south guilt.com today good evening, everyone. welcome to a special edition of newsnight. i'm abby phillip alongside kaitlan collins here in new york. donald trump's fate will soon be decided that the hands of a jury of his peers and the prosecution wrapped up late tonight, just about two hours ago, following the defense earlier this morning now, both sides tried to condense five weeks of testimony into their closing arguments today, it was their last and final chance to make their case to the jury before those 12 new yorkers decide whether to let donald trump walk or making the first president with a criminal conviction. the jury is expected to begin deliberating tomorrow after hearing the judges instructions to them you can see trump earlier. >> walk can to trump tower. he did not speak as he typically does when he leaves court today. but inside that room, durer's first heard from trump's defense attorney todd blanche, who laid out what he said were the top ten reasons to doubt this case against trump. their biggest focus was the prosecution's star witness, michael cohen, and they did not hold back repeatedly slamming the former presidents, former fixer as the mvp of liars, the gloat, which todd blanche said was the greatest liar of all time. the human embodiment of reasonable doubt. and also telling the jury that cohen lied to them and particular often prosecutors immediately began to try to reverse that when it was their turn to make their closing argument, reminding that same jury pool and i'm quoting now, this case is not about michael cohen. this case is about donald trump. they also argue that cohen is just part of this case against trump, and that there is a mountain of evidence and their view corroborating his testimony, saying it's difficult to conceive of a case with more corroboration than this one. >> and in case you're wondering where donald trump's head was during the prosecution's argument. well, of course he gave us some insights into that posting. twice on truth social during the break writing filibuster and boring remember, the jury isn't being asked to decide whether it michael cohen is a liar. they're not being asked to decide whether or not trump has had a one-night stand with stormy daniel's or not, or even the legality of the hush money payment itself. their job is to decide whether trump falsified business records in order to help his 2016 campaign? full stop. so question is, tonight, did prosecutors proved that beyond a reasonable doubt we've got a whole bunch of lawyers here to help us sort that out. our panelists with us joining us now former counsel to president trump during his first impeachment, robert re, former assistant special watergate prosecutor, make ackerman criminal defense attorney ladies colwyn, a criminal and civil defense. a civil attorney. dante mils. so panel. this was a big de and i believe that you were in the courthouse today, right? >> i was there for you. >> but good the good, the bad, and the indifferent. what did you take away at the end of the day? it was a very long grueling de for this jury did any of it penetrate more than others? >> let me just say from the start with the defense's summation, i thought they did an effective job with what they had i thought they stuck to what they said in their opening statement. they tried to argue and this is the big issue, whether or not those payments of $35,000 a ten payments over 2017 were really for legal fees or were they a reimbursement for the monies that went to stormy daniel's, which in turn led to the falsifications of the bank records i thought they did what they had to do. they made the argument that it was for legal fees. but the problem was that when the prosecution got up, they were able to show basically from two documents, exhibits 33 and 34, which they referred to as smoking guns. that basically took out that $420,000 that may it up the ten times 312 times 3305000 and showed how the money that was paid to stormy daniels came out of that and i thought that was extremely powerful in terms of breaking that day. follow up on that because one of the things that i don't think has been talked about enough and maybe this it was one of the strongest moments for the defense. but these suggested that this was all michael cohen's ball that michael cohen was the guy who created the invoices, who sent them into the trump organization, the accountants did what accountants du which is just take the invoices login as they received it he was responsible well, yes, the whole point of those two exhibits because those two exhibits are in the handwriting of both mcconney, who is the controller, and weisselberg, who was the chief executive, chief financial officer and so they actually put that together. >> cohen did testify that that was done with the approval of donald trump. but it's hard to believe weisselberg did this on his own. it's hard to believe. but is that enough for the jury? yeah. i think i think it is when you take all the other circumstances into account on this robert, you read both the transcript of both arguments that i can say both arguments i got through the entirety of the defense summation and i started into it's like reading moby dick or would it take you a while to know? all five weeks and i know it was only eight hours today, outer per week, but it seemed like it was an entire week worth of summations by the prosecution was going today, they were making get one point an argument that michael cohen spent more time under cross-examination than he did in his hours of legal work for donald trump in 2018 or in 2017 when it came to how they were trying to restore his credibility. i know that you obviously don't see the prosecution's case here, but did you think that they made any strong arguments? in their closing today in front of that jury well, look, let's start with the first premise of this, which is you asked whether it's been proven to the jury that donald trump falsified records. >> the answer to that is no. i mean, that's not exactly what he is charged with, but he didn't falsify the records and i think he got them to be false well, okay. so so that's that's it's the argument and that's the question that you would expect the prosecutors summation to revolve around. did he cause this to happen? i think inevitably though contrary to what he says in the beginning of the transcript of his summation, this case inevitably is about michael cohen. i mean obviously it's about donald trump, who is the defendant on trial. but there are