Preferred better science, better results. Im Jeremy Diamond in tel aviv, and this is cnn our special Primetime Coverage at the trump Hush Money Trial continues 9 00 p. M. Here in new york, de six now in the Books De That Gan Minus the jury with a hearing on whether the former president s should be held in contempt for violating his gag order. No decision on that then more testimony from david pecker, the former Tabloid Publisher on his role as eyes and ears and protector to candidate trump from potentially embarrassing stories which he would catch and kill and just a short time ago, weve got some video from cnn Affiliate Wpvi of the former president. This morning just before the Gag Order Hearing appearing to violate that gag order by Talking About Prosecution witness Michael Cohen. Michael cohen is a convicted liar and hes got no credibility whatsoever. He was a lawyer and you rely on your lawyers back now with the Panel IncludingCnns John Berman has been going through the trial transcript, which just came out and as glean more details from it. So john, what stands out again, this is the transcript, so theres a lot to go through here, but but it does provide more details even some of the word choice that both the prosecutors and david pecker uses. This is where they talk about the august 2015 meeting between donald trump, Michael Cohen, hope hicks is in there for a period of time, and david pecker, the prosecutor, josh steinglass, asked, well, can you describe for the jury what happened to that meeting . Please . Pecker responds at that meeting, donald trump and michael, they asked me what i can do and what my magazines could do to help the campaign. So thinking about it as i previously, i said what i would do is that was run or publish positive stories about mr. Trump, and i would publish negative stories about his opponents i said i would be your eyes and ears because i know that the Trump Organization had a very small staff and then he wanted to say, i said that anything that i hear in the marketplace, if i hear anything negative about yourself or if i hear anything about women selling stories, i would notify Michael Cohen over i did over the last several years, i would notify Michael Cohen and then he would be able to have them killed hill in another magazine or have them not published, or somebody would have to purchase them. Steinglass asked purchased the negative stories about mr. Trump, so they would not get published me. You mean pecker responds that they would not get published . Yes. Im jeff whats the significance of that i dont know. Im sorry. I know im not jeff, but like whats the okay. Whats the crime . Okay. So fine there they work handinhand to have some influence on an election. Heres, weve been here for an hour, right . Heres what i would like to know. I still dont exactly know what the second can dairy crime is. We heard that theres this misdemeanor that only lives because the statute of past only lives if theres a felony. My friends says that its State Election Law. The professor says its tax law. Many other people say its federal election law. It is. And thats why this case has to be very upset. And if it was barack obama sitting there, with the same charges, the same facts that be saying the same exact thing for me. This is not about donald trump. Its about a United States citizen. You think its a weak case. Its the case is the facts of the case. The fact that learned counsel dont know exactly what the other charge is is insanely agree that when that i didnt i it came out. I think i was sitting right here. I said, okay, the other crime they have to prove falsifying Business Records to commit and other crime is unclear and a mess and it remains that way until now because even now, the prosecutor said while there was federal election crimes, it was state electric episodes, tax crimes. I dont know where theyre getting that from. They overpaid Michael Cohen so he could pay his taxes. But i think the primary theory here is that the other crime is a federal Campaign Finance violations and the theory is they falsified these records. It was a 130,000 payment. It Campaign Donation it Campaign Expenditure way over the limits. They falsified the records rather than calling them pay hush money payments, whatever white be an accurate accounting of it. They called it attorney fees, retainer, and so theres the falsification and then by falsifying those records and enabled them to essentially violate federal Campaign Finance laws. Theres a lot of gray area. I agree that but try the case where there was any gray area in your whole career, you never tried to case when you will prosecuting another human being, where it was up in the air or it wasnt in the indictment, what exactly you are charging them with evidence every every case i tried had gray are the other ones pled out i mean, thats why you have a trial. No, no, no, no. But the charge number, the elements of the crime or when the judge at the end of the shroud reads the jurors, here are the elements of the crime you and i dont know what hes going to say. These felony that that was committed. I know. I dont know. I think thats right. I think no. I mean, i think ellie gave a very coherent and aptt summary of the case, which is not all that ability though jeff, that comes down to the indictment is it is complicated. It is he said he said here when the indictment came out, hes the senior legal guy at cnn and hes got to look at an hes not 100 sure of what exactly the felony is that the president of the United States is charged with. That is not america. Thats not the way were supposed to be doing things here. If you told me he took a bag of cash, he took a bribe, he extorted people thats different here. We are still figuring out on the second day of testimony after opening arguments what is this what is the felony . Is it federal election law . Is it State Election Law is your tax we dont know. Thats not the way the system works. You know that he knows that the us trial guys to have a response. I think this the crime is the underlying crime is paying 150, 50,000 to eight to witness 130, and then 150,000 way more than youre allowed to under either state or federal campaign law. And then lying to cover and why is that . So which one is state of federal . You just say no . But thats not our system work okay. Youre committing a burglary. If youre committing a burglary to commit a crime therein, you have to tell the jury what is the crime lets look into how to commit is if it said on the line item, hush money would that have been okay. With that have negating the amounts to much because the amounts excessive. And maybe i can boil this down. I think because i want to hear more from berman from the trial i think its its quite clear already and it will be quite clear that one of the substantial motivations behind all of this was to try to impact the election. I dont have much rational question about that. Well say it just to be clear it may be that the prosecution does make clear in the coming days what crime they say they are highlighting here, what they seem to be doing is laying