Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

Third Week Of Testimony Wraps In Trump's Hush Money Trial; Michael Cohen Expected To Begin Testifying Monday; CNN Correspondent Describes Scene In Trump Hush Money Trial. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 10, 2024 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:30:34]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: The third week of testimony just wrapped up moments ago in Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial.

And court is set to resume on Monday. Prosecutors do plan to call their star witness to the stand. That is Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen.

I'm here again with CNN chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid. Also with us, CNN's chief domestic correspondent, Phil Mattingly.

Paula, there's a lot for Michael Cohen to button up for the prosecution. They also have indicated today, next week might be the end of their case. So they -- they actually are laying this all at Michael Cohen's feet?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he is not just a witness. He is "the" witness. Because, as of now, they have not established a direct link between the defendant and this alleged falsifying of business records.

They certainly have testimony from Jeff McConney. They have notes from Allen Weisselberg who won't be called. But this is the prosecution's only direct link.

And unfortunately, for the prosecution, not only is he -- he has multiple convictions, including lying to Congress and pleading guilty to campaign finance violations. But he also -- his entire identity, his career, the way he makes a living is attacking the defendants.

So the prosecution is really going to have to do a lot of work to convince the jury that they should trust whatever it is he says.

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, Michael Cohen's vendetta, to a degree, maybe it's justified or not. But he has a personal reason to want Donald Trump to feel the kinds of consequences that he believes that he's felt.

And the prosecution is going to have to address that preemptively. But then the defense will have their turn at cross, in which Michael Cohen's going to get grilled. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Oh, I don't think there's any question.

I think if you thought Susan Necheles' cross-examination of Stormy Daniels was sharp or aggressive or perhaps kind of condescending in some ways, get ready. That was the preview.

If you want to know how they're going to go after another person, who has kind of the last couple of years off of their role against Donald Trump or being attacked by Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels was that, except multiplied by about three thousand, and that's where they're going to be with Michael Cohen.

I think what's been fascinating to watch over the course of the last four weeks has been how prosecutors have kind of subtly or not so subtly laid the groundwork for making clear Michael Cohen is not a wonderful individual. Michael Cohen is not liked by many people.

Michael Cohen is -- what was it Hope Hicks said? He's - he's a fix-it guy, and assistant --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: He's a fixer in the sense that he breaks them and then he fixes them. I don't think they minded that statement being out there. Whether or not it's enough to get in front of what we know is coloring from the cross-examination is going to be fascinating to watch play out.

PHILLIP: I also want to know, Paula, whether Michael Cohen really has the goods. Because we've all heard him talk about this case so often over the many -- the last many, many years.

But does he have more than just his own word? What kind of proof can you bring to the table?

REID: So we know that he recorded a lot of Zoom conversations. The jury has already heard one, where they appear to be talking about a hush money payment to Karen McDougal.

But to your point, a lot of this does fall on his recollection and his account of what exactly happened.

Because Trump is very adept at not leaving a paper trail, which is why it's so remarkable in that he's -- he's really charged with not a paperwork crime -- I don't want to diminish the charges -- but really, it's falsifying business records.

And this is going to be, in terms of the cross, I mean, this is the defense. The cross-examination of Michael Cohen is the defense case. It's everything Todd Blanche has been focused on.

And it's going to be very multimedia. We're going to hear Michael Cohen's Twitter posts.

PHILLIP: Yes. REID: We're hearing his TikTok posts. We're going to hear those recordings used against him. His own words used against him. It's going to be unlike anything else we've seen so far in this case.

PHILLIP: And we were talking in the break about Donald Trump's demeanor as he walked out a court today.

Phil, he was a happy camper ending this week. It's been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of where all the evidence lined up for the prosecution and the defense. But Trump, at the moment, he's pretty happy with where things are.

MATTINGLY: I think he was happy because the judge seemed to try and move towards telling people to have Michael Cohen stop talking. Which, when you've been sitting in court for six to eight hours a day for the better part of four weeks --

PHILLIP: Silently.

MATTINGLY: -- kind of having a difficult time in terms of how people were testifying about you, you take any win you can get. I think it's probably that.

There wasn't an explicit -- the gag order wasn't expanded in any way. But it was told that prosecutors were supposed to message to Michael Cohen, maybe stop doing the things that you've been doing.

[13:35:00]

I think what's interesting is kind of how the prosecution has built this case up. As Paula has repeatedly pointed out, there's no direct link. And that will forever be, up to this point, the whole in the case.

But how do the accountants, how do the people outside the kind of Trump-Cohen-Weisselberg triumvirate, how do they lay the groundwork for what's coming?

We know that Madeleine Westerhout was aware of the meeting that occurred in February in the Oval Office. We know people have testified to phone calls that the two had at various points of this process. We know David Pecker testified about various connections as well.

How are they able to take those and use them with Michael Cohen? Look, we've got this evidence that this happened. We have testimony that this happened. Now fill in the blanks for us.

Well, they can't put it on a tee for him. So it's not entirely -- at least it doesn't appear to the jury, it's entirely based on his word. There are things surrounding it that maybe help make the case.

