Im sorry that does it for this Special Edition of ac30 60, the Karen Mcdougal, the interview. The news continues on cnn. Have a good night. Straight from the source tonight i am brand new reporting on a tense divide over who might take the stand next at trumps trial. My lead source has extraordinary inside first as a top doj a prosecutor, now as one of americas go to attorneys for highprofile clients, most recently, Britney Spears and critics tonight are calling for a Supreme Court justice to step aside from trumps appeal for immunity after justice, a alito admits a symbol of socalled stop the steal was flying in front of his house just days after june murray six, he says his wife is to blame for the upside down American Flag. Theres also new fallout tonight from a shocking cnn exclusive Sean Diddy Combs caught on camera violently assaulting his then girlfriend, a beating that he previously denied. Did his former assistant will join me live. Im Kaitlin Collins and this is the source fresh off of a cliff hanger in the courtroom, donald trump is back on the campaign trail tonight. Hes about to speak at a republican dinner in minnesota, were monitoring that for any news. But the former president flew there from florida after attending his youngest son, barrons high school graduation. Thats the reason he was not here in manhattan in court today after justice juan, were sean granted and off days so he could do so but shortly before the judge, a georgia court, he made clear that the end of this whole trial could be quite close as we hear at the source and been digging into what or i guess i should rather say who could trigger the next dramatic moment in court . Im lauren tonight that theres an internal divide among trumps legal team over whether or not to call Robert Costello as a witness . That would be Michael Cohens onetime Legal Advisor that he says not his lawyer, who claimed publicly that Michael Cohen is lying about key claims that he made about donald trump on the stand that decision which were told is still up in the air as of tonight and remains to be seen what they will ultimately decide comes after we sold trumps attorney has lead attorney here, todd blanche, have cohen on the ropes trying to chip away at his credibility inside the courtroom essentially Painting Cohen is a liar that the jury should trust ive also learned about a notable spectator at the trump trial yesterday, not in the rows of republicans who were up near the Defense Table that we saw later on television defending him. But one of trumps codefendants actually in the State Of Georgia, Jeffrey Clark was seen towards the back of the room yes. That Jeffrey Clark, the Senior Justice Department official, who trump nearly made Attorney General, the back off after others starting to resign in protest of that decision. The. One who wanted to leverage the agency and its powers to help trump overturn the Election Results in 2020 as far as clark goes, in this case, he is just part of the sayyed not really a main focus of the case, but the real show down at the heart of this, the alleged crime is a Campaign Finance violation and a cover up my lead source tonight has been called one of the sharpest attorneys ever at the justice department. He was a prosecutor on the dojs Campaign Finance taskforce, and hes currently in high demand as one of americas top attorneys representing clients, including steven spielberg, sean penn, most recently, Britney Spears at the rosengart. Welcome to the source as your first time here, its great to have you i mean, i could ask you a lot of questions about those three clients, but on this case at hand as it stands right now, weve heard your thoughts on this. What do you make of where it is at this moment, i called this a few weeks ago or it seems like months ago before the case started, are lawyers case and what he meant by that is a case that really and it may sound odd but somewhat unusual in a criminal case comes down to who is a better lawyer. And i say that because the government really should win every case that a charges and as a bonus case, it comes down to preparation, skills in the courtroom and thats the difference maker, right now, given what we saw last week, i think its a toss up, whereas going into any case, it really should generally be a shooin for the government. And what at what point did it become a toss up in your view because we saw the first day that todd blanche had a chance to crossexamining Michael Cohen. He didnt really land any kind of knockout blows. It is it is credibility. Michael cohen stayed very, even temporary or even mass yesterday was heating up where was that Turning Point for you . I think it was a close call in oman record, although we dont like to make predictions going into the case. But after wednesday afternoon, i think its a toss up and i think the defense has momentum going in that can change in a heartbeat. Thats the interesting thing about trials. Its going to be very interesting to see how the prosecution and theyve got a weekend to deal with it, will rehabilitate Michael Cohen, but theyve got their work cut out for them. If you are on the prosecution, i mean, what would you do when you get the chance to have Michael Cohen to read question him after after trumps team has done with it. Well, the first thing i do is i would shed him and i would shed myself. And what i mean by that is the government was caught unaware. And