the first hearing in the united states of america versus donald john trump is now history. if anyone has a good inkling of what might be going on in the mind of the former president, it will be my next guest former trump attorney and fixer michael cohen, the author of the book revenge: how donald trump weaponized the u.s. department of justice against his critics. he also hosts the podcast mea culpa. thanks so much for joining us. first let s just start with your reaction to what we saw today. i mean, i think it s fair to say this is a much bigger deal, and i don t mean to belittle everything you went through, but this is a much bigger deal than hush money payments to stormy daniels. yeah, so first of all, good to be here with you, jake, wish i was there with you in d.c., but today s like a bittersweet day, if you think about it, the fact that a former president now federally indicted whereas the alvin bragg case is a state indictment, it s a terrible day
i really cannot answer. that would be internal discussion that i have with my client. we will make that determination very soon and he will make that public when it is time. any chance he would take a plea deal, he has the state indictment in new york. he is facing another potential indictment january 60 of the special grand jury, those indictments could come in august. is there any thought in the presidents mind you have to focus on the campaign which is in itself an exhausting very consuming process. no. i could never imagine. i know that i would never advise that. especially when he has not done anything wrong. you take a plea to make it go away. that is an admission of guilt. he would never admit guilt because there is nothing wrong with declassified documents, taking documents with you. the only thing that was wrong was the raid on his home in the complete dual tier system of
i really cannot answer. that would be internal discussion that i have with my client. we will make that determination very soon and he will make that public when it is time. any chance he would take a plea deal, he has the state indictment in new york. he is facing another potential indictment january 60 of the special grand jury, those indictments could come in august. is there any thought in the presidents mind you have to focus on the campaign which is in itself an exhausting very consuming process. no. i could never imagine. i know that i would never advise that. especially when he has not done anything wrong. you take a plea to make it go away. that is an admission of guilt. he would never admit guilt because there is nothing wrong with declassified documents, taking documents with you. the only thing that was wrong was the raid on his home in the complete dual tier system of
so, donald trump saying he is an innocent man, disputing the claims and in accompanying written posts, he said: i have been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in miami on tuesday at 3:00pm. us media reports he faces seven charges including unauthorised retention of classified files. it is the second indictment of mr trump, who is campaigning once again to be president. his first was a state indictment this is a federal case. it s the first ever federal indictment of a former president. prosecutors had been looking into the transfer of files to mr trump s mar a lago florida estate since last year. the beachside property was searched last august and 11,000 documents were seized, including around 100 marked as classified. some of these were labelled top secret. (biv anthony zurcher has some of these were labelled top secret. there s been reaction from us republican nominee hopeful ron desantis. he said: a desantis administration would bring accountability to the departm
similar. so he will be the indictment will be unsealed on tuesday in the state case, also it wasn t unsealed until he went to court. so instead of a state judge he will be going before a federal judge. he will be arraigned on that indictment and he will be treated like every other defendant and he will go through the same process that he s now become very familiar with, except these charges and no offense to my former office, the manhattan da s office these are much more serious than what he s facing in his state indictment. these involve national security, these are very serious charges and i said, you know, months ago that what was keeping him up at night was not a hush money payment case, it was this case, the special counsel case. and if there is a fulton county, georgia, case, that s what s keeping him up at night. and then the process will go on.