Me. Welcome to the beat. Im ari melber and we have a packed show tonight. Michael cohen is here. You know the name. Lanny davis joins us later tonight as we track what could become a verdict that would hinge more than anything else on Michael Kahns testimony and by the end of the hour, al sharpton is here for a cultural moment unlike anything weve ever tried on the beat before. You see him there was james brown. The reverend is here joined by an artist making his big debut tonight, henry mack. Our top show story shows why verdict is on the way and trumps criminal trial, his Defense Lawyers resting their case today telling the judge theyve completed their mission without ever having to call trump to testify, as is their right. They finished after less than two days in control. Trumps lawyers call just two witnesses compared to the 19 witnesses the d. A. Called, some of whom you can see right here, the star witness cohen, former trump aid hicks, Stormy Daniels, a Tabloid Chief and an array of many different, important people. Legal you are looking at the typical mismatch. The d. A. , the prosecution calls more witnesses and much more evidence because they have the Burden Of Proof and whether trumps Defense Lawyers got enough doubt going through their crossexamine of the two witnesses you see there is an open question right now especially as trumps defense found that its final longest witness, the one who spent more time on the stand than the other witness, robert castillo, frequently cost trump more than he helped and thats according to the judge. Costello has been the worst witness, facing Morse Goldings than others with a Heated Exchange for the judge rebuked his contemptuous conduct and warned him he could be removed from the stand and risk having his testimony struck entirely. That is a harsh rebuke for costello. Hes been criticized over his credibility, his ethics. He is a former federal prosecutor that was treated ultimately more like a nuisance by this judge. His links to now indicted former prosecutor Rudy Giuliani remind everyone how leading a case at one point in your career does not mean a lawyer will never end up as a witness or on the other side as a defendant. It is hard at this point to see how this would be the final note trumps lawyers wanted to end on. The defense has rested its case after calling just two witnesses. One of them made the judge furious. Robert costello back on the stand later this morning after yesterdays fireworks. Yesterday he was nearly tossed from the witness box and his entire testimony was nearly stricken. s all attitude on the stand could have the defense team rethinking its strategy of calling him at all. For the jury, the main question is if they find costello credible. The d. A. Used Cross To Show Castillo did not seem to be genuinely representing collins interest or trying to find some absolute truth but rather, that costello , giuliani sala, was using or abusing his access to try to push cohen to help trump to try to stop cohen from flipping. As with other points in the trial, some of the strongest evidence is not what people say now. It is what they wrote back then, especially if they thought it was secret, so there were some new emails that show castillo telling calling his goal was to get cohen on the right page without ever admitting they were following instructions from giuliani or trump. Some of costellos approach was not so much legal advice as much as it felt like a bad impression of bmovie trips. The jury saw costellos amateurish silly email to michael kahn that proclaimed sleep well, you have friends in high places. And honestly, it sounds more like some bad dialogue from Donnie Brass Go than how a Criminal Defense Lawyer actually counsels a client. I mean think about it. Cohen knew his boss was president. He knew trump was in a high place. The actual legal issues were about his criminal jeopardy, but the feds had on him at that point and if his famously selfish client, former President Trump at the time, might pardon him. Cohen determined trump was going to do that then and that turned out to be true. On the stand, costello confirmed that the reference to friend in the silly email referred to trump. The rest of the day focused on a clash over these pivotal instructions for the jury, and they will start to meet and deliberate after Closing Arguments next week. Both sides spent the Afternoon Wrangling over these pivotal rules for the jury and i can tell you, this is as important as it is boring. In other words, the outcome really matters but its in the weeds when you look at how Jury Instructions are negotiated. They were tangling over things like reminding the jury that ndas are legal, generally. The 2000, grounds apparently in language to tell the jury that. Trump asked the language in ways he could blame his past lawyers forces misconduct and push the jury about what is lawyers can find if they dont think this was a Campaign Motivation of the judge proposed that he may just tell the jury, the payments were not a Campaign Contribution if they find they wouldve been made whether trump was running for president or not. In other