Trump's Attorney Fails To Impeach Witness So Badly He's Forced To Apologize

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:44 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1030. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and that over there is real-life lawyer, Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:55 Clip: I'm doing great. How about you?

0:00:57 Thomas: Phenomenal. For once, Matt, you asked me how I'm doing, and I didn't have to do a series of calculations in my mind of what can I say, what is appropriate to say, what does anyone care about hearing? Do they? Do I?

0:01:14 Clip: Thought this would be the day to ask.

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0:03:25 Clip: Right.

0:03:37 Clip: Happy to be going for the ride. Been great.

0:03:39 Thomas: Today we're going to be continuing the transcript reading. I want you to note, I've gotten so many people emailing or messaging asking if they could be a part of the reading. And I think I'm going to take you folks up on that. Here's another benefit of being 100% no Andrew anymore is I get to just make decisions now. So that's nice. I was really frozen in terms of like being able to like get help if I wanted or hire anybody. No, not anymore. So you here's want the details on how to, you essentially to become a part of these readings very around to the end of the show. I'll explain it all then. Can't wait for that. And there's going to be some interesting stuff there. I'm excited. That said, I think that's all the announcements. Don't we get to the transcripts? Let's go live to the courtroom.

0:04:24 Clip: Let's get to the good stuff. All right.

0:04:26 Thomas: Go live the courtroom after this break, which you can avoid at patreon.com/law, right after you're listening to that 20 minutes of very, very audio. After this break, we'll get to the coverage, the trial coverage.

0:04:42 Matt: So we're still on direct. And Pecker's going to acknowledge campaign finance violations again. And then we're going to hear a little bit about his relationship with Donald Trump. I

0:04:51 Lydia: Did you understand what AMI was agreeing not to, what AMI was agreeing not to contest having violated, and

0:04:58 Thomas: Uh agreed that uh they agreed that they violated the campaign violation.

0:05:03 Lydia: Withdrawn. Directing your attention to April of 2018, did you come to learn that the FBI had conducted search warrants at the home and office of Michael Cohen? How did you learn that? Just

0:05:13 Thomas: Yes. F.B.I. came to my home on that same day and had a search warrant for my phone. And I subsequently received a call from Dylan Howard that he received, that he had his phone also taken by search warrant from the F.B.I. And he mentioned to me that he also heard that Michael Cohen had the same, had a, had his office or apartment at that time, if I recollect, received a search warrant and took his office equipment and telephone.

0:05:36 Lydia: One moment, please. These.

0:05:38 Clip: Pause.

0:05:39 Lydia: Phone that the FBI seized on that day, your phone, is that the phone that you had been using to communicate via text with Dylan Howard and Michael Cohen and other people relevant to this case? Was the last time that you saw or spoke to the defendant, roughly?

0:05:49 Thomas: Yes. It would, uh last time we spoke was I think January or February of 2019.

0:06:02 Thomas: I have friends who belong to Mar-a-Lago and they run into Mr. Trump and he sends his regards.

0:06:06 Lydia: You ever respond?

0:06:07 Thomas: No, I did not.

0:06:08 Lydia: Not?

0:06:09 Thomas: Felt that with the investigation that was going on at the same time, I thought that it would be inappropriate to respond or have any conversations at all with Mr. Trump.

0:06:16 Lydia: Pecker, as you sit here, do you have any bad feelings or ill will towards

0:06:22 Thomas: At all. To the contrary. As I talked about, I think it was on Monday. I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor. Helped me throughout my career and if I could just give one additional example in 2001 After the 9 11 attack my offices in Boca Raton the American media building I just just renovated it. Took It about a year to renovate it. And I just consolidated all the tabloids in this building. The first year, I was in the building.

I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to be in the first week. And then the first or second year of October, of 2001, we received multiple anthrax letters in white envelopes to the various magazines. Of the editors opened up the the envelope, inhaled weaponized anthrax, and then ended ended up dying not too long After that, at the same time, within a matter of hours, or within a day, the FBI took quarantine of the building because the building was filled with anthraxa.

