Done for the week and maybe one week to go.
That's what we just heard from the judge in Trump's
hush money case.
After a slower day of testimony,
they were analyzing phone records.
Paralegal took the stand. Even a Verizon employee.
Can you hear me now?
Well, you didn't hear from Stormy Daniels,
because her testimony wrapped up and it was definitely combative
and salacious.
But As for today, in former President Trump's historic criminal
trial,
former White House aide Madeline Westerhoot continued her testimony after
breaking down on the stand yesterday.
We also heard from Jaden Jardem Schneider and Georgia Longstreet,
both paralegals for the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
And then there was Jenny Tomlin,
an employee for Verizon. The only key witness left for
the prosecution though Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen
who made that
$130.00 thousand payment to who Stormy Daniels who as you
know is at the center of this case.
We've got team coverage leading us off on this rare
Friday afternoon where trial actually wrapped early.
Senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky is outside court.
Also executive editorial producer John Santucci and legal contributor and
trial attorney Brian Buchmeier join us.
So I guess happy hour starts early today folks.
Aaron testimony wrapped up for the week.
A parade of witnesses came through.
Kind of catches up to speed for the with the
highlights.
Well, the most interesting point may have been right at
the end when the prosecutor,
Josh Steinglass stood up and said that there are only
in all likelihood 2 more witnesses left.
We know one of them is Michael Cohen and he
said the prosecution could rest its case at the end
of next week.
Today, the testimony did take a marked turn.
After the dramatic testimony offered by Stormy Daniels,
the focus returned to the records at the heart of
the case.
We heard phone logs, talked about tweets,
text messages and and other records that that prosecutors introduced
to the jury through these custodial witnesses.
We didn't hear a lot of substance about the records.
All of them are likely to come up when Cohen
testifies next week,
including a series of tweets from Donald Trump in 2018,
about four months apart. In April of that year,
he was praising Michael Cohen as someone he respected.
But after his guilty plea and his agreement to testify
before Congress,
Donald Trump turned on him and said if you need
a good lawyer,
do not hire Michael Cohen.
Well, Madeline Westerhart John was
once deep in Trump's orbit but left on bad terms
after those off the record comments to reporters telling them
all the intimate details about the president's personal life,
including they didn't want to be photographed with his daughter
Tiffany because of her appearance.
How impactful was her testimony?
Our testimony was interesting, I think on several fronts,
right? As far As for the prosecution was concerned,
Kira, she was the connective tissue,
right? She was the one that would receive those FedEx
envelopes that were shipped down from Trump Tower that included
those checks,
the checks that Donald Trump himself signed that were the
reimbursement pants to Michael Cohen for the
$130,000 that was paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her
silent leading up to the 2016 election.
Now for the defense. As a character witness,
Madeline was actually pretty good for them too,
because she talked about Donald Trump being a good boss,
talked about how much she enjoyed working for him,
talked about, you know, even the way that she was
fired,
said she learned a lesson because she,
in her words, you know,
spoke out of turn about something.
So I think All in all,
she was actually quite interesting in her testimony from both
sides of it.
And I think what we've now seen today between where
Madeline ended and the custodial witnesses that have been on
the stand,
it is all setting the table for Monday.
And Michael, all right, let's talk about those custodial witnesses,
Brian, we heard from a number of them talking about
phone records,
video footage, logs. What's the state's strategy trying to do
here and what stood out to you,
similar to what John is saying,
you're setting the stage for Michael Cohen's testimony instead of
having Michael Cohen being an individual who is participating in
some of these phone calls and these logs bring in
the evidence. In his case,
what the prosecution is choosing to do instead is have
other witnesses bring forward those text messages,
those phone calls. And I think what the strategy here
is,
is that Michael Cohen's credibility is going to be attacked
left,
right and center, says one thing and then is corroborated
by another thing.
And the prosecution is going to try to present that
to the jury.
They say, like, look, see,
he's, he's telling the truth.
Yes, we told you that he was a liar.
In other instances, he might have even been found guilty
for lying in many ways.
But in this topic, he's telling the truth.
So I think that's the plan and the strategy from
what we've seen from custodian witnesses and how we're going
to move forward in this case.
All right, Aaron, what are you just finding out about
Allen Weisselberg?
Well, Allen Weisselberg is is not here.
He's in prison after he pleaded guilty to committing perjury
when he testified in the civil case down the block
involving former President Trump
and and the the the attorneys,
the judge are discussing how to deal with his absence
before the jury.
Because his name keeps coming up.
He was crucial in setting up the hush payment to
Stormy Daniels,
at least how to pay for it,
according to Michael Cohen and according to prosecutors.
And they're they're trying to figure out how to account
before his absence and and whether they could bring his
severance agreement,
for example, before the jury.
Would that offer a proper explanation?
The defense certainly doesn't want that before the jury.
And now they're they're talking about how to deal with
Michael Cohen himself.
We know that former President Trump has been under a
limited gag order that prevents him from attacking Cohen and
other witnesses.
The defense wants a gag order on Michael Cohen because
he's been online,
as ABC News has previously reported,
saying disparaging things about the former president that Trump is
not allowed to respond to.
So the defense would like the judge to to put
a muzzle on Michael Cohen,
at least for the weekend before he comes here to
testify.
And as expected, John Trump came once again with a
posse of support.