PHILLIP: And they have tried to do that with some of these other witnesses that are not as sexy as Stormy Daniels. It's not as -- as fun to talk about. But they're so important in a lot of ways, way more important in terms of the content of what they have to say, speaking to exactly that. Paula and Phil, thank you for all of that.

And up next for us, with every twist and turn in this trial, CNN reporters have had a front row seat into what's been going on at that courthouse. We'll have that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:40:39]

PHILLIP: We are back with our breaking news coverage of Donald Trump's hush money trial.

Today, we heard from several witnesses who walked the jury through the checks, the phone records, and the tweets, all of which the prosecution says are tied to the heart of the charges, allegedly faking business records.

Let's go straight to CNN's Kara Scannell, who was in the courtroom this morning.

So, Kara, the gist of the testimony today really got back to the nuts and bolts of this case, which is the documents. What did they say? The communications. What stood out to you in all?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, we saw four witnesses today, all involved in putting into evidence from phone calls, a lot of these calls related to Michael Cohen.

You know, we expect him to be testifying as soon as Monday. So in a little bit today was setting up what will come on Monday, Michael Cohen and the -- the phone calls, the text messages, the conversations that he's had.

Several of these records related to calls that he had between Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, David Pecker, at AMI, who was involved in two of the catch-and-kill deals, and Dylan Howard, who was also involved in the Stormy Daniels deal, to some extent.

So all laying the groundwork for Cohen and what he will be talking about when he comes onto the witness stand.

Now interestingly, Trump's attorneys asked the judge to ask Cohen to stop making public statements about this trial and about Donald Trump. The judge said that he would direct the prosecution to tell Michael Cohen not to say anything else about Trump or the trial.

And to tell Cohen that this was coming from the bench. So a warning to Cohen to stop talking ahead of his testimony, which is expected to go next week.

Now, prosecutors also said that they may rest their case by the end of next week after calling two witnesses. They did not identify Cohen. But it's the elephant in the room because everyone's talking about how he has not yet testified in the case. And he's obviously a person at the center of the payment and also in the reimbursement, which led to the charges of falsified documents that Donald Trump is facing.

We also saw today what is often called a summary chart that pulls together what the alleged crimes were. One of the paralegals for the D.A.'s office brought that in.

And it lays out the 34 counts in this case. And that's the paperwork. Those are the checks, the invoices, and the vouchers that tied to the general ledger that prosecutors say were falsified.

So a little bit on the dryer side of testimony when you're coming off the day with Stormy Daniels. But certainly testimony that is very important to this case, and that is important to setting up Michael Cohen, whose testimony could begin on Monday -- Abby?

PHILLIP: Yes. Yes, and, Kara, there was also -- as part of that sidebar with the judge at the end there that got into the issue of with Michael Cohen, there was a conversation about another person who is not actually a witness.

What was the judge getting at there in that conversation?

SCANNELL: So prosecutors wanted to enter into evidence Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO's severance agreement in this that he had that's what the Trump Organization.

He is currently at Rikers Island, a New York City jail, serving a five-month prison sentence for perjury charges unrelated to this case, but to a different case.

So prosecutors want to enter into evidence the severance agreement to suggest that Allen Weisselberg is fully aligned with the Trump Organization. That's part of the terms of this agreement. He's not supposed to give any testimony adverse to the Trump Organization.

He's still waiting for three payments. More than half a million dollars.

Now, the defense objected to that, saying that this should not come in. They think that their -- the prosecution is, you know, trying to not call Allen Weisselberg in this case. And they pointed out that -- have questioning whether they even did.

So what the judge said was, you know, he asked both sides, did anyone try to compel Allen Weisselberg to come here to see if he would even testify? And the prosecutors said that they hadn't. And the judge said it would be helpful to him to know what Allen Weisselberg would do.

So there's this suggestion out there that prosecutors, if they want to get this document in, might have to call Allen Weisselberg to the stand. And outside the presence of the jury, they would question him and see, would he assert his Fifth Amendment right and not answer questions, or would he? And he is another person who is central to this because he is someone that the prosecution alleges is part of this conspiracy, had helped falsify these documents at the center of this case, and then directed his employees to falsify them in the company's records. So big question of what would happen if they do call Allen Weisselberg.

The other option is a prosecutor can decide they don't want to bring this piece of evidence in, the severance agreement, and they could leave it there.

[13:45:03]

But the judge said he will wait to hear what they want to do. So we might learn more about that also on Monday.

PHILLIP: Yes, a big cliffhanger there. Could be potentially consequential for someone who is at the heart of this, but is not, at the moment, on anybody's witness list.

Kara Scannell, thank you for all of that from inside the courthouse.

We have much more on the criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:07]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And were back now with our panel as we follow this historic criminal trial of a former president, the Trump hush money trial.

All right. Let's -- let's kind of backup a little bit here. Big picture. it's the conclusion of the fourth week -- week three of testimony in this trial. Where are we?

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Oh, my gosh. I mean, I'm going to kick that to you.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: -- legal errors.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Where are we? The prosecution has made a very compelling case that something didn't smell right with regard to the behavior of the Trump campaign -- the Trump Organization and trying to -- trying to conceal his conduct from someone.