thats something that never should happen either. Michael cohen should have told them about the Text Messages even though its a long time ago. Or they should have through their preparation. And one of the things about being the government to my point earlier is that youve got all the time in the world prior to a case in determining whether to charge a case. And when to charge a case. And how to charge a case, to know everything. And they were caught unaware. Now, what will they do to rehabilitate Michael Cohen . And their own credibility with the jury, which is essential. Theyre going to have to come up with an explanation. I think Michael Cohen hinted at what the explanation is going to be. I thought it was weak but it was well, we talked about other things during that conversation as well, that 96 second conversation. So its going to have to be Something Like that. Or maybe theres another surprise. Yeah. And the question is, does the jury find that credible than 96 seconds you could have both of those conversations, but i mean, this is the Michael Cohen moment was certainly a standout moment, but this is bigger than that. And you know, i keep the knee back to the other testimony that we heard for david pecker from hope hicks, everyone who tie this back to the election, saying this is very clearly a david pecker said they didnt want the story from Karen Mcdougal to embarrass trump or hurt his election chances. Hope hicks said that trumps opinion in the white house was better to deal with the Stormy Daniels story after he was president , then then before i mean, do you think the prosecution has done enough to prove the Campaign Finance violation by hate to sound too much like a lawyer. But the answer is it depends potentially, yes, in part because the Campaign Finance statute, unlike very specific and somewhat byzantine federal campaign statutes, the type that i used to prosecute is very vague here, and ive got a note just so i get it correctly. New york election law 17152 prohibits conspiracies to promote the election of a specific canada and today through unlawful means. I dont know sitting here today exactly what that means. Its broad, however, and thats very good because it gives the government the opportunity to argue that what happens here, falls within the scope of that statute weve been hearing this repeated refrain from the republicans who have been coming and hanging out in those first two rows behind, behind the Defense Table about that, they dont think that theyve theyve made that theyve met their burden, that theyve theyve proven this case Just A Little Bit is my Attorney General said that well, lets i want everyone to listen to it because we put them several of them together. It starts with the Attorney General from my home state commenting on this there is no basis for this crime. Here. You have a madeup madeup charge. This is a madeup crime. What is the fine . Because everyone in this court has not been informed of what the prime end i think everyones kind of walking away there to floored boebert restart. Im not sure what happened there, but is the prosecution meeting their burden here, do they need to spell out that specific statute for the jury, which includes two attorneys. I should note. I think that he do because alluding to something that you said before the government, really all it has is its credibility. The judge looks to the government for credibility. The jury looks to the government for credibility. Theyre held to a higher standard and what the government must do, in my opinion, what they failed to do so far is take ownership of their problems, to take ownership of complex legal issues, to take ownership of credibility issues with witnesses, which i think they fell to do as we saw on wednesday with Michael Cohen. So i think its very important for the government not to run away from their problems including their Circuitous Legal Theory that they put together here. But rather take ownership of it and its now more important than ever, because i thought i think theyve lost credibility with the jury based upon what happens on wednesday that do you really think that one moment undermined the other days where you would see david pecker get up there, keith davidson, they had some even the Jeff Mcconney from the Trump Organization had some strong tests. I dont think that that one moment will overwhelm the rest of the case. But what and again, well see what happens over the next couple of days. The government now has time to regroup. But what does happen again, alluding to something you said theres a zeitgeist in any case and theres a rhythm to any case. And if the government loses faith, excuse me, if the jury loses faith in the government and loses faith and Michael Cohen, its a big problem for the government that has an overlapping effect. And it could control what the jury thinks about the rest of the governments case at the end of the day juries, often i think do the right thing. And in doing the right thing, they determine who do we like, whos most credible . The question is, has the government lost too much of its credibility to come back and win the case. We also have two other friends just hitting youre listening to this fascinating conversation. Cnn senior legal analyst and former assistant us attorney elie conic, also retired new york state Supreme Court justice joel kahn visor, elie what do you make of what his view of