Watch All In With Chris Hayes Highlights: April 30

joining me now are two people who are at the courthouse today former Federal prosecutor Harry Litman and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin okay a lot to get to today let's sort of start where I ended on Keith Davidson um who's who's sort of an important substantive witness um tell us who Davidson is and and what he was going through today Davidson is the lawyer for both stormmy Daniels and Caren McDougall and so prosecutors were taking him through the negotiation of the settlement payments to both women which Chris as you know operated very differently the first one Ami handled the second one David pecker already testified he's told Dylan Howard do not get involved in this I do not want any affiliation with the porn star endangers are distribution deal with Walmart and also I am not a bank nonetheless Dylan Howard did get involved and he got involved by involving Keith Davidson who had a prior relationship with stormy daniels's manager Gina Rodriguez herself described as sort of an Infamous story broker this is the SEI underbelly of the world that David pecker sort of took us through this is a rung below yes this is the like we this is the the rung below the inquir is like that is too sketchy for us the national inquir you need to go run this as an off book operation because again us the National enquire find this to be too dubious and I'm glad you use the word sketchy because sketchy comes to mind when I think about Keith Davidson he was not an easy witness for the prosecution although an important one and I think part of that is because he did not want to acknowledge his full complicity in either of these deals he was shadowy for example about how he got involved and representing Stormy Daniels in the first place I mean it's a weird gig and how the deal was resurrected after he told Michael Cohen in mid October after Cohen had failed to fund the settlement I'm out and by the way I don't represent Stormy Daniels or Gina Rodriguez anymore nonetheless Michael Cohen gets called back into action and that whole deal gets papered in a matter of like 24 hours we know that because of the banker what what was your impression I know I think both of you sort of were on the same page that pecker was he he was interesting rightness and and incredible and sort of Frank and very and not shadowy and not squirely and sort of very upfront about what he does and what world he operates in and for that reason was a fairly credible witness I think was the the the Judgment what did you think of Davidson today yeah look I thought Davidson was also basically straight and the most important is he really brought us to the precipice of Stormy Daniels and the huge crisis that it is there was the all these sort of bland uh texts at every sort of step and then when the Access Hollywood tape hit you have him talking to Dylan AR say he is so effed uh and uh it's the and wave the White Flag so in other words he was very effective in reinforcing the notion that at this point the it's a nitroglycerin crisis that has to be de with when Planet Hollywood drops when Access Hollywood drops Access Hollywood I always do that so funny I don't want to defame the wonderful restaurant the so uh the bus idea so the key the key sort of yeah the key kind of narrative point that I took away again I'm following this I haven't read the transcript yet following these in your in the slack Channel but that the idea that there was the McDougall deal that it it set off some alarms internally in at Ami then there's the stormy deal and then the stormy deal kind of sputters out and Michael con is being squirrly and not really coming up like and that's dead and what resurrects it is the crisis of the Access Hollywood well yes and no because crisis of Access Hollywood is what precipitates the initial deal negotiations at some point it falls apart oh it falls apart okay correct in mid October after Access Hollywood already happens but Dylan Howard and others decide it has to be dealt with because Stormy Daniels and Gina Rodriguez are sort of now separated from Keith Davidson are going out and shopping her story so you've got a real problem and that's the bigger point there are hiccups in the road but the urgency is always there and that's the thing that's most important because really what is the defense going to say about that I we it's all set up to try to really Savage Michael Cohen but he's out there paying $130,000 knowing that he can't even take someone to lunch without Trump's approval what's the actual narrative that has him doing that that that isn't trying to put out this huge fire but I will say Keith Davidson was really impossible for the prosecution today because he would not say at least in response to a question that M would allow that he understood that Trump was the ultimate pocketbook for the stormy Daniel settlement and prosecutors desperately wanted him to say that and I think there were experienced lawyers in the room Harry included sort of looking at him being like can you ask this question in a way the guy can answer but he needed to lay the foundation for the fact that Keith Davidson had an understanding at all that it wasn't just an assumption that Trump was going to pay it but that it wasn't just Coen freelancing either and they didn't get that neatly and cleanly today they might on Thursday there there was there was a bunch of texts between the two that were that were displayed today I think we might even have some courtroom sketches of this and this is these are texts between The Inquirer the Ami dude Dylan Howard who's not pecker and Davidson yep what what is the substance of those exchanges I mean I think the substance of those exchanges is mostly to show a these guys were in touch very very very frequently yes this was they're working this they're working this deal working this and they both understand that both sides have an interest in coming to these agreements first McDougall and then stormmy Daniels even though Davidson testified he sort of wanted to rid himself the whole thing he found Cohen lome and detestable but ultimately he kind of you know just when he thinks he's