defendant trump in photos that will live in infamy. the first american president to be charged with a crime. defendant donald j. trump, is seen here surrounded by his legal team a photo trump most certainly did not want you to see. it s nothing short of a remarkable image of the new reality for the man who raged in all caps on social media ahead of his day in court before surrendering for arrest and processing in manhattan criminal court. trump was uncharacteristically grim and silent, ignoring questions from reporters before pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. the now unsealed indictment lays out the 34 counts. in the form of numerous entries made with, quote, intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof the indictment isn t explicit about the other crimes trump tried to conceal but it s laid out clearly in the prosecutor statement of fact as a scheme involving trump a
Unimpressive document, and he could have stood in front of that group of supporters this evening and pointed simply to that fact. and highlighted his own claimed innocence and use this as a moment to say, see rally behind me. this shouldn t happen to anyone in this country. we ve debased the criminal justice system, which we all rely on. but no. instead what you got was millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes in front of government camera. not even sure what that means or the fact that we re right on the brink, apparently of all out nuclear war war three. yeah it s just it s just swinging a minute boxes thing was just a lie. it was it was a ton of false statements and an airing of grievances with us now to talk about everything today, former trump attorney and fixer and named as lawyer a. in the court documents, michael cohen. he is the author of the book revenge. how donald trump weaponized the u. s. department of justice. against his critics. he s also
But no. instead what you got was millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes in front of government camera. not even sure what that means or the fact that we re right on the brink, apparently of all out nuclear war war three. yeah it s just a matter of boxes. thing was just a lie. oh yeah, it was. it was a ton of false statements and an airing of grievances with us now to talk about everything today former trump attorney and fixer and named as lawyer a. in the court documents. michael cohen. he is the author of the book revenge. how donald trump weaponized the u. s. department of justice against his critics. he s also the host of two podcasts political beat down as the first the other is called me a copper. michael my understanding is that you were not watching his remarks this evening. but today is obviously a day they have talked about and thought about for a long time. was anything that came out today in any way surprising. was there anything that stood out to you?
Counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. the now unsealed indictment lays out the 34 counts. in the form of numerous entries made with, quote, intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof the indictment isn t explicit about the other crimes trump tried to conceal but it s laid out clearly in the prosecutor statement of fact as a scheme involving trump and america media incorporated ceo david pecker, noting in june 2015, defendant trump announced his candidacy for president. and soon after, in august 2015, met with lawyer a, michael cohen, and pecker at trump tower. at that meeting, pecker agreed to help with the defendant s campaign, saying that he would act as the eyes and ears of the campaign by looking out for negative stories about the defendant and alerting lawyer a,
Partisan witch hunt. it s republican judges appointed by republican presidents. that is not the most telling aspect. the most telling aspect, they had to be renewed. every step of having been renewed, you had to prove yet again there was some reason to surveil an american citizen. and at each point in time, the fbi would have had to come forward with information to say, look, what we told you we thought we would find, we did find. or we have reason to believe there will be more information we will uncover through the surveillance and it had to be renewed continuously. and every single step, the threshold was the same. is there enough reason for us to in many ways infringe on somebody s rights or privacy and have surveillance? and if they were able to prove it not just once but four different times, that is telling there was not a witch hunt or a partisan narrative. it was one that was based in substance. and this is no easy thing to get a judge to sign off on. no, not at all. inc