Then at that time, all of the content that I that the tabloids had photos, photos, stories was all quarantined and we had to vacate the building, as I said. I basically was in a very, very difficult place from a business standpoint, a personal standpoint. The first person who called me, asked if I needed help, was Donald Trump. And he was very helpful. He gave me, he recommended an Attorney.

He helped introduce me to, at that time, Sandy Weil was the chairman of the Travelers Insurance Company who had the the insurance on the building. And he helped tremendously in continuing on with my business. I have no ill will at all. And And I still consider him a close. I still, even though we haven't spoken, I still considered him a friend.

0:07:47 Lydia: Hear that last part, thank you very much, Mr. Pecker, no further questions.

0:07:48 Thomas: Said, even thought we hadn't spoken and I haven't seen him, I consider him my friend. Been, I've been wanting to ask you this, I don't understand, I, a legal expert as you are, I don't know that you're a relationship between Trump and Pecker expert, but like, first off, why, and this is, you know, also from the previous, uh, that we played, Why don't understand this thing where Pecker's like, well, McDougal did some interviews, but, you know, we should keep paying her to not do interviews. And it's like, what? Am I not understanding? What was that contract? What wasn't even getting anyone? And I got to be honest, when Trump kept saying, like, I don't understand what you're doing, why are you still paying her, I was like, uh, I don't get it either. It sounds like the cat's out. Once the cat's out of the bag, what's the point of even paying that contract still? That was very confusing to me.

0:08:36 Matt: To admit, I was confused about that too. Yeah, I'm not sure how much I can answer on that.

0:08:42 Thomas: Interesting, yeah.

0:08:43 Matt: Her to shut up. And she had sold her life rights. And those life rights included something about an affair with a married man. But, I we learn here from this testimony that David Pecker still considers himself to be friends with Donald Trump, even though they haven't spoken since 2019. It's quite a thing. I mean, it must have been a very dramatic moment in the courtroom because Trump is feet away from him as he's saying this and he's testifying against him. Now, he's testifying against him, to be clear, because of this agreement, I believe he had to participate. Being pretty forthright about everything. He's not really being a very difficult witness. He was pretty open.

0:08:53 Thomas: Yeah exactly yeah yeah, yeah There's a weird way in which I understand Trump's psychopathy, just because he, once you treat him like a computer, I think it's a little easier, you know, like feelings aren't a part of it. No, they are, but, sorry, like compassion isn't really a part. No, um, think when Trump recognizes that someone has to do what they have to do, I, I think he doesn't take it personally. It's kind of interesting.

0:09:33 Matt: There's respect there, I think.

0:09:34 Thomas: Whereas I think he does take things personally when he perceives that like someone could have been loyal and then they aren't. I think it really, really doesn't take well to that. But it's because doesn't it feel like there's a lot of headlines on this. I didn't care too much, so I didn'T read a bunch about it. But a lot OF people, there are a lot of headlines like what is with this relationship? Seems like Trump still likes him. Know, he still likes Trump. And it's like after Reading this, it's like, yeah, can't help but wonder if Pecker is pulling one over on Trump a little, just because, like, why? It does feels like he mismanaged this whole thing. If Karen McDougal ends up telling her story and he's still like, well, let's pay her more, I don't understand what that is. I guess maybe we're missing something, but like, what is that?

0:09:55 Matt: Yeah, well, released her. The contract was up, she fulfilled the obligations. And know, you she'd done the that she'd agreed to with the columns and whatever. It was after the election at this point. And so I think that he figured you might as well release it. And that's when Trump got mad because he just didn't want it out there. And then they decided to extend it, you know wanted to extend it. But you know?

0:10:25 Thomas: Well, Actually, there's that other time in testimony where it seemed like everybody wanted to pay her except Trump, right?

