'Loud and clear' this is 'election fraud': Weissman on Trump's hush money trial

Yeah. And Andrew, meanwhile, the prosecution is clearly building this timeline. It appears to be calling witnesses kind of in chronological order. But will they wait to call in the Cohens, the Stormy Daniels? Well, you, you know the big question that Yasmin was really getting at is the the state has done such a good job of proving why you should care and also why this is a form of election fraud. All of that has come out loud and clear from Mr. Pecker and even with respect to Mr. Davidson saying look at what we’ve done and we’re sort of a sense of regret. All of that goes to the fact that this is election fraud. But what remains to be proved is putting the false business records either in the hands of or with knowledge of the former president to show that he was aware that there were false business records that misrepresented the reimbursement of Michael Cohen of the $130,000 that he put up to silence Stormy Daniels. So I think after Davidson, while there will be certainly some witnesses that are connective tissues sort of smaller witnesses, I think everyone’s waiting for the witnesses like Michael Cohen and witnesses who can testify about the former president’s actions and signing checks when he was actually the president, which the state says are the reimbursement payments. And so Andrew, I understand we’re having the first bench meeting of the day in the courtroom just about two minutes ago. This bench meeting just was was called for. Andrew, if you could for us just kind of lift up a little bit and remind us what the prosecution’s role is and responsibility in convincing jury members who aren’t seeped in the details of law and what is or is not legal. What’s the big picture for today’s hearing? Well, you have to remember what it is that the state has to prove it is it is alleged false business records. So you have to show that there were business records that were false and that means that Donald Trump had to know that. And so that’s the the key thing. And then they also have to show that it was part of this election scheme. Now the election scheme part is that is I think something where the we’ve heard a lot of evidence on that. But so far the false business records and showing that Donald Trump was aware that there were false business records which misrepresented the payment to Michael Cohen as legal fees when it really was just a reimbursement of these hush money payments. That’s something that is still to come. What I would say to everyone that was let’s wait you know these are brick by brick. The state proves the case. Having done these trials from the inside, I was always struck by the news coverage. Cause of course everyone wants the story everywhere all at once so they can understand the full picture. But we’re really not going to get that until summations. And then we will hear sort of how well the state has done and also whether the defense has been able to poke holes in that story. So there’s still a lot to come with respect to this. And then the final thing, which the state big, big picture I think needs to show a jury, although it’s not legally required, is why should you care? Like, why is this something that we as a jury should really be taking seriously? Now, that’s not they have an oath as jurors to take everything seriously. But it’s always good to have a sense of why this is an important matter. And I have to say, sitting in the courtroom, hearing about this world of fake contract, fake names spreading false information about political adversaries, killing stories that would damage a candidate faking news, essentially to help someone get elected. If that doesn’t get jurors sort of thinking this is an important case, I don’t know what would. So I think, yeah, there’s this enormous sleaze factor that you heard from Mr. Pecker and Mr. Davidson with where even he had to say the sort of fake denials from Stormy Daniels, he had to say, well, technically, under strict sense, maybe legally they’re they’re true. But it was absolutely clear to everyone in that courtroom that they were intended to mislead and to give the impression that there was no sexual encounter between Miss Daniels and the former president when in fact there was. So, you know, it is, it is a very sleazy, tawdry story, both in terms of the sort of sexual nature of this case, but also the, the import of the case, which was about the election and getting Donald Trump elected according to the state’s own witnesses. Yeah, I mean, Yasmin, fake news, fake contracts, fake denials, and then also just, I guess, fake names, too. Right. So. So what’s interesting, Jose, that I think that I’m seeing happening inside the courtroom right now is what Bovie is trying to do, is establish this idea of these are the types of things that happen with situations like this. Right? This is not, this is not specific to the former president. This is not specific to Michael Cohen. And I say that because of what I spoke about earlier and also jumping off of what Andrew was just talking about in poking holes, right. For instance, the retainer agreement, right, which I mentioned a little bit earlier, poking holes in the fact that there was no retainer agreement between Stormy, Daniels and and Davidson when she retained him as as her attorney. Right. And then when it comes to these pseudonyms, right, we talked about Dennison. We talked about the pseudonym used by Donald Trump, David Dennison, Peggy Peterson, the pseudonym that is used by Stormy Daniels. Right. The argument being made by the prosecution is, well, why would you use synonyms if you have nothing to cover up, right. If there was nothing nefarious about what was actually happening, the contract that was being laid out, this hush money payment, if there was nothing nefarious, why would you need to use necessarily a pseudonym? And so a question by Bouvet that was asked Peggy Peterson, David Dennison, that was your idea, Davidson says. That was not my idea. It is widely used in these types of deals. So this is type of kind of the back and forth that Bouvy is having, that Bovee is having with Davidson right now and asking these questions subsequently trying to poke holes in the prosecution’s argument and saying these contracts, these pseudonyms, these names that are used, for instance, are kind of part of the course for these types, Jose of agreements. Yeah. And you know, Jeffrey, you were talking earlier about Granular and Andrews talking about brick by brick, which is kind of what has to happen in a in a court case. How do you think the building’s going Well, I’m not there, Andrews. There, other people are there. But from the reporting that I’m reading is that the the state is is accomplishing both goals, making it interesting, taking what would normally be just a dry case about false records and and getting the jury to care. And it seems that that’s happening. And it seems that, you know, the witnesses like Mr. Davidson and others who were Mr. Pecker really make a somewhat dry topic, extremely, extremely interesting. Yasin Vasuki, Andrew Weissman and Jeffrey Sloman, thank you very much.