Hush mony case

Tonight, breaking news, trashing Cohen's character. Cara Scannell reporting tonight that Trump's legal team is expected to go after the credibility of Trump's former fixer, Michael Cohen, during their closing arguments tomorrow. Cohen, of course, is the prosecution's star witness here. Their case really hinges on his testimony, which lasted days.

This as prosecutors will be trying to piece together five weeks of testimony in order to convince the jury that Donald Trump is guilty of falsifying business records in order to conceal a $hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. The major question for both sides, will this jury of seven men and five women who have now been off out of court for an entire week, will they be swayed one way or the other based on what they hear tomorrow? Donald Trump isn't taking any chances.

Already laying the groundwork to claim the case was rigged from the start. Should he be convicted today alone? Firin
g off a number of posts, targeting Judge one Mershon, calling him radical, conflicted, suggesting the president actually fixed the entire jury process in order to ensure a guilty verdict. An allegation Trump's attorney is repeating.
I have zero confidence in the fact that this person who should not be sitting on the bench right now will do the right thing and give jury instructions that are in an appropriate manner without any persuasion towards the prosecution. So if this is a strategy that sounds familiar to you, it should. In fact, it's the exact same playbook Trump used leading up to the election.

Kirkconnell is OUTFRONT live in New York tonight. Kara, you've learned a lot more about what we will hear from both sides tomorrow. Let's start with Donald Trump's lawyers, with the defense. There's a michael Cohen in there. What more do we know about their game plan yet, Erica? I mean, Michael Cohen is going to be the center of closing arguments because he is the only witness that directly ties Donald Trump to the repayment scheme and those falsified documents, according to the prosecution.

Now, Trump, Trump's lawyers are expected to focus on Cohen, say that the jury should entrust him. They shouldn't believe what he said. They're also going to highlight some of the witnesses that the jury did not hear from in this case, witnesses the prosecution didn't call, including Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who was in a key meeting with Michael Cohen and Donald Trump when Cohen said Trump approved this repayment scheme.

Also, that they didn't hear from Dylan Howard, a top editor at the National Enquirer, who was involved in all of the catch and kill deals discussed during the trial and that they didn't hear from Keith Schiller. Trump's one time bodyguard who traveled with Trump during the campaign, all in an effort to try to very reasonable doubt with the story in arguing that they should not convict Donald Trump.

So that's what we expect to hear from the defense. What about the prosecution? What's the strategy there? They the prosecutors are going to say that the jury doesn't have to like Michael Cohen, but that they can believe him and they'll point toward some of the other evidence that they brought out during the past six weeks of testimony, including text messages, phone log records, some of these other documents in the case, including the alleged falsified documents, the false invoice, the voucher and the checks that were signed

mostly by Donald Trump. So trying to tell the jury that they don't have to necessarily want to have like everything that Michael Cohen said, but there's other evidence that they've heard to corroborate his testimony. And absolutely, when they ask the jury to return a verdict of guilty. Now, closings are expected to go all day tomorrow.

The judge said that he will then address the jury on Wednesday about what the law is, what the prosecution needs to prove in order to win a conviction. And once the judge finishes delivering those instructions, the jurors will retreat until the seven men and five women can reach a unanimous verdict. And then the clock starts ticking and everybody will be playing a game of how long will this take care.

I really appreciate it. I know you'll be there in court for us tomorrow. Ryan Goodman, Terry Austin and Norm Ise in All with me Here now to preview what they think both sides actually need to do tomorrow. So, Ryan, perhaps not surprising that Michael Cohen is going to figure prominently for the defense tomorrow.

Is that enough to get at least one juror to their side? I think so. I think the defense is going to make the obvious arguments that the case hinges on Michael Cohen's testimony. And without it, the prosecution doesn't have a case and then they just need a level Michael Cohen's credibility before the jurors, then just try to get that one.

And they can say, look, everything depends on Michael Cohen. Without him, you do not know that Donald Trump is even aware of the hush money payment at the time. You do not know that Donald Trump has any awareness of the structure of the deal that is Michael Cohen. And without him, there's nothing. And I think that's their argument.