Have they gotten all the way to establishing that -- that cover up, if you want to call it that, was to hide the conduct from voters or related to the campaign? No, absolutely not.

Now, to be clear, there's still at least a week or several more days of testimony. And who knows what comes from Michael Cohen? But certainly -- here's where we see the difference between common sense and reasonable doubt. Where, as matter of common sense, this just didn't look right.

And clearly, the former president and the folks around him did find that some of the conduct with respect to the sexual behavior with Stormy Daniels was embarrassing in some way.

Now, does that rise to having been so problematic that they wanted to hide it from campaign and voters That's just not there yet.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, and politically, we've settled into this kind of routine where Trump will come out, he'll say some stuff, he'll fundraise off from something, whether or not it's true.

For example, he said that he was going to be blocked from going to his son's graduation from high school. He's not. He's able to go.

He complains about not being able to campaign and then fundraises off of that and also scheduled a rally. He actually -- Phil Barb (ph) had this great piece on "The Washington Post" either today or yesterday, really breaking down how much Trump had -- would've been able to campaign.

Out of less than 25 days or so, he said 12 free days. And he hasn't really spent all of that campaigning. There's been a couple of rallies here and there. There's one Saturday. There's one in Ohio after that.

But really, he could have been campaigning a lot more than he said. I think he's been fundraising a lot more off of the accusation that he's not allowed to campaign than actually campaigning.

KEILAR: Some of the not campaigning certainly would keep him from violating the gag order, and there have been many violations as well.

But as we're looking, Audie, towards Michael Cohen, I mean, this is -- this is going to be Monday I'm really looking -- I wonder what you're looking for in this.

Because I'm really looking to see how these two interact when they have so much bad blood between them, how that's going to affect Michael Cohen's testimony, how that's going to affect how Trump reacts to it.

CORNISH: I love that you live for the drama. I'm here for that.

(LAUGHTER)

CORNISH: And I'm excited to see you on Monday during that.

I think, for me, I'm looking at this past testimony that was laying the foundation for the idea that this somehow was about the election, right? So we heard a lot of testimony around that.

We've also heard a lot of testimony around the bookkeeping. Right? What kind of pens he used. So just all of these basic facts that help people who don't know very much about this case understand what the prosecutor was saying when he announced that this would be an election interference case.

And this week, it was interesting because there were so many people who were in Trump's inner circle, or at least in that contacts list of, whatever, 31,000, 39,000 people.

And getting to have those people on the stand, people who felt affection for Trump, right? People who weren't necessarily there to tear him down. They're also supposed to be there to build a case.

What Cohen -- why Cohen is interesting is because we heard a week of people saying he's terrible. And all those people had one reason or another to say why they didn't think he was a good guy.

So once he gets up there, they are going to finally have to make this case with him, that he did something at the behest of Trump, and that that is part of this process about the election.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. And as to the question of, does this case all come down to Michael Cohen? It does. It does.

But he's also not testifying in a vacuum. It's not as if there has been no evidence. You throw Michael Cohen on the stand and say, now we want a conviction.

And there's sort of built-in structural advantages both ways. The prosecutor's advantage is they've had now three weeks to build up to Michael Cohen, to support him, to introduce texts, emails, documents, other witness testimony.

CORNISH: In effect counter those other issues.

HONIG: Exactly right. Exactly right. To offset all the stuff about the drama around Michael Cohen.

CORNISH: Yes.

HONIG: The institutional advantage on the defense side is the prosecution bears the burden of proving the case unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.

And so mark my words, in the defense closing, Todd Blanche is going to get up and say, would you leave your children with Michael Cohen? Would you trust Michael Cohen beyond a reasonable doubt?

[13:55:03]

And if the answer is -- not if you trust him 51 percent. If you don't trust him beyond a reasonable doubt, you have to vote not guilty.

So --

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: -- this will be the whole piece.

CORNISH: -- is that they have heard all of the concrete evidence to say, in spite of whatever you have heard about this person, these are the facts that contribute to his actions.

Isn't that the whole point of this lead up?

HONIG: Exactly what the prosecutors will say in response to that. They'll say, folks, this is not about whether you like Michael Cohen or whether you approve of things he's done. It's about whether you believe him.

And when you're making that decision, you don't have to take him at his word on the key points. You can look at all this other evidence.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Elie Honig, having prosecuted mobsters, me, having prosecuted gangs, if you've ever dealt with a violent crime case or sort of -- you deal with these distasteful folks, who did really horrible things, that you put on his witnesses.

Juries still manage to trust bad witnesses all the time. It's just a question of what is the quantum of evidence throughout the trial?

And to what extent did the prosecution, laying out all these 35 checks and so on, to what extent does that get them over the hump of dealing with a witness' credibility.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Maybe they don't want Michael Cohen babysitting, but maybe they'll believe him in the case of this.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: We have so much more to talk about ahead. Everyone stay with me.

We have much more of our special coverage of the Donald Trump hush money trial. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)