search of mar-a-lago. as the fbi continues to go through the documents and files taken from donald trump s home. and democrats seem to be building momentum ahead of the midterms. we ll have a look at the latest polling in key races, and a slight approval rating rebound for president biden. good morning. and welcome to way too early, on this thursday, august 18th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. a hearing on whether to unseal the search warrant affidavit from mar-a-lago is set for 1:00 p.m. eastern today, it comes ten days after the search of donald trump s home two. law enforcement officials tell the fbi is still sifting through the seized documents separated those to be covered by attorney-client privilege and those that are relevant to the case. meanwhile the justice department s probe into the january 6th attack on the capitol is picking up steam. the new york times is reporting that federal prosecutors issued a grand jury subpoena to the
Situation room. The lead with jake tapper starts right now cnns Breaking News welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. We are following Breaking News out of Donald Trumps Hush Money Cover Up Trial in New York City were right, this i mean, it Michael Cohen is facing an incredibly aggressive crossexamination so far, trump attorney todd blanche has gotten cohen to confirm that he wants to see trump convicted in this case, that he makes money off of his antitrump social media posts and even sells merchandise showing trump in jail. Earlier today, prosecutors had cohen explained why he felt there was the Pressure Campaign to keep him from turning against trump. And how and why he eventually flipped from a loyal confidant to a cooperating witness. Prosecutors also tried to get ahead of the defense by having cohen admit to multiple lines. He has previously told including his plea of not guilty his plea of guilty to the tax charges the sent him to prison cohen also owned up to the fact that he lied
lawful, saying the information was confidential under state law, and the grand jury in that case, did meet yesterday, but not on that case at all. there s a lot that is confusing here. cnn senior legal affairs correspondent paula rejoins us now. good morning. good morning. where are we? we re really seeing pressure building on the district attorney here in manhattan and on former president trump. let s start in manhattan. everyone asking me what s going to happen. will they indict him, won t they? we don t know. all we know at this point is that the grand jury will be back on monday to hear more evidence in the trump case they could at that time here from a witness, we know from our reporting that they re considered. caring whether they need to bring another witness back in to rebut the testimony that they heard on monday from rob costello and i talked to costello yesterday and i asked him what happened in that grand jury room? what what did you do ? and he still described his testimon
related to his one time representation of cohen, but he says he was only asked about six of them, and he and the prosecutor sparred at times about that. and at one point, he turned to the grand jury and said, hey, guys, you need to get your hands on all of these documents, and he tells me that five or six of the jurors nodded in agreement. now he has not heard from the district attorney s office since that appearance, and i asked him well, who could they potentially bring it to rebut your testimony? and he said, there s nobody, it s impossible. but he also notes that michael cohen would not be the right person to come in and rebut this testimony. that s manhattan. right wait and see what happens with my hand before you get to the other thing. could the we meaning as journalists who are covering could we be focusing in on the wrong thing? could this be about inflating his? you know the his assets or whatever. and then you know, downplaying it when it comes to taxes, could it be about so