And then they just tear into all the lies that he's responsible for and the lack of credibility on their side. Terry, you said that you think in many ways the best line for the defense here is this tried and true. Hey, nothing to see here. Defense Right. There is nothing for you to look at here. But there is evidence that was presented in court that

Trump at least knew of the payments.
The question, of course, is can that paper trail do all that work? Exactly. I think one of the things they're going to do is not only attack the credibility of Michael Cohen, but say, look, even if you believe everything the prosecution said, okay, so we had an NDA. Nothing illegal about that. All right. So we made payments.

Nothing wrong with making payments. This is done all the time. What am I did is something that is normal. Even if Cohen made the payment to Stormy Daniels, that's nothing wrong, because it was for the reason of protecting the family. That's it. You have no evidence that it was for the reason of influencing an election or tax fraud or any kind of federal campaign finance, you know, fraud.

So I think that's what they have to do, whether or not they're going to actually do it is something else. I think the prosecution has a much better case. I think their documents and their witnesses all corroborated what their claim is. But I do think the defense can just say, hey, nothing wrong here. So hold that thought on the prosecution when they come back to prosecution in a minute.

Norm, I did want to get your take on the fact that you just heard Carrie's reporting, just Michael Cohen, who will figure in the defense, is closing arguments. Allen Weisselberg as well, former Trump org CFO. He's in jail at the moment, right? Serving time for perjury. Related to a separate case, a civil case involving donald trump bringing allen weisselberg more prominently into the conversation, essentially introducing this character in closing arguments.
Could that backfire or is that a smart move? Well, I think it bespeaks some of the thinness of what

the defense has to work with that they're dragging in these absent witnesses. I mean, imagine the jury reaction. We've been here for trial days and these people are saying we should have stayed for longer.
We heard from Allen Weisselberg in the form of others testifying about him and his notes. The probably the smoking gun of smoking guns in this case, laying out the so-called gross stuff scheme. So the problem for the defense is they have not really put forward an alternative theory. Their one witness, Robert Costello, on the defense case, was a disaster.

There is nobody in that courtroom who thinks that this payment was made and then doubled the $doubled or that this false alleged paper trail was created without Donald Trump's permission. Now, there may be one or two jurors. Again, it bespeaks the toughness of the defense's job. They're not really trying for an acquittal.

Nobody's saying, oh, Donald Trump's got a great shot at an acquittal here. What they're trying for is a hung jury and a mistrial, one or two jurors. So pointing to Weisselberg and the other missing witnesses speaks to the toughness of the defense laid down. I'd rather be the prosecution. It's theirs to lose.

So if you are the prosecution, Ryan, if Allen Weisselberg does, in fact, come up tomorrow, how do you rebut that? How much attention do you give that? I think Norm's right that we do, in fact have Allen Weisselberg like, what would we have had him come and do? Tell us that these are his notes. It's uncontested, that these are his notes and his notes put down in writing the exact scheme and where does he write the notes? But on the bank statement that has the wire transfer.

So do we really need Allen Weisselberg for that? And if anything, the defense could have called Allen Weisselberg if he was going to say something different. And they don't need Allen Weisselberg to get beyond a reasonable doubt is the way to put it. It's the defense that needs Allen Weisselberg I think that's the way to put it.

Terry, what do you think? What testimony should the prosecution really be focusing on tomorrow as they work to connect all of these dots that they put forth over the last five weeks? I think they start at the beginning. And I think that's the reason they had Pekar be the first witness. He laid it all out. He talked about when they all first met and conceived of this conspiracy to bring the election, so to speak.

And I think they go from there. Gary Farrow, the banker, I think Keith Davidson, they all supported these payments to the doorman, to McDougal, to Daniels. And then I think they focused on the witnesses that really were Trump witnesses, but help like Hope Hicks, who said this was really for helping out as far as the election was concerned.

No more quickly the fact that the jury has been out of court for a week, they kind of break for a week. Does that benefit either side? The burden is on the prosecution, so perhaps it's a slight disadvantage. But on the other hand, we had that disastrous Robert Costello with his cookbook for witness tampering, his emails with that with a bad overhang for the defense.
So I think it's a wash. All right. We'll all be watching and we'll have much to discuss on the heels of it. Thank you all.