0:10:33 Matt: Yes. He didn't wanna pay anybody. I just doesn't want to pay his bills. We already know that. Including, as we've discussed before, the one bill you really want to play, which is the one to Stormy Daniels and to Karen McDougal. So let's talk about this next part here where Emil Bove, and we have learned, or we will learn, I guess, at some point in this, that this is his first trial as a defense attorney.

0:10:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:53 Thomas: Eesh.

0:10:54 Matt: And I wanted to highlight where he's flying a little too close to the sun when he's trying to bring out an alleged inconsistency about Hope Hicks being at a meeting or not being at meeting. Pekker had testified that she was in and out of this meeting at Trump Tower. So let's play a little bit of that. It's a longer one, but I think it's interesting as a matter of trial practice.

0:10:58 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:11:11 Lydia: So once you met Mr. Cohen, you started to work with him on a mutually beneficial relationship for President Trump, right?

0:11:18 Thomas: You repeat that again, please?

0:11:20 Lydia: Became sort of an intermediary to help you provide information to President Trump about potentially negative stories, right, and Also when there were situations where President Trump could be promoted in the National Enquirer, right. Right. Started to work with President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, on those issues. Correct. At least eight years prior to the August 2015 meeting. Right. In 2015 and 2016, Cohen was always clear with you that he was not working for the campaign. Correct. His personal attorney. Right. You testified on Tuesday about this August 2015. Meeting in Trump Tower that Hope Hicks was in on the meeting. Do you remember saying that you've Had to describe this meeting to law enforcement several times, right? Getting back to all these meetings that we talked about a moment ago, correct?

0:11:28 Thomas: Uh, yes, yes.

0:12:13 Thomas: Well, Yes.

0:12:14 Lydia: One of the first times you were asked about this meeting was in July of 2018, right? And that was a meeting with federal prosecutors, correct? Here in Manhattan, right? And There were FBI agents present, right? And You understood that that was serious business, correct? Correct? You had to be honest with them, right?

0:12:21 Thomas: Yes, yes. Yes. Of course.

0:12:34 Lydia: And forthcoming, correct? It was a crime to withhold information in that meeting, correct. And they actually said that to you. You were warned about that, right.

0:12:36 Thomas: Yes yes.

0:12:46 Lydia: Your lawyers were present also, right, and so you understood how serious this was, right Some of the things had been in the news at that point, right? Testified earlier about a discussion with Dylan Howard about FBI agents coming to see you and Mr. Howard, right? By that point, Mr. Cohen as well, right, you also testified by that point, you received a federal inquiry from the Federal Election Commission, right.

0:12:48 Thomas: Was. Yes Yes Yes.

0:13:13 Thomas: I from the Federal Election Commission, It was in March of 2018. February, March of 2018.

0:13:21 Lydia: And so you understood that in this July 2018 meeting, it was really important to get all the details out, correct? That's what the prosecutors demanded, right? That's what the agents demanded, right? In this meeting, the July 26, 2018 meeting, you did not tell anyone that Hope Hicks participated in the August 2015 meeting, correct? Objection.

0:13:28 Thomas: Yes. Yes.

0:13:45 Thomas: Approach.

0:13:46 Clip: Whereupon the following proceedings were held at sidebar.

0:13:50 Thomas: The objection?

0:13:51 Lydia: Objection is Bornholt.

0:13:53 Thomas: Objection is Bornholt. I feel like you don't hear that every day. And the court, it seems like the judge doesn't even, he's like, what? Interesting.

0:13:58 Matt: Yeah. So, you know, Emil Bove is, I get the feeling maybe he hasn't done that many cross -examinations and, you know, it's fine. This is a tough case. It's intense. This has a lot of pressure. He has kind of cut in some corners. There's an objection here saying that he hasn' t laid enough of a foundation. And people view Bornhult, in New York, I'm not a New York lawyer, but I just looked it up. Court of Appeals says that a witness may not be impeached simply by showing that he omitted to state a fact or to state it more fully at a prior time. So just because left something out and now you're saying it, that's not necessarily an impeachment, which makes sense. I

0:14:32 Thomas: Let's see Bornhult in action. What?