the groundwork here to say this was a campaign meeting, they asked me what i can do and what my magazine can do to help the campaign. And the other thing that they establish in this testimony was that it was Michael Cohen who called for this mean, let me just read this part. We dont have a graphic then ill get to a part with the graphic. How did this meeting come about . How did you know to go . He says pecker says, i received a call from Michael Cohen telling me the boss wanted to see me and thats how when i spoke to Michael Cohen, thats how we for fertile donald trump as the boss. This is important about this being a campaign meeting. This is being about the campaign and protecting campaign because that is the argument we have heard from a lot of the former president s supporters who say, look, he was concerned about his wife finding out the embarrassment of that i dont want to upset her this was not there was no mention of that in this meeting was all about the catalysts and pecker. And just once that pecker talks about that, pecker talks about for a campaign, why this issue of women could be important. Steinglass asked, can you explain to the jury how the topic of women in particular came up pecker says well, in a president ial campaign, i was the person that thought there would be a number, a lot of women come out to try to sell their stories because mr. Trump was wellknown and the most eligible bachelor and date of the most beautiful women. And it was clear based on my past experience that when someone is running for Public Office like this, it is very common for these women to call up a magazine like the National Enquirer and try to tell their stories and this was before this was before the access Hollywood Tape. So the actual, the importance of the access Hollywood Tape in this is that it sort of the the drumbeat got much louder about indiscretions, changed everything. Because remember Stormy Daniels was shopping around her story and was essentially offering to sell it. And they argued that the price was too high and said no, that they werent interested after the access Hollywood Tape came out that changed everything. Karen mcdougal had a similar experience where initially when you look at the reporting, the offer was quite low for her story, it was someone who had said just said, hey, you should tell your story. That guy is running for president. You want to be the one to tell your story. And then she came out with that also to speak to what this is all going to what these people at least believed it was about david pecker researched whether or not he was violating Campaign Finance laws when they were making the payment to Karen Mcdougal because obviously incorporation chuns also cannot donate that much money to a political candidate. So he even thought that this was on the brink of violating the law. And again, like look, i think i cant speak to the legalities of whether its state or federal. But the way that the system also works in this country is that you cant just have people handing 130,000 to a candidate today. It or a corporation having 130,000 to a candidate. Thats not how the system works to in order to protect the voter. I mean, there is an interest here in the voter and if we dont, we call this hush money thats what makes it sound. Its a Confidentiality Agreement. Theyre happening all the time. Theyre happening right now all over the place Confidentiality Agreement then it needs to be disclosed. If its done for a Campaign Like that. I think thats the thats the idea here. Its what call it whatever you want, hush money confidentiality, but its for a campaign and there are rules around that. And clearly, david pecker didnt really think that these corners of the eye here is to emphasize what would abbe saying. Its not, its its it was not a legal fee, which is exactly what was on the records that we was get one more thing transcript and john, because this is about not putting stuff well, it wasnt in writing. It was an agreement whatever it was, it was an agreement initially. And not in writing. Heres a question from josh steinglass, the prosecutor, were any of the agreements the agreement to print the negative stories about the opponents, positive stories from trump or the agreement to notify Michael Cohen about potentially negative stories about donald trump or any of those agreements put into Writing Pecker says, no they werent put into writing. It was just an agreement among friends. Well, heres why thats significant. I mean, obviously they didnt start using reducing things to writing until money got involved. But to abbys point, i think people maybe wondering why is the Stormy Daniels payment charges a Crime A State crime here, but not the Karen Mcdougal what payment the evidence of Karen Mcdougal will come into this case because its relevant as background, but its not charged as a crime. And the reason is the state crime here is falsification of Business Records. The allegation, as i said before, is that they did that with Stormy Daniels because it was really a hush payment, but they called it attorneys fees, but they did not do that with Karen Mcdougal. It was structured separately. It was structured essentially as a catch and kill that was no falsification. They paid her for the story and then they killed it. So the state law doesnt quite apply here on top, which is the point you were making before. Yeah, but that with Karen Mcdougal, there was discussion of the trump trump world giving ami basically back that money. Am i didnt do that and thats the next step that did not happen in that case. It makes it different from what and Rudy Giuliani is on television in 2018 saying that Michael Cohen wasnt doing legal work for donald trump when he was paid that amount of money. Its higher than the 130,000. Its closer to 340,000. So he didnt have to take attacks. It and that is what my Michael Cohen has been 60,000 for his legal work for his troubles because he drew down a Home Equity Line to do this. But Rudy Giuliani, who was still representing trump at the time, is on tv saying Michael Cohen wasnt doing any legal work for trump when he got this payment. This is what they marked it as. You have a pecker says just the opposite today, he says hes getting all the phone calls from cohen and it was a different time, but that was does that was during the campaign and hes saying that when Michael Kuilan has paid, which is when trump was in the white house and when they put that in the ledger, that he wasnt actually doing any Legal Services for trump. He was doing this much more head including more Breaking News. The judge just handed the defense another setback that plus Devlin Barrett from the Washington Post, who was in court today. Well be right back. Zyrtec allergy Relief Works Fast and last a full 24 hours, so they can be to litter dance okay. Dave lets be more than our allergies seize the De With Zyrtec. No application fee. If you apply by may 31st at University Of MarylandGlobal Campus and accredited university city, thats transformed adult lives for 75 years. 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