out he gets pulled back into to doing this deal two sides of the same seeming world yeah let's let's talk about just quickly here 90 seconds I'm going to put on the clock for you to talk about the strangeness of the egene Carrol deposition court reporter and the C-SPAN archives what was that about quite clearly what is about is what you said that they were being uh obstreperous and not not stipulating everybody stipulates so they were going through the sort of first first year Law School requirements for business records exception Etc I thought the jury was going to be sort of you know very bored and even irked they actually seem to be paying attention to this as if it was wait but but take me through I mean I I I read the monologue so I understand the point but like just Hammer at home like you you stipulate you say like we all know like here's a campaign tape it's in public record stipulate that it's accurate is the real voice of Donald Trump as CP it's not just that yeah that C-SPAN didn't the regular course of Business by someone who the duty to do point being that you don't stipulate when you have to you have to establish a sort of chain of custody of this document and authenticate it with the person who can with speak to authority of its authenticity that's it you have to say be able to show it is what it looks like right okay um and then the the banker um who seems like basically he's basically like Michael con is really rushing and desperate and he doesn't know much about this deal but is maybe like sniffing around it not being great I think what he's saying to himself is Michael Co was always in a rush and real estate transactions are often rushed like this so even though there was something a little fuzzy about it maybe in retrospect and certainly once we knew about Stormy Daniels while we were going through it it didn't strike us as out of the ordinary because it was totally in keeping with how Michael Cohen behaved and totally in keeping with how our real estate clients behaved and Michael Cohen represented to us on paper that he was establishing a real estate consultant and paying a retainer to a lawyer but also hold that thought hold that thought because you're going to stay right here um I want to talk about that the gag or ruling uh how how Trump is enjoying his time in the freezing Courthouse eight hours a day that's all next stick around so today we finally got that long- awaited ruling on whether or not Donald Trump violated the gag order in his New York election interference case the prosecutors flagged 10 instances eight from social media two from his campaign website that they said ran a foul of the judge's order most of the posts attack Michael Cohen citing a New York Post article calling him a Serial perjurer others go after adult filmar JY Daniels and former prosecutor from DA's office Mark pomerans now this morning the judge agreed with the prosecution on nine of those 10 instances judge Maran finding Donald Trump in contempt of court ordering him to delete the post by 215 this afternoon which he did Trump has also been ordered to pay $1,000 per violation for a total of $9,000 to on Friday and if he does it again the judge warned that and I quote him here the court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances it will impose an incarcerator punishment I'm joined Now by Loris Cordell who serves as a judge on the California Superior Court still with me here at the table Harry Litman and Lisa Rubin and Harry you were saying something that I cut you off before he went to break but do you remember what it was uh no no okay but this was really you buried the lead just now because this is the first time Trump has heard next time you're going in because what preceded this was mer Chan saying the money just is not effective and really this he has now you know raised the the hammer and and says next time I'm coming down Lisa you made the point that the Thousand fine for instance is statutorily prescribed by New York law uh judge Cordell you you were with us here and you you have made a point that a lot of people people took a lot of notice of and I've heard back from folks who talked about your point that you made here on this a that you know you you can say look we are there is going to be jail time and I'm not going to tell you how much it is or where it is until after the trial so that you you try to get this disincentive effect what do you think of the ruling by judge Maran today uh the judge's ruling was totally within his discretion he found nine violations uh but there's a bit of a dilemma he's created um and is that he has has another contempt hearing coming up on Thursday and that's four more alleged violations so if the judge finds that all of those were in fact violations of his gag order I think most people would think well then you know he's going to send him to jail well he really can't because what he said today was that going forward correct if there are any more violations these four preceded it so now we'll have maybe 13 or 14 violations likely with more fines so so had the judge had the two contempt here the violations put them all together and had one hearing I think we'd have a different situation here where the judge probably would be inclined to say okay that's enough you're going in that that's a great point an important one because subsequent violations don't count for this hearing Thursday I just want to just to enter into the record here uh the some of the the posts by the the defendant in this case which again this is all very unusual this just really doesn't happen uh the judge has taken away my constitutional right to free speech I am the only presidential candidate in history to be all caps gagged this whole trial is rigged by taking away my freedom of speech the highly conflicted judge is rigging the presidential of 2024 election election interference he also said this is a total Witch Hunt hours of sitting down and listen to nothing except exoneration and lies the trial is going like a speeding bullet because the judge is working hard to make all of his friends happy he's rigged crooked conflicted disgraced to our country this is today this is today this is