jury proceedings, and putting costello in front of the grand jury s last-ditch effort by trump to avoid indictment, it seems unlikely that it works since the grand juries did not request to hear from michael cohen again, after hearing from costello, to indict the have to find there is probable cause to believe that crimes were committed. that is a relatively low threshold for them to reach. just to be clear, joyce, in a perfect world, of all the indictments to start with on donald trump, you would not have started with this one, would you, the fulton county, or the two special counsel investigations? you know, i know a lot of folks have considered this the weakest of the cases. to me, a weak case is a case that has that evidence. we don t know what the evidence looks like in this case because we don t know what the charges are. in some ways, this seems like a fitting place to start, this is the
trump s lawyers. good we see more pro trump witnesses like costello emerge in the coming days or weeks? i m sure that something trump s lawyers have been considering, who else can we provide, it strikes me that there are few people that have the kind of information costello claimed to have. he was representing, or counseling cohen at one point when he was under federal investigation. he said he had copious, thousands, hundreds and thousands, forgive me, of emails, correspondence with cohen that would help buttress his story, that michael cohen is not a credible witness, that michael cohen did all of this, quote, unquote, on his own, cohen s response is, essentially, look, d.c. be, i did this at the direction, and in the coordination with, and for the benefit of donald j trump. to joyce s point, which i think is really important, about the credibility that will be tested
been advised to be on the lookout on wednesday for possible action by the grand jury. we like along with our references on the show, of course, carol. luke, when i hear about credibility, and when i hear trump people, and former trump people challenging each other credibility, i think of that spider-man mean with everyone pointing at each other. another group of people who may needs some credibility are house republicans who have come along to launch their attacks on alvin bragg s credibility. they ve started with this letter, asking for his testimony. luke, could we see them trying to hold hearings on this issue, subpoenas on this new york story? yes, well, you know, donald trump s players asked for this investigation. they sent a letter to jim jordan a few weeks back, specifically asking for him to do this, and trump called for it over the weekend. so, today, we saw this letter from three different committees, demanding documents and
with an ongoing investigation. there s a lot of long-standing practices on congress about what documents they can have and can t have, which witnesses they can call at certain times. it s been pretty well accepted doctrine lee on the hill that one going active investigations are not subject to the demands of congress, that those are off limits, and you have to wait until the investigation is closed. the democrats are pushing back against these republican demands that went out today. we ll have to see that goes to subpoenas or not. i expect could get there as long as donald trump and his allies keep calling for congress to act as a buffer for him in these investigations. joyce, last question to you before you run out of time, trump is facing possible charges from the da in fulton county, georgia. today, trump s lawyers try to quash the grand jury s report there. what s going on here? well, this is, i think, an effort to delay these proceedings. it s a merit-less motion. in fact, one
is cohen s credibility a problem for da brag? g? cohen s credibility is a central issue in this case. he s previously been convicted. he s written a book called revenge, certainly, trump s lawyers will suggest that s what he s trying to get through this testimony. the reality is, and cohen said this today on every melber show, the district attorney will have to meticulously corroborate cohen s testimony at trial. now, we re just talking about grand jury proceedings, and putting costello in front of the grand jury s last-ditch effort by trump to avoid indictment, it seems unlikely that it works since the grand juries did not request to hear from michael cohen again, after hearing from costello, to indict the have to find there is probable cause to believe that crimes were committed. that is a relatively low threshold for them to reach. just to be clear, joyce, in