where the stands and what the prosecution needs to do in the next few days. So i agree with matthew. I think the moment we saw with Michael Cohen was devastating and i think its really hard to recover from that. I mean, as matthew said, your credibility is everything in one moment like that one moment where the jury is going to conclude either this witness was lying or was sorely mistaken that is devastating. And i think juries will make a decision based on one moment like that, that sticks in peoples head. Think about president ial debates. How many president ial debates through history do we remember for one moment. I think juries tend to be the same one visceral moment of collapse like that, i think can haunt you through to the verdict. Does that true, judge, is what youve seen. I think generally are both correct. I think the difference here is that everyone knew going in everyone in that room knew going in who Michael Cohen was the bar was very low. They knew him to be a liar, a convicted liar it says and testified to that has every right, not only that they probably read about it, everyone knew about it doesnt mean its disqualify, disqualify someone from being on the jury. So i think in this case, under these facts, its slightly different, but i do think that people need to, through their redirect examination, do some of the heavy lifting here to explain it. If they can, we document what i mean, theres still a question right now from what ive heard from both sides of whether or not theyre going to call this other witness for the defense, Robert Costello he is someone who the jury saw texts from castello to michael color, basically saying after Michael Cohen is very clearly and legal trouble, i can be your back channel to donald trump. Hire me as your attorney and through rudy giuliani, well talk to trump pill protect us, stay strong. All of these comments theres a divide though, because it kind of feels like a rabbit hole to bring him in at this point in the case i mean, whats your outside of you i agree with that. Im generally conservative. I dont think that decision is going to be left up entirely to the Trump Defense team. I think trumps going to make the decision. And i think what weve seen from him is more is more as a trial lawyer, i think elie would agree want to be generally conservative the defense has momentum now, as a result of what they did to Michael Cohen, its hard for me to predict what theyll do maybe they think castello would be icing on the cake. Hes a forceful person, is a former federal prosecutor as well on the other hand, they might want to just lay low and let Michael Cohen be the last witness theyve heard from. Yeah. I mean, the prosecution has Robert Costello emails that sounded a little tony soprano like when you read them, when you were reading them in court, i binoculars. I was looking at them and he was he kept saying, you my friends client, referring to donald trump. Right. Let me know if you have a message for my friend. Im a hard no, im calling Robert Costello if im on the defense team here, why you dont get enough out of him. First of all, if hes going to say what rudy wanted a pardon . And i mean, excuse me. Well, Michael Cohen wanted to pardon. Thats already come up. We already have evidence to that. If hes going to undermine Michael Cohen and other ways, we have emails between them already calling Robert Costello gives you very little upside as the defense and a lot of downside. The last thing you want is to have Robert Costello get blown up the way Michael Cohen just got blown up thats the last thing the jury takes, and theres no reason to do it. Its i think if they call them, its reckless and theyre asking for trouble. The judge has also been a singular point of focus for donald trump here. I mean, he rails against him and calls him corrupt every single day. There was seen and learned tonight that this ethics complaint that was filed against him because he donated 35 to a group that tries to help like democrats. It was dismissed against him last summer, and it was dismisses whats called a caution. Can you just what does that whats the significance of that . Well, ill say a few things. One is 35, he shouldnt have done it like we can all agree with that 35, however, is to minimise there is a new York State Commission on judicial conduct that reviews complaints of judges and ensures that any complaints are investigated where they should be and then theres action taken. I used to be a member of that commission and the lowest level that they can the lowest sentence if you would, is a caution which is what he got essentially dont do it. And that came on the heels of the ethics and ethics advisory committee. Advisory opinion, which said this is anything less than 50 is not anything we need to worry about. And it also came on the heels of professor Stephen Gillers saying theres no reason to recuse yourself here. So yes, youre right. Donald trump goes in front of the cameras every day and he rails against the only person whos not covered in the gag order that he can who is the judge . But think about it for a minute. The judge has issued dozens and dozens of opinions decisions, rulings. This is what hes earning about the 35 Charge Mission is headed down the middle fairly throughout. Yeah. So hes picking on the one thing thats not how trump sees it or frames it or certainly would not acknowledge a grade. But what how does t