'Purpose was to influence the election': Prosecution 'scored a lot of points' in Trump trial today

OK, Paul Trump’s defense drilled in again today into the word standard in questioning Pecker. They drew that running negative stories like one on on Trump’s opponents was standard because it was good for business. But in Redirect Steinglass also now honed in on that term, he asked is it standard to be negotiating with the presidential candidates fixer on an agreement? And is a $1 million liquidated damages clause on a $30,000 source agreement standard operating procedure? Who’s being more effective on the use of the word standard and why does it matter so much? So I think they’re both making decent points. This trial is about Trump’s motive in arranging this hush money payment. Hush money payments aren’t illegal unless you’re disguising business records or falsifying business records, which is what the prosecution is alleging. And so Trump’s defenses, well, a lot of people did these deals where they tried to protect their private information, information. It wasn’t about the campaign. It’s about people’s reputation or Trump’s case. It was about protecting his family. But again, if you’re going to do a deal like that, do you really pay all this money that Trump was willing to pay? Both Kara McDougal and Story Daniels? That hasn’t been the practice in other cases. And Mr. Pecker’s key concession of both on direct and now in response to the redirect was that Trump knew that this was about the campaign. That’s what Alvin Bragg has to prove. And I think on that point he’s proving it. So this Tristan is exactly why I was surprised to hear. And we’re following our blog, other blogs about from people who are in the room, They talk about jurors being wrapped. They are leaning in, They are taking copious notes. A lot of this testimony is pretty inside baseball. Who’s doing a better job here, Look, your reading of it. Yeah. Look, I think they’re both doing a pretty good job, but I think the prosecution is scoring more points here right now when the jury is leaning in and they’re paying attention. I don’t look, a lot of this is inside baseball, but a lot of this is pretty direct and clear. Like, what was the purpose of all of this? I think that there’s a certain amount of common sense here that I think the jurors are going to bring to bear. What was the purpose of paying this money? That’s really what this whole thing comes down to. The fact that the money was paid is not really in question. The fact and it’s not illegal and it’s not but it and then and then we’re going to get to the part where it’s clear that Michael Cohen invoiced it and it was papers as legal expense to him when it wasn’t. That’s going to be clear too. The question is why did they do it? And I think the fact that the jury’s leaning in and the fact that you’re seeing some really great stuff here on redirect, I think that the prosecution scored a lot of points today. So when you’re talking with these kinds of things, and again, I’m not hearing it, I’m only reading what can be typed very quickly, is this something that you don’t necessarily need the jury to follow in every detail right now? If it’s that important, you’ll bring it back in closing or with a later witness, of course. Exactly. Look, you’re laying the ground, you’re laying the groundwork. But look, a lot of these, a lot of these exchanges here, these are very simple questions and very simple answers. Some of them aren’t. Some of them are much more involved. Some of them are actually very, very cut and dried. What the purpose of it was to influence the election. Pecker saying Yes, we put that up on the screen a number of times. Now, like, that’s a key thing. The jury heard that. Like a lot of those sort of big moments in there. The jury was dialed in. They, from all reports, they were paying attention. They got those key moments in it. And yes, if the prosecutors do their job right, and I trust they will, they’re going to keep coming back to these key points as the trial progresses. Let me ask you, Paul then, about one of those moments that will seem, I think, pretty straightforward to most people, but I want your interpretation of it. Trump’s lawyer pressed Pecker on his efforts to sell the National Enquirer during talks for that non prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in New York. Bovi asked Pecker. You knew that to consummate that deal you had to clear up the investigation? To which Pecker replied yes. What’s the significance there? So Chris, at the end of the trial, the judge is going to instruct the jury that the defense does not have to prove anything. It’s the prosecution that has the heavy burden of proof. So Mr. Boble’s job is to plant reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. So his cross examination is trying to suggest to the jury that the prosecution’s first witness is compromised and thus he’s not credible. If he admits to wrongdoing, then he’s going