words, the judges say and its good for trump if you determine that he wouldve made the payment anyway. We talked about that a lot in covering this trial. The point there is, if he would have made the payment anyway, does the jury have clear instructions about how to interpret that, and that means it is not a Campaign Contribution if he wouldve made it anyway. I want to be clear with you, there is no final ruling on that as of this hour. We did see a setback when trumps lawyers basically ask for special treatment, telling the judge he should just make it harder to convict trump by discussing how the jury could should consider fraud and intent to conceal the crime. The bottom line is, they lost that request, the judge finding that the law has one intent requirement, so he explained he was not going to materially change the statute just to make it easier on defendant trump. Why does all of this stuff in the weeds matter . Two reasons. One, most of the jury are nonlawyers. There are two lawyers and 10 citizens and they need some instructions to make sense of all of this in two, if the defendant is convicted, they have the right to appeal and this is the kind of stuff that goes up on appeal and they say was the judge fair . Were the instructions clear and that they follow precedent . As i told you, sometimes its exciting, talking about tapes if you will and other times we are in the weeds of the Jury Instruction and there is no better legal gardener when you go into the weeds then and fbi veteran and former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann when we are back in 90 seconds. Seconds. Che, but this is just right. And i dont like anything. But i like this. Get a light scent that lasts with no heavy perfumes or dyes. frizz. Dryness. Breakage. New dove 10in1 serum hair mask with peptide complex. Fortifies hair bonds at a molecular level. Helps reverse ten signs of damage in one minute. Keep living. Well keep repairing. Shop etsy until june 16th and get up to 30 off fathers day gifts that go beyond the classic goto. Save on personalized gear, and other things dads dig. When you want a oneofakind gift to show him hes 1. Etsy has it. Oh, why leaffilter . Its well designed, efficient, i appreciate that. Leaffilters Technology Keeps debris out of your gutters for good, guaranteed. What more could you ask for . Call 833. Leaf. Filter today, or visit leaffilter. Com. Defendant trump there passing on an opportunity to engage the press. It was confirmed today he will not be testifying in his defense of the trial, which is his right. We are now joined by Andrew Weissmann, welcome, andrew. Jury instructions are boring but important. Agree . Totally agree. We dont have it all set yet. I like to be very clear with people. We dont have the mall. When we get them we will be reading them and we can kind of announce whether they seem really standard or slanted any which way. Lets start now over the wrangling and instruction on the Campaign Crime and the money. Tell me about that. There was one part i thought was really interesting and good for the government, and it is that the state, in order to make this a felony, has three separate crimes they are going to point to to say if you committed this false Business Record with the intent, just the intent to aid or conceal another crime, you have this felony in the pointed to three separate crimes. One federal, two state. One of the arguments was, does the jury have to be unanimous about which of the three. Another words, you have six saying its this one and three saying its that one, is that sufficient or do they all have to be 12 saying it is this one, and the judge says as long as it is unanimous at least that they all agreed that at least one, they dont have to agree on the same one, that is sufficient. Right, which is bad for trump. So, if you are doing a Crack Prosecution but there is a possibility the outer was illegal fentanyl instead of crack, as long as you can get the jury onboard that this was an illegal substance contraband, youre good, and that is sort of the analogy here. If youre going at a drug charge, you dont get to say oh no, you guys are different crime. Yes i clearly have 12 people who think i committed a crime but they are split on it if they are bundled together. Yes, i mean that analogy is basically you said we were going to be in the weeds and im the gardener. The legal term is that it is methods and means. In other words, the methods and means by which you carry out crime is not something the jury has to be unanimous about. They have to be unanimous on the elements of a crime. Every crime has certain elements. That has to be unanimous but this is a good railing because it is just a smorgasbord of choices and you dont have to have unanimity. That i think was really useful. That reminds people who follow the trial that there was so much emphasis on what trumps intent was in covering it up, right . So again, if you want to be as fair as possible and there is a defense that he has these other legal reasons to cover it up, and court of public opinion, people may judge it. Voters may judge it, the Christian Right group of