might have needed their testimony if cohen hadn t ended up pleading. it seems that that investigation is about where michael cohen goes. i suspect they can ask him about anything. for me it does come back to 2016 and the russia question. when you see the pattern of how he ran with it and how everything was run all the claims about collusion for me become more credible, the claims that trump must have known, that the meeting suddenly the tape comes out, access hollywood which was the most dangerous moment for trump. roger stone said he was in
press, national media right before the election, the timing of the access hollywood tapes a couple weeks prior to this, there s a lot of evidence this payment was about the election. natasha, to that point, if trump did just find out the details of this situation about ten days ago or so, does that time frame, that window of the past ten days give him a justifiable cover that he did not know about any of these payments or how that payment was made or what it was for, et cetera? for starters, i don t believe sorry that question was to natasha. give me a second. go ahead, natasha. i was going to say, i don t think so. especially knowing what trump and cohen s relationship was like. cohen is trump s fixer, yes. but the relationship between them was very, very close. cohen worked with trump for over a decade. it would have been very, very odd if cohen hadn t alerted the president, then candidate trump, to the fact that he was going to pay stormy daniels $130,000 to remain quiet
reporter: the judge in this case really trying to get through the weeds of these two different cases on the two coasts of this country, a criminal case in new york, the civil case out here. the one point the judge saying, you know, this case has kind of exploded a little bit since we first started and that was an absolute understatement. much of the day was spent regarding whether or not mrmr. c mr. cohen would assert his fifth amendment rights here. the judge almost upset at points saying mr. cohen hadn t filed a declaration he would assert his fifth amendment right, asking why he hadn t do that. the lawyers saying they probably would do that. both lawyers are saying we don t know what the feds have in new york, we don t know what they re after michael cohen for there, we don t know if he will be charged. at one point michael cohen s own lawyer said he could be charged in the next 90 days. we don t know exactly what s
leniency. that doesn t necessarily mean that he tells the truth. here we go. in erin is with me now. if this corn is about cohen flipping, not because trump thinks cohen will tell the truth. that was a pretty incredible thing. he s not talking about flipping. flipping is when a witness flips against someone else and tells the truth about them. what he and the president are worried about with michael cohen is that he will turn, which means that michael cohen is sophisticated enough to know what the federal prosecutors want to hear and will tell them that, but that it will not be true. so it was a pretty stunning statement about the system so he ll lie. yes. so jay goldberg is 20-some years working with the president, completely believes the president. he believes michael cohen will lie, that he s not suited to jail life, as he puts it and
the legal team for president trump s personal attorney michael cohen looking to delay the stormy daniels lawsuit. cohen s team citing the possibility that he could be indicted soon in another case. this is all coming as trump s former divorce attorney warns that cohen could cooperate with federal prosecutors to avoid time in prison. here is what jay goldberg told erin burnett. when faced with the potential of spending time in jail, he will tell the truth. i don t think that s what the president was concerned about and that s not what i m concerned about. i m concerned about a person who is facing a lengthy prison term is likely to say those things which in the witness s mind would best position himself for a 5k1 all right, which would enable the government to recommend that he be shown