All right, we are getting some more details out of
the courtroom here in Manhattan,
NY State Supreme Court, New York City,
where a brief break just took place a few minutes
ago.
The former president and his legal team re entered the
courtroom.
William J Brennan is joining us now.
Former Trump payroll corporation attorney.
Bill, great to have you on the program.
So give us your thoughts on what is coming out
of that courtroom this afternoon.
Well, good afternoon, Sandra, and thanks for having me.
Sandra. I I got to tell you,
I am totally flabbergasted by what came out today.
I mean, I think until today,
I just saw it as
a a bit of an unusual case where you had
a a polluted source as your star witness.
But you know these things happened then it got worse
each day he was on the stand.
But, you know, I, I if you just put yourself
in
the prosecutor's chair, the prosecutor,
the DA, Mr. Bragg, you know,
there's prosecutorial discretion that must be exercised
before any charges were bought against any citizen.
So just picture yourself in that chair
and you know that the Southern District turned this case
down before it came to you.
You turned it down once already,
I believe when the Cy Vance administration was in,
it was turned down. And your chief of fraud comes
to you,
Sandra, and he or she pitches you and says,
hey, Mr. DA, you know,
we've got this case. But let let me tell you
about our star witness.
He's a disbarred lawyer. He's a perjurer,
convicted perjurer. He's a pathological liar.
He surreptitiously records his clients and other people without telling
them.
And he stole
$60,000 from his client. And we have to get through
that.
I, I, I would think the DA would say,
well, who are we taking down?
Like El Chapo? We're taking down ISIS.
No, no, Mr. Bragg. We're going to take down a
guy who allegedly had some record keeping issues.
And if we can, we can build it up a
little bit,
maybe a felony. This is a disgrace.
So. So there's a quick break in the court action
right now because they're trying to get some audio equipment
to work to play a tape
that the prosecution has entered.
They've also entered in evidence a picture of Trump and
Schiller.
Keith Schiller is head of security.
It was taken from the end of a video.
Susan Hoffinger asked Cohen if he had multiple conversations with
Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter.
Cohen confirms he says he had more than 20 in
October of 2016.
Cohen confirms Trump told him to work out the Stormy
Daniels payoff with Weisselberg.
Cohen says he has no doubt Trump signed off on
the Stormy Daniels deal and would not have paid it
without assurances of repayment,
despite everything that he told everybody in 2018.
I've got a text message from Michael Cohen on my
phone from February 14th,
Valentine's Day 2018, in which he says he paid the
money.
Trump knew nothing about it.
The Trump Organization wasn't involved.
He didn't get any repayment for it.
And now he's on the stand telling a totally different
story.
And Susan Hoffinger is doing her best to try to
resurrect
a a witness who, as you pointed out,
acknowledged this morning, stole
$60,000 from his client in in in in addition to
surreptitiously recording him
lying to him and lying to everybody else on the
planet.
John, as I said, I'm gobsmacked over this.
I can't imagine that she can get up there with
a straight face and try to resuscitate this particular witness.
I mean, and now he testified he wants to run
for Congress because he has great name recognition.
I mean, this will come down to,
I think it might have been Professor Turley.
But somebody wrote earlier today I saw
that a Manhattan jury probably has severe disdain for this
particular defendant,
but they may have more disdain about being conned and
treated like chumps.
And it really will come down to that because this
guy's obviously not worthy of belief and they've pinned their
entire case on him for a misdemeanor records keeping case.
Or if all of the
bubble gum and zip ties hold together,
may be a felony. You know,
Bill, we're getting another update from the courtroom and they're
playing out this call with Keith Davidson dated October
17th, 2017.
The clip is played. It's it's this clips are playing.
They have technical issues. Sorry,
this is a rough readout from the courtroom.
People can't get the clip,
the audio clip to work.
So then they ask for a quick break.
The jury's now been dismissed for a few minutes while
they figure this out.
I would describe this all but smooth.
What is happening in the courtroom today?
I mean it seems, Sandra,
like Keystone Cops at this point,
but when you take these two issues,
this particular call where on direct,
Cohen said he called to talk about the Daniels resolution
and Mr.
Blanche brought out the texts to
about the 14 year old child.
It's obvious what's happening here.
All right, Bill, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you.