toughest guy. no. tions. you shocked, you know, because we really were. i was shocked today . the rule of law in the united states america died, indictment concludes a years long probe investigating a hush money payment to adult film star stormy daniels to remain silent about an alleged affair with trump and affair. trump denies the case relies in part on the testimony of trump s former personal attorney, michael cohen , who has in the past pleaded guilty to nine federal crimes, including lying, convicted felon. i am a disbarred lawyer, but i also brought the documents . there s plenty of testimony corroborating testimony to go around paid daniels $130,000 just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, according to court filings, the trump organization reimbursed cohen $420,000. it s a fight against
senior legal affairs correspondent paula reid, who has gotten very little sleep over the past couple of months, especially the past couple of weeks. she has been following this from the very beginning. good morning to you. what are we learning about what happens downtown? i think a lot of people will be surprised to learn that even the former president s legal team has not been informed of the specific charges that he s facing. that is standard in this court. there is a desire i m told to treat him like they would any other defendant, but of course, this is going to be unlike anything we have seen in u. s history. a manhattan grand jury voting to indict former president donald trump thursday while the case is still under seal sources tell cnn he faces more than 30 counts related to business fraud. the former president, responding to the indictment, calling the manhattan district attorney alvin bragg, disgrace and claiming the entire investigation is a witch hunt to fight. you know, he
determination for an indictment. oh by the way for donald, since we re talking about convicted felons c on tuesday, pal, coordinate court dates, but they don t coordinate indictments, and they have to go when they have to go where the evidence leads and there are things like the statute of limitations or what have you but technically fani willis in georgia. if she does indict could go first they could coordinate and allow her to go to trial first and this could go second notion of oh, this is a weaker case than the january 6th. i acknowledge that january. 6th was an insurrection like we haven t seen in what 150 years in this country, but doesn t make this any less of a crime. you know, i always call this the capone theory. the al capone theory. they couldn t get him on murder, extortion, racketeering, bootlegging, etcetera. they got him on tax evasion. if that crime done was enough for me to be charged. find convicted and sent to prison. why am i any different than donald trump? i don
following this especially katelyn polantz, a and, um, poppy, you have been watching this and covering none of us thought that we would be at this moment right where we have a former president who has been indicted, so i think it changes our world so much we ve seen witness after witness come out people who said they knew about this case, and, um, and it s just been so many facets and so unprecedented and one of those people is michael cohen. who we have all interviewed and we all know he is the star witness in this case, and we got a chance to speak with him. he knows the former president, having worked with his attorney, the so called fixer for years, telling all to the prosecutors downtown in manhattan, so i spoke with michael cohen last night along with my colleague alison kamerad . oh, from cnn tonight, right after the indictment came down here is some of what he said. take a look. i want to talk about robert costello because donald trump s team sent robert costello in directly to
out to robert costello last night for comments. i mean, you know, he s a chatty, chatty one loves to talk. loves to comment, he said. i cannot comment on this case right now. because i am a potential witness, and that is a big difference right now. between michael cohen and robert costello. look, michael cohen is a first amendment right. he s absolutely key player in this, but it could also be a key witness in the prosecution of the former president. doing this great. get by the way, great interview for him. i have a feeling he s gonna get a call for prosecutors today. this is what his attorney says lenny davis. says that you may think of him as a key witness. but there are three or four people who will back up what he says. so therefore, as you said, it s his first amendment right to be able to talk about this so he doesn t see it as a big deal or detrimental to the case that michael cohen is out doing interviews is naive. preposterous it s ridiculous. i can imagine that you just said