Witnesses testify, former National Enquirer publisher david pecker, wrapping up a week on the stand, former trump personal assistance, or rhona graff, seemingly undermining the former president is denial about faris and Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougal, and a former executive of the bank where Michael Cohen arrange the, uh, hundred and 30,000 daniels payout . Rhona graff, under defense crossexamination in meetings. She was not testifying by choice, but nonetheless, telling prosecutors that she kept Contact Information for the two women her boss had denied knowing intimately, including Stormy DanielsCell Phone Number and two addresses for Karen Mcdougal she also said she vaguely recalled one seeing daniels at trump tower on the 26th floor. Then when prompted by the defense, she said it might have been in connection with the apprentice earlier. The defense tried hard to undermine former National Enquirer publisher david pecker, and upcoming witness, Michael Cohen the trumps attorney, emil bove, a asking if he believed cohen was prone to exaggeration, pecker agreeing that he was the end of it all, the former president had this to say about the trials so far this is eight days that we all sitting in this courthouse this is all night. Indictment its an honor to try and win an election. Political opponent nothing like this has ever happened eight days our country is going to help and we sit here day after, day after day, which is their plan well, the foreign president offer no evidence, of course, to backup any of those claims. Theres no evidence that any of what he said is true, joining us tonight, new york Criminal Defense Attorney arthur aidala, also, attorney and former apprentice contestant stacey schneider, cnn Political Commentator earl lewis, in and legal analyst karen friedman, agnifilo hello, and elie honig and cnns Kara Scannell, who was in the courtroom today. And well be going through the transcript for us throughout the night. I want to ask this everybody for care of for you. What stood out today . Well, i had an actual front row seat. Todays sitting just behind donald trump. And when david pecker was testifying, trump, essentially maintain the same position the whole time i mean, it would seem like it was a bit tedious or boring to him. He was just sitting back in his chair with his head cocked in the direction of david pecker, turned to completely make out his facial expressions, but when rhona graff took the stand, we saw his Body Language changed dramatically. Mean she was testifying pretty favorably about him. Well, under crossexamination chen, by his lawyer, and he then had shifted his chair so we can look directly at her. And then when she was leaving the stand, it happened to be at a break and he stood up, which is normal and it looked as though he was trying to move toward her as if to talk to her. But it didnt seem like they had made any kind of connection, but it was a long day in court and he seems to sort just take it in listening, but not really even actively engaging as much as his attorneys as weve seen on other days where he was actively path singh notes. Today, he just seemed to be taking it in to you. What would stood out . So the banker, the third witness, is the least sensational witness that weve heard from, but also in my view, the most important because when people ask, well, wheres the crime . Its really important to remember because weve just spent a week immersed in Hush Money Payments and porn stars and payouts the crime is in the financing. And now were finally getting to that. This banker basically started to establish that Michael Cohen was eager to get this line of financing set up. He felt a sense of urgency and there was some need to be undercover about the way they did it. And its important to keep in mind Michael Cohen is the prosecutions star witness. But they have to show he committed a crime because if the jury does not believe Michael Cohen committed a crime, its over. Theres no way donald trump committed a crime. Lets Michael Cohen isnt very easy to show. Michael cohen committed a crime given he spent time in prison. Yeah, he pled to the federal offense, which is a little different than the falsifying documents, which is the state offense. The hilt say he committed a crime, so it wont be that hard. Heard but you want to establish exactly how we committed the crime, which is through this financing and then tied donald trump right to that would you i think what stood out to me this week is the entire defense is starting to take shape, are starting to understand how theyre going to present their defense. And its largely through the peoples witnesses other. Than going on the attack and going on the offensive against the witnesses that have testified so far, there sort of embracing the facts but saying, yeah, these things happened. Yeah, there was hush money paid, but weve been doing that that was being done for everybody. It wasnt had nothing to do with the election. This is just a Business Model and this is how it went. This is essentially how david pecker made his money. And i just benefited from it too. So did he had nothing to do with the election, nothing to do with the election interference. And the reason thats significant is because elys right, its all about the records, but thats just a misdemeanor well, it gets it to a felony is if it was done in furtherance of some sort other crime, like Election Fraud. So i thought that was interesting because sometimes Defense Attorneys will go on the attack and theyll really attack the credibility and say this didnt happen and there was a little bit of that with david pecker, but not a lot just a few little little things. It was really mostly, yes. This is what happened. But nothing to see here. Its not a crime and they were all me pecker has said that this was about the election. I mean, he said hes also was concerned about his family, but the election was front and yeah. He pointed out that more or less the family was at best a secondary consideration. I was really struck by the fact that even he had some limits. I mean, hes talking about a very unsavory enterpriser pecker, very unsavory enterprise paying people to to sort of buy their stories and then buried those stories are putting out proactively. I thought that was also interesting. Proactively putting out all kinds of false stories against trumps enemies that this was a complete enterprise but then to also hear him say that there were limits to that, that he didnt want to buy Stormy Daniel story. You know, he says im not the bank, im not not going to be an endless source of money to buy off all of your mistresses are all of the people that you want to keep quiet. It was interesting to me that like even within this really distasteful enterprise that he was running, he felt like he had some limits and apparently had talked with some of the lawyers for the enquirer and was told, dont take that extra step. This could actually have some reputational harm. This could be a problem for you somewhere down the line. And thats why Michael Cohen ended up dipping into his own Resources Stacey Habit for whats to them . Well, todays interesting for me because rhona graff took the stand and i know rhona graff from being on the show. She is the nicest woman in the world. I always wondered how she made it through more than 30 years working for a difficult donald trump, but