parts of this case that being one of them in terms of being able to find that donald trump cause those records to be false with intent that you have to rely on michael cohen's testimony. it's unavoidable to be able to convict and you can make a plausible argument which the prosecution did. >> in fairness to their argument that common sense will tell you plus the corroboration that is present in this case that they are able to find and convict beyond a reasonable doubt whether they will do so, though is entirely up to them and i don't think at this point it's safe to say one way or another where that's going to come out. let me ask you guys about one of the most explosive moments. the jury didn't see the explosive part, but they heard it here. here's what todd blanche said as he got to the very end of his his his his closing arguments blanche says, you cannot you cannot send somebody to prison. you cannot convict somebody. objection the court says sustained. blanche refreezes. you cannot convict someone based upon the words of michael cohen. i say it's explosive because it's a real double-edged sword i am curious what you, whether you guys think it was intentional or maybe a slip of the tongue. but how this plays with the jury, they heard the objection. they heard the word prison. they heard the objection. they heard the judge sustain it. it's being and then they were given instructions about it. so it's been reinforced in their minds many times at this point, how does that going to go down? so abby, as the practitioner, you never want your summations to be interrupted because the judges upset with you because it definitely diminishes your argument. >> you never want to be the focus are all about putting in your narrative on behalf of your client when the judge does say a sustained objection like that, you're exactly right. and they get a curative instruction, then the jury is signaling will understand that that practitioner did something wrong because now the judge is leaning into that objection plus a curative instruction because he shouldn't have talked about prison. that is strictly in the purview of the judge. >> i don't technically i don't buy that one juror right now, are not thinking this guy is trying to put pressure on us to keep his client out of absolutely. >> and technically, you're you're right. >> but these offensive attorneys have a clients who represent and i think the best part of their closing argument was that line because the jury has this weight of we are deciding if a former president of the united states will become a felon. >> that's a heavyweight. yeah, he just told them, do not put some federal way to say. boy. he said don't put someone in jeffrey it's not just anyone is a former president of the united states and he understands, we can knit, pick this case. but common sense trump did this right? traumas common since it happened, what he's pleading with one personal net jury to do is say he's a former president and he shouldn't go down and you're not going to put them in and for the better way to say it is and i have said this in summation and it is intentional. >> it's not a slip is to say, you know, this case is weak and you're talking about someone's liberty that said state, this is not a civil case, this is a criminal case, and the prosecution wants to take somebody's liberty away on the evidence based upon a reliance on mike cool colon. that's absolutely appropriate. and i have will say, when you start to get the judge upset and that's exactly what to do articulately well, most of the cases i've tried pretty much it's obvious that prison is at stake. now, i my response of plants had gotten the response to that he got from the the people on that was off, so i guess it means to suggest in the event of conviction, you're not going to be asking for a sentence of imprisonment because that was their position, judge, this is unfair topic because this is not a case. this is not a case. the calls were prison sentence i would note that when they did return after the break, it was the people, the prosecution who typed up what the instruction they wanted read to the jury to be todd blanche should not object, and he the judge then read it to the jury once they got in the room, and i wouldn't have objected either. i mean, that at that point with or without your objection. >> overall, what they hurt because that was one moment and it was important moment, but it wasn't everything but the way they handled the closing arguments was very different today, todd blanche was kind of throwing everything to the wall, mainly focusing on undermining michael cohen and emphasis writing his credibility the prosecution went much longer. obviously, that was the main difference, but he also tried to tell a story and to put it in this chronological order. which one typically sits better with a jury? >> well, i think what happened was the story was what unraveled, what the defense put forward i mean, they had some good arguments on the surface, but once you got into the nitty-gritty details, it was that long story of what happened that really unraveled the defenses arguments and particularly one one that i think is worth talking about is the costello element in this that i think really has had a big impact on this case they have shown by putting castello on i mean, they referred to them as a double agent. and the emails are just terrible i mean, it sounds like he's trying to keep cohen from cooperating and he's trying to basically not act as an attorney in the best interests of colin. >> you're saying basically that costello effectively became a prosecution witness? >> well, yes. and not only that, i think he basically whatever whatever the defense did in terms of making some progress, i think costello just pushed it all back. i'd better not putting the case then to put in a bank, right. >> this airable from the standpoint to their client as opposed to because every practitioner that you've heard from said the same thing, don't call castello, don't put him on the stand. it is problematic and sure enough, that's what exact i'm sure that there were two different styles, but it's necessary to prosecution has to walk through and make sure they check every single box yeah. >> their job is just to say one box is not checked. >> right? so they don't have to go and construct in order. they don't have to go through a whole story. all they have to do is pointing things out and hope that the jury latches what they did. they didn't say one box is not