0:14:35 Matt: Yeah?

0:14:37 Lydia: Bornhult. He hasn't laid the foundation that Mr. Pecker was asked that question, so he's trying to impeach by omission without laying the foundation. Either he was specifically asked about that, or the admission would be unnatural. It's certainly not that level of fact that qualifies as an admission being unnatural. I can do a little more work on this, Judge. I can lay the foundation.

0:15:00 Clip: Whereupon the following proceedings were held in open court.

0:15:04 Lydia: That break, we were talking about a meeting with prosecutors and agents in July of 2018, right? The prosecutor and agents asked you to tell them everything that you knew about the events that were later listed in the non-prosecution agreement, correct? You, one of the topics that you covered for them was the August 2015 meeting, correct. They wanted to know what happened at the meeting, right?

0:15:09 Thomas: You. Yes. Yes. Yes.

0:15:27 Lydia: Order to tell them what happened at the meeting you had to tell him who was there, correct, and when you were asked that question about who was their you did not mention Hope Hicks, correct give me one second. Is is just for Mr. Pecker, the parties, and the court, please. The document marked for identification as Defense Exhibit 1.

0:15:38 Thomas: I see what referring to?

0:15:47 Clip: Whereupon, an exhibit is shown on the witness's screen and on the party's screens.

0:15:53 Lydia: Make this easier, I'm going to hand you a copy of the report as well, okay? Mr. Pecker, that is a copy of what's been marked for ID as Defense Exhibits A101. Do you see that? A101? This is a report of the meeting that we're talking about, right? And Mr. Steinglass showed you acopy of this report during your testimony earlier, right? Right. No place in this report does it indicate that you told the government during the July 26, 2018 meeting that Hope Hicks was present in August 2015 at Trump Tower. Correct.

0:16:03 Thomas: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't know which page you're referring to that talks about...

0:16:30 Lydia: Why I wanted to give it to you. My question is, at no point in that document does it educate that you said that you were present in the August 2015 meeting at Trump tower. Does it indicate at no time in that report does you told that the government that Hope was present at your August 2015 meet?

0:16:41 Clip: Whereupon, the witness reviews the exhibit.

0:16:43 Thomas: We pull up for ourselves just the other pages in the document?

0:16:47 Lydia: We can flip through, Judge?

0:16:48 Thomas: Please.

0:16:50 Lydia: We could go directly to page 11, please. In on the paragraph beginning later in 2015. Do you see that, Mr. Pecker?

0:16:57 Thomas: I do?

0:16:59 Lydia: That's a point in the meeting when you were specifically asked about what happened during 2015 meeting at Trump Tower, right?

0:17:06 Clip: Whereupon, the witness reviews the exhibit.

0:17:10 Lydia: You did not mention Hope Hicks being there, correct? Just yes or no.

0:17:13 Thomas: No, but I... I don't t know... Um, no.

0:17:19 Lydia: And you had another meeting with the prosecutors in August of 2018, you said, right. I think that was on August 2nd, 2018, correct.

0:17:23 Thomas: Yes. Don't remember the exact date.

0:17:30 Lydia: You remember it was in August, right?

0:17:32 Thomas: In August.

0:17:33 Lydia: You remember being asked about the August 2015 meeting again, correct?

0:17:38 Thomas: I don't remember.

0:17:39 Lydia: You don't remember if it came up?

0:17:41 Thomas: I... I'll have to see it. I...

0:17:43 Lydia: You need to see the report to remember what you're asked about? You bring up, please, for the court, the witness, and the parties, the document marked for identification as Defense A -102?

