Joining us now, former Manhattan District Attorney and MSNBC legal
analyst,
Catherine Christian. So the defense is going to start first
tomorrow,
9:30 sharp. What's your expectation for how the day is
going to
go? I expected to go all day.
There'll be a break in between the defense summation and
the prosecution summation,
and it's better only go all day.
The last thing either side wants to do is board
the jury to death.
You want to keep it simple,
be very tight, but argue your points.
The defense has a harder job,
quite frankly, It's they should be arguing reasonable doubt.
They it's easy for me to say don't listen to
your client,
but they should focus in on what's missing.
What that the people, the prosecution didn't prove.
They should scope, you know,
just bring it out there.
They're going to talk about Michael Cohen.
They have to, they have to just hammer how incredible
he is.
What the defense wants is to have the jury think
if they don't believe Michael Cohen,
then the case is over.
That's what the defense would argue and should argue and
they should all I'm
sorry, I don't I mean to interrupt you.
Are there some key points that are key moments from
Michael Cohen's testimony or cross examination that you think are
going to come up?
Well, what he didn't say,
again, this is the defense,
you know, the he is Michael Cohen is direct evidence
that Donald Trump knew about this
scheme, you know, the installments and it was done,
you know, to hide the fact that they paid off
Miss Daniels.
Why? As a conspiracy to promote his election by unlawful
means,
the unlawful means being a violation of federal election law.
There really was no testimony of there was any conversation
between Michael Cohen and Trump and Weisselberg about we have
to do this because,
you know, that money we gave her wasn't illegal under
the federal election law.
There was no testimony about that.
There really was no explicit testimony from Michael Cohen that
it was actually a discussion with Trump about,
OK, Alan. And I said we'll we'll call these legal
expenses and then we'll have this installment plan.
And we're going to do this because we're going to
hide the fact that we can spot there was not
really that.
Of course, the prosecution will say
there's evidence of that. He didn't have to like write
out,
you know, a letter Donald Trump saying This is why
we're doing it there.
Why else would this have been done?
We have so many witnesses.
Hope Hicks, for instance, who talked about the crisis of
the campaign when the Access Hollywood tape hit and also
her conversation with Donald Trump about denying that he had
a sexual encounter of Stormy Daniels.
And also Hope Hicks, It was really a slur on
Michael Cohen.
But it helps the prosecution when she said Michael Cohen
would not do anything in the goodness of his heart,
meaning pay off Stormy Daniels.
Therefore, he had to have paid him her off because
Donald Trump wanted him to and he was going to
get reimbursed.
So that slap it, Michael Cohen actually is helpful to
the prosecution.
Yeah. There's so many witnesses the prosecution can bring up
and it it,
you know, is the defense going to bring up any
anyone more than Michael Cohen?
Are they going to bring up Bob Costello who was,
as everyone has put it,
even those that are in favor of Donald Trump was
a disaster on stand?
I want to ask you about something that Donald Trump
posted on his Truth Social because I wonder if this
gives us a hint about jury instructions and what they
might be. I know we haven't gotten any announcement from
Judge Juan Marshawn,
but I wonder, Catherine, in your experience,
if maybe he has said something to the prosecution or
the defense?
And I'm asking because Donald Trump said this.
The reason the radical highly conflicted Judge Juan Marshall had
to come up with three fake options for the jury
to choose from without requiring them to be unanimous,
which is completely UN American and unconstitutional,
is because the corrupt Soros back DA blah,
blah, blah. But he's talking about three options for the
jury to choose from without requiring them to be unanimous.
Is he talking about federal election crime,
state election crime, tax crime as the underlying felony charge?
And do you have a sense that they know what
the jury instructions are going to be?
I would, well, I would hope that the defense and
the prosecution know what the jury structure is going to
be since they're giving their summations tomorrow.
And I completely understand why though the press and we
would all want it,
why the judge didn't release it because he wants to
make sure the first time the jury hears about this
and we all assume the jury is abiding by the
judge's rules and not watching this right now is the
first time they hear about this is tomorrow.
So that post by Donald Trump is sort of a
hint,
if you can believe Donald Trump,
that maybe the instruction to the jury will be that
the unlawful means conspire to promote an election by unlawful
means could be the federal election law violation,
could be tax crime, state tax crime violation.
So I have a feeling that that's probably what Donald
Trump is talking about because his lawyers have a copy
of the jury instructions the judge will give tomorrow.
It's got to be a gift for the prosecution to
have those all three as options.
And you don't have to be unanimous on all three,
right, Christian? Catherine yes, definitely.
It's a gift. If the jury believes all of the
evidence,
it's a gift to them.
Catherine, you were going to be back with us.
I say that one more time,
they said, and if there's a conviction,
it will be an issue on appeal.
Got it. Catherine, going back with us tomorrow,
we will go all over this again for our special
coverage,
which begins at 10:00 AM Eastern.
You all been watching in great numbers.
Tomorrow is going to be something else.
We will see you then.