So are these folks just a safety blanket or are
they helping with the messaging here?
Well, it's a bit of both,
right? I mean, he's got a couple campaign officials in
the courtroom with him today,
one of which is Susan Wiles,
who is the de facto campaign manager for Donald
Trump's 2024 campaign. Jeanine Pirro,
the Fox News commentator currently but former longtime Westchester County
District Attorney,
who Donald Trump's husband, she he pardoned.
That was his last act as president here,
as you might recall right before power was handed over
to Joe Biden after in
20 20/21, she was in the courtroom,
Donald Trump patting her on the back as he exited
during one of the breaks earlier in the day.
And look, Piro along with many of the other,
you know, conservative media hosts that were in the courtroom
yesterday,
including Greg Kelly, whose father was the former NYPD commissioner,
you know, they are a very powerful voice box for
Donald Trump.
So Jeanine Pirro being in the courtroom today,
giving her perspective, is going to be very different because
no matter what happened in the courtroom today or yesterday,
she's obviously going to be very pro Trump and can
create an image for Trump supporters that frankly,
many people can't because as we all know,
Kira, unfortunately, New York State does not allow cameras in
court.
Yeah. And I'll tell you,
if those cameras were there,
it would be an even bigger
media circus.
Yeah, exactly. OK. So, Aaron,
just kind of first of all,
why do we wrap early today?
It was a nice little Friday celebration
that that it ended a few hours early.
What's the purpose behind that?
Because they definitely did get through a number of of
witnesses today in court.
Yeah, these were all witnesses.
To get the records into the record,
we looked at phone logs,
tweets, text messages and other documents and records that are
likely to come up during the testimony of Michael Cohen,
who is probably the next to last witness for the
prosecution.
There may be a summary witness.
Prosecutors said depending on how the cross examination goes,
they could rest the case as soon as next week.
I'll tell you, former President Trump spent most of the
day
not listening a whole lot to to these custodial witnesses.
You saw. He came out with a stack of papers.
He was very busy all during the the trial today
marking up those papers,
perhaps preparing what he wanted to highlight in his hallway
remarks just now. But he he was pretty intent all
day in in marking up those those papers where the
jury was,
I think a little, a little sleepier.
After the dramatic testimony of Stormy Daniels,
it was a much more subdued day,
but it did end outside the presence of the jury,
with an admonishment for Michael Cohen.
The defense had asked the judge to slap him with
a gag order because he's been online so often saying
disparaging things about former President Trump,
and the defense complained Trump can't respond because of the
gag order that he's under.
The judge declined to go that far,
but he did ask the prosecutors to instruct Cohen as
a message from the bench,
to cool it this weekend before he comes to court.
Yeah, the judge saying I would direct the people to
communicate to Mr.
Cohen that the judge is asking him to refrain from
making any more statements about the case.
You know, John Michael Cohen is very much like the
former president.
He's going to push the limits
as far as he can go.
Yeah. Well, the big thing here,
Kira, is that he had made a statement several weeks
ago to say on
X, formerly Twitter that he was not going to be
commenting on the case going forward.
However, Kira, he kept doing so on TikTok.
Michael Cohen, every night around 10:00 PM,
host a show on TikTok.
ABC News was first to report on this.
Kira, as you'll recall, our team will speak in Olivia
Rubin breaking this story because they watched these his videos
that Michael Cohen was doing 10:00 PM going on for
hours doing exactly what he said at one point he
wouldn't do.
He commented about the case significantly.
Even this past week, Kira Will Steekin and our team
observed it again just because we've been keeping an eye
on it.
We saw Michael Cohen wearing AT shirt,
the T-shirt had a picture,
a caricature if you will,
of Donald Trump behind bars.
That is something that clearly the prosecutors do not want
him to be doing.
They don't want, I want him to be talking about
this case in any way,
shape or form because all they're doing is doing exactly
what happened in court today,
giving material to the defense,
Donald Trump's lawyers to step up and say to the
judge,
what's going on here. So Brian,
isn't Michael Cohen kind of taking a risk here?
Because if you look at what this case is all
about,
it's it's the bank account that was set up to
make these payments to Stormy Daniels,
to be quiet. And Michael Cohen has laid out every
intricate detail of how he did that and how it
happened.
And we've seen the documents.
We've heard from the banker and his she's stuck to
that story.
But when he goes off and does,
you know,
creates these antics like he's been doing,
doesn't that hurt his, his credibility more than help him
no matter what kind of facts he has?
No, I think it does more than her.
It damages him extensively to the point that
a number of things for one,
what John just said, spot on.
If I was Donald Trump's attorneys,
I would just take a recording of what he just
said in terms of why Michael Cohen shouldn't have a
gag order and see how his words can potentially affect
the trial and the proceedings.
That's why Donald Trump has a gag order.
What Michael Cohen is doing is not just harming his
own credibility.
I would argue it's harming the case as well because
this case is built largely
on his word. And if his word gets destroyed,
it's not just saying, oh,
he's a liar, but it's also saying why didn't you
ever bring this case,
which is a, which is one of the major arguments
that Donald Trump is having here.
And so I think in him having these these outbursts
and speaking this way,
no, it it doesn't help the defendant.
It doesn't have the prosecution anyway.
Brian. Aaron. John, thanks guys.