so we saw robert costello come in, this sort of quasi legal adviser to trump s former lawyer/fixer michael cohen. and as best as we can tell, costello was there for one purpose, which was to discredit cohen s version of events in front of the grand jury. in fact if you see cohen as the linchpin to the state prosecution s case, because he is the one who of course actually makes the payment to stormy daniels for $130,000 in the days leading up to the 2016 election. if in fact you believe that cohen is the linchpin to this, then this guy comes in to say he can t be believed. he told me a different version of events soon after the feds raided his office. and so the idea being that this was sort done to muddy the waries in front of the grand jury. our best evidence for why perhaps the grand jury did not find that tale perhaps
motivated or otherwise. no charges have been filed. but these three republican congressional committee chairmen say they somehow already know that these charges, which don t exist, they know their horse hockey and they re illegitimate because if these charges, which again, don t exist, were legitimate, they say the federal government would have charged trump already. now this is an interesting point. the new york investigation into the trump campaign having this hush money payment to adult film star stormy daniels, it did start on the federal level. it was the u.s. justice department through sdny, through the u.s. attorney s office in the southern district of new york that prosecuted michael cohen for his role in the hush money scheme, and they got him to plead guilty. but even though federal prosecutors said they had evidence that michael cohen committed that crime at the direction of president trump and for the benefit of president trump, they never charged
attorneys that their client needs to surrender and turn himself in. but based off of our reporting and everything else that everyone else has reported, that has not happened. and of course it s possible that the d.a. will not ask for an indictment. sure. or that the grand jury won t return one. looking at that prospect, do you think there is any reason to expect that those sort of questions, those foundational questions about whether there will be charges at all, are there any reason to expect that those prospects changed today with the sort of surprise witness who we saw come in to testify today? so we saw robert costello come in, this sort of quasi legal adviser to trump s former lawyer/fixer michael cohen. and as best as we can tell, costello was there for one purpose, which was to discredit cohen s version of events in front of the grand jury.
in fact if you see cohen as the linchpin to the state prosecution s case, because he is the one who of course actually makes the payment to stormy daniels for $130,000 in the days leading up to the 2016 election. if in fact you believe that cohen is the linchpin to this, then this guy comes in to say he can t be believed. he told me a different version of events soon after the feds raided his office. and so the idea being that this was sort done to muddy the waters in front of the grand jury. our best evidence for why perhaps the grand jury did not find that tale perhaps persuasive is the fact that michael cohen did not go back in for yet another shot in front of the grand jury because we now know that he was not going back again, at least according to he and his lawyers statements today. if in fact the grand jury had found what costello said to be problematic or curious or wanted to hear more, they certainly could have said please, let us hear more from michael cohen.
payment asks how they were accounted for. did they if i records. the other question is we talked about michael cohen and his credibility issues. if donald trump is charged here, the defendant in the case would be somebody who has a casual relationship with the truth. as evidence in a trial, how important is it or statements like this, the former president president of the united states has been asked about this many times. listen. did you know about the payments? later on i knew. but they didn t come ut out of campaign. my first question when i heard about it was did they come out of the campaign. because that could be dicey. they codidn t come out of the campaign. that s not even a campaign violation. it you re a prosecutor, is what he said about this, is that helpful or did he lee that out? it s very helpful i remember