republicans used to judge that but that a separate here. The only thing is to your point, can they demonstrate that he is doing this to cover up some other crime and if they disagree on which crime thats okay. Yes, and to your point this came up in the judge dealt with this issue in the jury charge. What if the state proved that 50 of what donald trump was thinking was Campaign Violation and 50 was wallonia, personal. Or if it was 90 10. They will make up their own hypotheticals. What does the law require . Does it have to be 100 campaign over text . What if there is some portion that he was thinking about just protecting his family, and the law in new york, and the judge basically said this, that it does not require the state to prove that it is 100 campaign. The judge said there has to be you can have dual motors. The state doesnt have to prove that the only reason you are doing this. Someone could have a big public facing job. They are the ceo of big company and there is evidence that the abuse, beat up on their wife, lets say. Their motivation might be to avoid embarrassment and also avoid the fact that they allegedly committed a crime of battery. The fact that they are also worried about losing their job, which is not legal, or being embarrassed or being kicked out of their country club, that does not invalidate the legal intent. Exactly, so we will know exactly what language the judge is going to use on thursday, one of the thing judge merchan has been spectacular at doing, as he is going to make sure on thursday that the public and also all of the parties see exactly what hes going to charge the jury. That is important because as you and i know, when youre comparing your summation, what is the judge when to say the law is so you can address that in terms of telling the jury, this is why we have established the facts are on the defense side, this is why they have not established it but you need to know what youre shooting against, so the judge is going to give that to them with plenty of time to prepare. Yes, and im going to keep you over the next break but briefly, thats just a couple pages we ultimately get. It could be like 30 pages. Thats longer than i was thinking. In general, Jury Instructions are long and then the judge sometimes will actually give the actual charge, printed out and do a checklist. There is a saying. I dont know if youve ever heard people talk about good tv. I dont know if this was good tv, but i know it was good law. Okay . I know it was good law, especially down to the details of what we are going to see because we are going to be poring over these instructions. Were going to have the instructions for a while because before we get anything back from the jury. But we are going to turn to the hotter item. The hot mess of bob castillo, a very weak Trump Defense witness and i want to get your breakdown of that which we turn to next. So, Andrew Weissmann stays. Al sharpton also here for our cultural moment joined by an artist making his big dave you debut. Later, lanny davis is here. Stay with us. And when i got there, they have the sushi this is clem. Like sushi classy clems not a morning person. Im tasting it or a night person. Or a. People person. But he is an i can solve this in 4 different ways person. And that person. Is impossible to replace. You need clem. 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Xfinity mobile just got even better now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. Plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. I gotta get this deal. I know. Faster wifi and savings . I dont want to miss that. Thats amazing doc. Mobile savings are calling. Visit xfinitymobile. Com to learn more. Doc . Less than two weeks before the president ial election michael kahn wired hundred and 30,000 to Stormy Daniels lawyer. That payment was to hide information from the voting public. The scheme violated election law. We are back with Andrew Weissmann. Return finally to two days of defense and they had a rough two days. Here is one moment people see from what i call the hot mess of this giuliani ally, castillo. He says can i Say Something please . And that is kind of how he talks. And the judge says no. No. This is not a conversation. He knew better. He still acted this way. Was it a hot mess . Did he hurt the Defense Effort . By the way, that quote is the least of it. He said twice to him, the judge to the witness outside the presence of the jury, your conduct is contemptuous. He was a huge mistake. It is better to not put on a witness if you are the defense than to put on a bad witness. The jurors are going to be like, you had a defense in this is your defense . Here is what i think the state is going to argue in summation. Theyre going to be sane, you saw an obstruction scheme. You saw it in Black And White that was orchestrated by that man and it was carried out by bob costello and Rudy Giuliani and what was the goal . To have Michael Cohen never take the stand. You do not do that if you are innocent. You do not do that if you are not worried about Michael Cohen. They will use that to show consciousness of guilt and to rehabili