to lose money from this deal with trying to sell the National Enquirer. And that’s also what Mr. Bovay is focused on, Pecker’s non prosecution deal. He wants the jury to think that Pecker is basically marching to Alvin Bragg’s orders because Pecker doesn’t want to go to jail himself. So that’s also why I told the jury that Trump thanked that Trump had thanked Mr. Pecker a few days before the inauguration, even though Mr. Pecker earlier told the FBI that Trump had not thanked him. So, Chris, for an effective cross examination, Mr. Buckley doesn’t need a Perry Mason moment where Pecker breaks down on the stand. All he has to do is kind of chip away at Mr. Pecker’s testimony. And I think he’s done a decent job of that. Yeah, there are points at which again reporting from side, they talk about the way Bovey was was approaching this. The description of David Pecker is that he’s a a smaller man, fairly slight that he has a kind of a soft demeanor which belies right the job that he actually did. But that’s the way he’s coming across on the stand. And at one point Bovey got pretty pointed and raised his voice a little bit. Are you very careful when you’re doing a cross examination about how you come across in contrast to however the witness presents? Right? Because there’s two things you’re trying to do there. One of them is to get the witness to say things that help your case. That’s actually what you’re trying to get them to do. You’re trying to get that opposing witness to say things that help your case. The other thing you’re trying to do at all times is to be likable and relatable with the jury. The jury doesn’t like your toast. So yeah, I don’t think it’s great for Beauvais to then be striking too much of A contrast. If you’ve got a witness that’s being nice and courteous and so forth and so on, and then you’ve got a defense counsel who’s ripping them apart, that’s not a good combo. That’s a bad contrast. It’s not going to make the jury really like Beauvais very much. And I think that look they they managed to find some little things in there to make people question Pecker’s credibility. But I think that one thing that I think a lot of people have is common sense is a lot of and this will get carried into the jury room is that if you’ve got a, if you’ve got a an alleged criminal on trial and the other witnesses are other people who did bad things, well that’s just how it works. Like to catch a criminal, you’re probably going to have other people that engage in criminal activity up on the stand. That’s just the way these things go. And the prosecution will probably point that out to a different points here that it’s like, look, a lot of these people, their hands aren’t clean either, but they came clean. They cooperated with us and and they’re now telling the truth. And that’s exactly how you’re not going to get that person’s criminal culpability examined unless you look at the other people that engage in criminal activity with them. I should say, Paul, that they’ve just broken for lunch. The expectation is that they may be have another half hour or less and then recross, but they’re out until 12:15. But I want to go back to this idea about even though the questions get asked multiple times and sometimes they can get asked in a very convoluted way. At the heart of this right, to some extent, is intent. Why did catch and kill happen? Did it happen for business reasons? Did it happen because this was standard operating procedure? Or did it happen because they were trying to protect the campaign? And in one of the very last exchanges that just happened in the last couple of minutes, here’s what David Pecker said. Those stories that came up, and he means the negative stories that would appear. I would speak to Michael Cohen and tell him that these are the stories that are going to be for sale If we don’t buy them, someone else would. How important is that for the case the prosecution is trying to make and that Bovee was trying to disprove? It’s huge. So every one of the government’s witnesses who has knowledge will say that this catch and kill deal and the hush money payments were all about trying to install Donald Trump in the White House. And Trump isn’t going to predict present one witness who will contradict that based on what we know. Because everybody who was involved in this hope picks Mr. Pecker, Donald Trump and Michael Cohen all say that it was about the campaign. And so I think that the direct examination, Mr. Pecker did say that Michael Cohen was kind of full of himself. He was trying to put his fingers in everything and he was acting like he was a campaign lawyer, but that wasn’t his job. So that will support Trump’s defense that it wasn’t his intent to try to win the election by shutting up Stormy Daniels and Karen McDonald’s. Maybe that’s something that Michael Cohen was trying to do. But Trump will try to get the jury to think he didn’t have anything to do with that, That Michael Cohen was a lone wolf.