Cohen it's is it true that it can lend itself further to Donald Trump's prosecution the fact that Cohen was convicted and sentenced to prison for the same crime that Donald Trump himself facilitated is that going to be taken into account by the jury in this case uh the answer is yes and no and we're going to have to have to do just a very short legal breakdown law school class here on this and I won't go too down too deep down into the the legal weeds so remember Michael enen pleaded guilty and was imprisoned in part for being part and parcel of these crimes that Donald Trump is now being tried for um David pcker was also criminally liable for these same crimes being part of this same conspiracy how do we know that well before the prosecutors ever got to sit down with David pcker and get all of the incriminating information that he had they had to give him what's called a non prosec ution agreement what does that mean it means that he very likely committed crimes but rather than charge him with those crimes get him to plead guilty to those crimes and become a formal cooperating witness for whatever reason prosecutors a few years ago decided we're going to promise not to prosecute him give him a non-prosecution agreement which extinguishes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination so he has to tell the prosecutors what he knows about his own crimes and the crimes of Michael Cohen Donald Trump and anybody else involved in this corrupt scheme so think about it two of the three conspirators are sort of known to have criminal responsibility for the very conspiracy and the Very crimes that Donald Trump is on trial for here's the caveat that people need to keep in mind prosecutors can't walk into court and say ladies and gentlemen of the jury Michael Cohen was convicted of these crimes David pecker who was part and of these crimes got a non-prosecution agreement which means he also uh committed these crimes we want you to use the fact that those two people committed crimes and got a non-prosecution agreement or were prosecuted for it as evidence of Donald Trump's guilt you can't there there is not a onetoone application like that instead the jury gets to hear all about these things the nonpr agreement and Michael Cohen's guilty plea and imprisonment to sort of assess the facts underlying everything that went on here and underlying what they're trying to prove about Donald Trump but I hope I explained that sufficiently you don't use for instance the guilty plea of Michael Cohen as evidence that Donald Trump committed the same crimes you can introduce that evidence but for other reasons and the judge will give the jury what's called a limiting instruction ladies and gentlemen you heard about Michael Cohen and what he did David pecker and what he did you can you can consider the underly facts but you can't conclude Donald Trump is guilty just because they're guilty got it okay well there's going to obviously be plenty of other pieces of evidence to for the jury to be able to conclude that that Donald Trump is guilty regardless um of course we have plenty more to come in this trial so again for those watching right now if you want to follow along with uh our daily comprehensive coverage please make sure to subscribe the links to both of our channels are right here on the screen I'm Brian teller Cohen and I'm Glenn kersner you're watching the legal breakdown [Music]

Channel: Brian Tyler Cohen

Views: 841,729

Keywords: Brian Tyler Cohen, Trump, Republicans, Democrats, brian cohen, politics, news, trump trial, david pecker, hope hicks, glenn kirschner

Id: yWzGFN2zpJE

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024