today now one of the things he says here and I we've sort of made this joke before that it's going too fast and too slow like it's he's sitting there so much but it's going so fast and two two things to bring up here one is the thing we discussed in the last block which is the refusal to stipulate is elongating the trial time correct absolutely it's hard to see how it couldn't the fact that you have to bring in the guy who's the head of cpan archives from Indiana with his Council to go through the process by which cpan records and keeps video archives of campaign speeches and make the jury sit through that too imagine how many more times we might have to go through similar things for other videos for example it can't help but along longate the trial and this is a guy who's blaming Alvin brag for keeping him off the campaign Trail when his lawyers and he have made choices that are keeping him there for longer not only that just to follow up he doesn't appear to enjoy himself and I can't imagine I would either I I I don't think this is a strange or character flaw he does a lot of resting of his eyes we can't say what's going on this is uh long uh saying the rosary in his head this is uh Ry about campaign speeches or he's falling asleep whatever it is he is his eyes are closed a lot in that room his eyes are closed a lot and to me what I will say is he appears to be at rest for considerable periods of time you know I spend a lot of time with my nose either in my phone or my computer at the courthouse trying to transcribe or Capture Moments for you and our other colleagues here but every time I looked up today it particularly during the first part of the day Donald Trump's eyes were closed he could have been meditating he could have been napping that's not for me to say other than I think he appeared to be at rest I brought Ben Reem we're talking about seriously he he was under um judge let me ask you this question the the the pacing of the trial so far um I I want to get your sense of how you think it's going obviously there is the fact that defense won't stipulate to these sort of archival to these records they have to bring in experts but what what do you think about the pacing so far so it's really the job of the judge to make sure the trial is moving along and I know when I was on the bench and I had many jury trials I was always looking over at the jurors they're always looking at me too uh but to see if they they were with us basically and I knew if saw some people yeah saw I'm nodding out then we take a recess uh so I I believe the pace is good these jurors are genuinely interested in what's going in the courtroom and I think it's true basically of all all juries there maybe a few exceptions they really want to do the work and they are paying attention uh to what's going on and they know this is this is important um so you know and if I could just say one thing about the fines that J Maran imposed I I put out a call to New York legislators they need to amend the statute that punishes criminal contempt in New York it is ridiculous uh now to have a maximum fine of $1,000 per violation it was probably right at the time because I don't think they ever envisioned having somebody really really wealthy just blatantly ignore the orders of the court so I hope that happen sooner than later on the point of juries you know this is a hobby horse of mine but if you'll indulge me to briefly write it uh it it you know it is the case that people's ability to pay attention for long periods of time all sorts of empirical evidence has pointed to that ability shrinking and obviously we understand why that is we have constant stimulus and distraction and even just thinking about I mean this is happening every day across the courtrooms Across America so this is just a slice of that but the the idea of remaining attentive and fixed for this period of time not looking at your phone not looking at other things for everyone in that room it has taken on a level of difficulty or um strangeness in the normal course of things that that that I I'm curious how you feel like when you check in on the jury how you think they're doing in that score I actually think they're doing really well um they all have Chris as you know an individual monitor in front of them and that certainly helps particularly when an examination is document intensive because their eyes are fixed on for example the individual text between Davidson and um Howard or the emails between Davidson and Cohen they've certainly looked really attentively at the bank records that other people might be bored by they're really interested in the details but the technology in the courtroom is assistive to them in that way in helping them stay engaged they're closer to the players than anybody else and they've got their own personal monitors with the exhibits demonstrated for them so it definitely aing the juror's ability to pay attention that having been said I think this particularly particular jury is especially attentive more attentive than for example the two juries in the Carol trials which who I thought were also fairly attentive I would say it's eing somewhat and there are a couple people in particular it's the best part of being in the courtroom to really focus there a couple jurors who who you think if he's got a shot it'll hold on maybe it's they but they have come in and out and the the um the text we were talking about where he's so effed you could see their attention come forward but it it's waned I think even in the days that I've been there they're they're pretty good right but but they're not at the edge of their chairs there's much fewer much less note taken than there was Judge Loris Cordell Harry Litman and Lisa rubman uh great to have you all thank you very much having us also you can get much more insight into what's been happening in the courtroom during this trial in the latest episode of my podcast wise is happening with Lisa Rubin we got to talk about the trial uh it was great it is available wherever you get your podcasts so check it out for

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Id: X6LtXHqVGyw

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024