she literally is his gatekeeper. She knows all his schedules. And even though her testimony was really short, the prosecution is being strategic. They got in those nuggets that rhona knew that donald trump had Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougals Phone Numbers in his directory, rhona controls everybodys all the Phone Numbers that donald trump needs access to and the fact that Stormy Daniels was in trump tower, she has a memory of her being there and regardless of what the purpose of Stormy Daniels being there was at that time, when you have Michael Cohen coming in, who the defense is going to completely argue as we all know, has credibility issues placing stormy in the building, a trump tower isnt advantage rather than just stormy and donald trump being in a photograph together, its sort of little nuggets that eventually i think will be tied up later in the case. So that was an enrollment was also a unionizing witness for donald trump incidentally, she was a prosecution witness, but shes affection about her boss and she always cared for him and when Michael Cohen comes in, who is the most disgruntled former employee on the planet . The defense might remind the jury and closing statement that, hey, you know now donald trump is not hu Michael Cohen says he is. That might be a strategy well see, are there anything that prosecutions or the defense is doing . Well karen has an enormous amount of experience and the other night or maybe last night, when i said theres an underlying elements of jury nullification, which is just like, okay, yeah, this all happened really, folks, are you really going to put this guy in jail for this for these crimes that youre not even going to understand when the judge reads the charged you exactly whats going on here. And we just heard from mr. Pecker that it goes on all the time. With celebrities at different aspects of their life with Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for governor of the biggest state in the United States of america. Like this is underlying current and so like karens point also, there are some times when you can attack and then theres other times where you like. All right. Theres no way i could get around this right. So let me figure out a way. E to adopt it and make it my own and use it in the way most beneficial to me because ill lose credibility with the jury if i tried to say that black is white and white is black. But if i figure out a way to say its either black and i loved black or its white and i loved blight or its a little gray, but not be this like a toc dog. What i was quantity ask was, Susan Nicholas question this witness, correct. What was because i know i know of her. Shes like a mentor almost in that shes a very, very wellknown and well regarded Criminal Defense Attorney. What was it like in the courtroom with having a woman stand up and conducting this and shes really a skilled lawyer, so im just curious if with a dynamic changed well, the prosecutor who did the question was also female was Susan Hoffinger who asked her the questions and she went through she was using graph to get in these documents thats because they havent had stipulations on a lot of the Business Records. So were going to see a lot of these document witnesses. But when Susan Nicholas took took the podium and she was asking rhona graff these questions. She was leaning into the humanizing factor of donald trump. And at one point, after a few questions that she got in, the prosecutors objected and the judge had sustained it essentially was like, okay, we need to move on to the next topic because she was drawing out this favorable image of donald trump through the eyes of rhona graph. You been looking at through the transcripts which we get them very late in the day, what what would it noted . On crossexamination of david pecker today . The core of his hes a vehicle by the prosecution to set the stage and just talk about this august 2015 meeting in which this catch and kill conspiracy as the prosecution has laid it out, began where he met with donald trump and Michael Cohen. So they were trying to go back to that meeting and suggests that it was just like businesses usual, it was Standard Operating Procedure for the National Enquirer. So Aiml Beauvais want to trumps Defense Lawyers had asked pecker on the stan i want you i want to stick with the august 2015 trump tower meeting. Pecker says yes, beauvais says, at that meeting, the concept of catchandkill was not discussed, correct . Pecker said thats correct but they asked and then there was no discussion of a financial dimension to any agreement at that meeting, correct . Pecker said, yes, thats correct. So trying to say that there was no blatant conversation about a catch and kill and that im going to buy the deals now on redirect with the prosecution, they tried to put that back together with pecker saying, i talked about either someone would have to buy the maga, the story if it wasnt me, it was going to be he was saying i was going to tell Michael Cohen and Michael Cohen was going to find someone who would take care of it. So they put it back together. But this was a strategy by the defense, is that october meeting in 2015 is important for the prosecution because thats really the the the origin of this arrangement that then move forward and we saw the results with the doorman and mcdougal and then later Stormy Daniels, even though national acquired and buy stock in story, right . Exactly. I mean, this is the beginning of the conspiracy and it was as pecker testified, it was Donald Trumps idea to have the meeting and that donald trump asked him, what can you and your magazine do for me . So this was the piece that trumps team was trying to chip away at, that they would have published a lot of these stories about trumps opponents. Anyway, because thats what the National Enquirer does. And it was good for business for them because they would benefit their readers. Was like donald will trump, that was one of the things that came out in the testimony that they had prior to that meeting, they had already published negative stories, isnt that right away . They had been carson and they went through a couple of things that they showed that the gordian had already published a lot of these stories about ben carson and the National Enquirer was just recycling it and that it was coinciding with poll results. And they also establish that the National Enquirer had already done a bunch of negative stories on bill and Hillary Clinton that predated this meeting. So it wasnt something that was necessarily hatched then saying there was already a pattern here. So trying to really for sizing that this is what the National Enquirer does. And then prosecutors trying to say, but everything was different in 2015 because they did some of these things like bearing the Karen Mcdougal story that didnt benefit them much more to talk about, including more from the trial transcripts up next to a point that earl lewis brought up earlier, the moment on the stand when david pecker admitted there were conditions under which he would publish a story damaging to the former president will okay. Yeah, we got orders coming in, starting a business is never easy. The star name, eight months pregnant. Thats a different story. I couldnt slow down. We were starting a business from the ground up. 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