how did they evade not pay tax on this or that and that was a lot of the components of that trial, but the jury, give them credit. they came at the end and they came out with a guilty verdict and they seem to based on some of the exit interviews i read they had a very clear understanding of what the trump organization had done. yeah, asha, i want to turn your attention given your experience to what i mentioned, these witnesses there today. it s kind of surprising to people watching who have followed this case and followed the stormy daniels we remember michael avenatti and michael cohen, of course, and here we are in the bottom of the ninth and you get this costello guy and go, which one is this again? and, yet, this relates to how trump has effectively, shall we say and at times allegedly corruptly used intermediaries, cutouts and lawyers, mr. cohen, being one who according to his testimony and the feds took the fall for it. so mr. costello also has played
i m sure you re familiar with the idea out there where people say, why has it taken this long? was has he gotten away with so much, and, yet, there are many examples in life and in law where the thing you slip on is not the nuclear code, it s the banana peel. it s not the triple felony, it s the misdemeanor. it s not in al capone s case terrible mafia activity and murder but tax evasion. i m curious given your work on the sort of guts and math of this how you see what may be shaping up to be a case that will in some sense boil down to math and lies if charged? right. you know, i just first want to say because just watching garrett outside the courthouse and just reminiscent, i ve covered a lot of trials at that courthouse and they can get intense just with the media out there. i covered the trial of shelly silver, the head of the new york assembly, and that media crush was just incredible.
what do you see here, charlie? i would assess that language, in fact a lot of this filing in the say way you just did. this is a pattern of trump s legal teams. i say that plural because he s had so many different ones in all these different types of litigation around the country he s involved in. some criminal, some civil. and it is very common for those filings to be written in a way that seems unuse bible for a courtroom. they re making arguments that are quotable, that jump out. they re good for newspaper writers like me because they re not turgid, they re punchy. but they don t really make a legally cognizable point. and that one seems like it fits within the pattern of let s dirty up this case and create suspicion around it in the mind of the public that it is, you know, politicized in nature even if it s not attachable to a particular legal principle we re trying to advance. you notice it as trying to be
i m ari melber in for nicolle and i ll anchor for the next three hours right now with a lot of news breaking out of new york as the d.a. alvin bragg moves forward with two witnesses who faced this grand jury today, robert costello a legal adviser to that key witness we all know about, michael cohen. he s testified today at the request of trump s legal team. under new york law a person who is expected to be indicted which in this case may or may not be donald trump but in an abundance of fairness, that individual can request a witness appear for them before this grand jury finishes its work. so that s part of what we re following on this big breaking news day. today cohen also on hand, this weekend he said he would be back today to address what costello says making him the rebuttal witness and this, today, is his third appearance before the grand jury. so, that alone makes all of this a major day and probe that is quite near deciding whether or not to indict donald trump. so, this would
what donald trump has always done and, you know, most notably did before january 6th when he catalyzed the violent and vicious attack on the united ates congress, a thing i got to experience up close and personal. no surprise. donald trump is obviously deeply damaged and what s more surprising, he can bring whatever the perjury is, 20% or 30% of the american public, his supporters along with the idea that even though, look, there s nobody around today who honestly believes that donald trump is a boy scout and yet you have these republican congressmen somehow suggesting that it s them, not a jury, that should determine whether this case has merit or not. so, look, the good news is that i think that law enforcement and those charged with keeping the peace won t get caught unawares again the way they were on january 6th, the nypd knows how to handle these situations should something happen in new york but what we really need to reflect on is, you know,