checked. they said but you never want they take historic boxes are not checked and that's actually the critique that we've been hearing all day long, which is that sometimes less is more and there was a lot that the defense put on the table that perhaps they didn't have to. why did they dispute whether donald trump had an affair with stormy daniels? it's not even clear to me why they disputed the idea of whether the records were actual legal fees or not. they were trying to argue that michael cohen was acting as a bonafide lawyer for donald trump, but it seems not what they needed to do in order to poke reason. >> i don't think it's entirely about a scattershot approach. i think that's what most people have said in its defense does like, you know, you're defensively, you try anything that you think might work. some arguments are better than others. i still think it gets down to attempting to show in a narrative that donald trump's motivations were not about in this regard doing what the prosecution is alleging that he did, which was that it was all about trying to influence voters in the 2016 election politics, once again, it's sort of creeped its way back into this trial, among many other things, when it comes to donald trump, i think that part of the defense strategy has been to human eyes. donald trump, which they attempted to do an opening as a preview and to put forward mixed motivations for why he would have acted the way he did include putting among other things to protect his family and so disputing things about like what happened with regard to stormy daniels. i think a jury exercises a fair amount of common sense about that, and you would expect the defendant to do that. there's nothing criminal about that. and so you would expect todd want to save bayesian, to be making that argument. that's just one of the arguments you've been making. that's interesting, donald trump, the client. >> so donald trump didn't take the stand. but what was so effective, what the prosecution did is it went and used admissions that he had written in his books, the art of a deal he said in his the art of a deal that he is a monk frugal, micromanager, and bitly instead of business owners, make sure you sign every check you need to know the finances of your company. so when they're introducing all those documents and they keep showing donald trump signature after one after another, after another. that's how they're trying to create the intent part this is a man by his own words, said that he is micromanager and he needs to know everything that takes place in his business the purpose behind these a little hard to do that though when he i think is the defense effectively pointed out in summation, he's signing those checks and reviewing these thanks supposedly, while he's in the oval office, while being present in the united states in the first year of his term, he pretty busy guy during that time. that may have been true during art of the deal days, it's a little different to try to make that same argument once he's removed himself from the trump organization enough because there's also testimony that michael cohen was invited to the white house and they had a conversation about these checks. david pecker was invited to the white house and donald trump walked alongside the colonnade and asked him about how karen mcdougal was doing. i mean, you're busy is the president of the united states with donald trump is a micro-finance. >> i don't really know the point of his golf hafiz, he signed the checks the checksum one that came is it clearly that even his assistant said that he knew what was taking place because he was signing on no, not new what we say uv light. >> so he knows what's in front of him. check, say retainer honors, what if that's not really happening? >> i think the defense made? >> it clear what they're summation style don't do this to a former president, right? and if you need a reason, well, here's the globe, right? here's a quote that you can tell people. here's why i didn't find him guilty. they gave you excuses if you need an excuse, but also really said not for this, don't take down someone a former president, donald trump for this. i think that was the defense, a truly believed that was the defense. i do think they thought that they can convince a jury of donald trump didn't know what was happening with these payments, but they said, don't take them down for this, but i do think that prison moment to go. i don't want to go back to our list huge, but i think that was a big moment. i don't think it was accidental. i think it was intentional. it was not a slip. again, you can sort of quibble over whether there's a better way to phrase it. but it is important for the jury to know judge marsha, notwithstanding, i don't think i agree with his reaction to that. it's important for a jury to no, not that they have any sentencing role it's important for a jury to know the consequences of convicting somebody in a criminal case, three periods. >> jerry cheri does know, but it's the job of a job of a defense leonardo a hammer that home this case. >> and about this jury is that you've got to lawyers on the jury. they understand that that's off limits. it'll be interesting to see how herbert civil lawyers that's not true they knew, or maybe maybe they don't know but uh, but it'll be interesting to see how they interpret that slip of the tongue are intentional message to them, everyone. thank you very much for all of that conversation coming up next, former trump inside or anthony scaramucci reacts to today's closing remarks and the trunk children who showed up today in court all right. plus, speaking of surprise, appearances, did the biden campaign's decision to put robert janeiro at court land or was it a flop and we have more breaking news internationally, serious new questions tonight about israel's deadly strike on a civilian karam, including why the us says it does not cross president biden's red line from here we'll tell you this in these territories they don't come try you they will take from you to you are wiped clean from this led don't want to go take that john and wrap you with it. >> what we talked enough that american saga, the journey begins june 28 radar it's time yes. >> but time has come for a fresh approach to dog food every day. moore dog people are deciding it's time to quit the kibble and feed their dogs fresh food from the farmers dog. made by vets. and delivered right to your door? 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