money payments to stormy daniels. remember that? now, that could come back to haunt him. his former attorney and fixer, michael cohen, says trump can t hide from the paper trail. calling the new grand jury convened by the manhattan d.a. his biggest legal threat yet. and there are many. meanwhile, the former president is suing journalist bob woodward for $50 million. we ll explain what that is all about. plus, more fallout and firings in the aftermath of tyre nichols death. we ll go live to memphis for the latest in that case. for the second time in three years, lawmakers on capitol hill are talking about police reform following a high-profile murder case involving officers. we ll look at whether these discussions have a real chance at being successful. and president joe biden announces a major policy shift on covid in response to strong opposition from house republicans. good morning. welcome to morning joe. it is tuesday, january 31st. joe will be back tomorrow.
Hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist present in-depth and informed discussions that help drive the day s current political conversation.
crimes. harvey weinstein, bill cosby. most people say, they re rich. they have great lawyers, and that s why they win. you say there s a lot more to it. yeah, that s a small part of it. what i was able to do in this book was take my experience as a prosecutor, particularly of mafia cases. that s what i did at the southern district of new york. i kept seeing these parallels. that s a good example, willie. we all know rich, powerful people hire rich, powerful lawyers. i don t always think the more expensive lawyers are better at what they do. but a lesser known thing i used to see all the time is really savvy players will pay for lawyers for the other people around them, right, to make sure those people don t flip. i saw it all the time in my mob cases. where do we see it recently? cassidy hutchinson. she delivered devastating testimony against donald trump at the january 6th committee, but she wasn t able to do it until she got rid of her original lawyer, who was picked and paid for b
to name predictions. where does it go from here anyway? the case is essentially made for them, at least with the documentation, right? financial crimes, you know, money doesn t lie, following the money. here, and as you noted, what is sort of extraordinary about this case, is that in the southern district s prosecution of michael cohen, as you noted, he sat there in open court and allocuted that he made these payments at the behest of individual one, who people are colloquially calling an unindicted co-conspirator. you have a paper trail there and the theory of the case that s already been in a federal prosecution. it s already on paper. there s a check for $130,000. correct. to stormy daniels. donald trump says, i was just giving michael cohen $130,000 for legal fees. yeah. happened to be the same number. exactly. caroline, always good to see you. senior writer, william k.
what d we say when we came out of the trump presidency in 2020, that the country was oe saying frequently, and you, mika, that it is part of the exhaustion of the legal suits. you still have the system where, if donald trump were to manage to maintain 30% of the republican primary voters who are continuously loyal to him and there were five or six other candidates, he could split the remaining vote and end up like he did in 2016 with the nomination. i don t think it is impossible. look how the system works. if there are enough other candidates there, it is potentially possible for him to do it again. as i found traveling around the country, his supporters, whatever the lawsuits, however many lawsuits there are, whatever the findings of the january 6th investigation, they re sticking by him. let s bring into the conversation elie honig. he worked for eight years as an