0:17:46 Thomas: Yes. Yes, I

0:17:55 Clip: Whereupon, an exhibit is shown on the witness's screen and on the party's screens. Whereupone, documents are shown to the the witness. People

0:18:03 Lydia: You have that, Mr. Pecker? Well, the first question is, at no point during this meeting, at no point, during this meeting, did you tell the government that Hope Hicks was present in August of 2015 at Trump Tower? Correct? Objection.

0:18:05 Thomas: Have that. Can you point me to which paragraph that we're talking about?

0:18:13 Clip: Whereupon Mr. Steinglass stands.

0:18:15 Thomas: Please let him finish the question.

0:18:26 Thomas: Overruled. You can answer if you remember. If you can answer the question, I don't remember.

0:18:31 Lydia: You also testified in the federal grand jury following this meeting, correct? Objection? We approach, please, Judge?

0:18:38 Clip: Whereupon the following proceedings were held at sidebar.

0:18:42 Thomas: Yes.

0:18:43 Lydia: I'm looking at defendants A102 and I don't see a single paragraph where he's asked anything about that meeting. Witness asked to be shown the paragraph where she's asked about the meeting. It's clearly not in here. I objected you overruled the objection. He was allowed to ask, at at any point did you mention that Hope Hicks was at that meeting? And yet he was never asked. I don't see any paragraph in which he was asked. The witness asked to be directed to the paragraph, and Mr. Bove went on to another topic.

0:19:11 Thomas: Is it anywhere that he was asked there?

0:19:13 Lydia: Is a report. It isn't memorializing the questions.

0:19:17 Thomas: Then how can he answer the question? Question is, were you asked?

0:19:20 Lydia: Am entitled to put questions to this witness that he went into to the meeting that he would have had the ability to correct if he remembered.

0:19:28 Thomas: Question ist, you're asking him, at no time did you say, at no time, did you ask him, did he ask you to ask him to ask you Did you say that Hope Hicks was there and you handed him the document, right? Right? Presumably to refresh his recollection. So just asked you, is there anything in that document that says you were asked that question? Your answer is, well, they don't write down the questions. So it's a bit disingenuous to hand the witness a document to refresh his recollections. I take you we're not going finish today.

0:19:36 Lydia: Uh-huh. I I have a little more on this topic.

0:20:00 Thomas: Seated. Mr. Steinglass, can you elaborate on your objection, please?

0:20:04 Lydia: My is an objection under People v. Bornhold. I think Mr. Bove arguably laid a foundation to ask about People's A101 which at least contains some reference, a paragraph that references the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting. However, he then showed the witness People's Exhibit A102, which, insofar as I can tell, doesn't have anything at all about the August 15 meeting. He asked a question. Did you ever say anything about the presence of Hope Hicks at this meeting? The witness says, I don't know.

I need to see the document. I need to look through it. He wasn't given that opportunity. I objected because I thought that question was improper because I thought it violated Bornholdt. Was no indication, the witness was asked about the August 15th meeting during the interview, and there was no indication that admitting it would be an unnatural omission under People v. Bornhold.

Witness asked to be shown the document so he could look at and be shown if there was a discussion in the August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower. I don't see any. Perhaps counsel sees one, but I think that was a totally improper line of questioning. Think it left the jury with the misimpression the witness was asked about it and omitted it. That's a prior inconsistent statement, and I think It's a Prior Omission by Bornholt.

0:21:22 Thomas: There anything in that that says he was asked if Hope Hicks was there in his response to that?

0:21:28 Lydia: Don't Have a Specific response to that. The question to the witness was, does he recall discussing that? This document was marked Defense A -102. It contains a substantial set of redactions, so I don't know what's underneath those, and I don't know what came up. It's appropriate for me to ask if he remembers. Then asked me to show a document.

0:21:49 Thomas: Didn't ask for A -102.

0:21:51 Lydia: Understood. He asked for a document to refresh his recollection about the meeting he was talking about, so I gave it to him.

0:21:59 Thomas: You gave him A-102, which gives the impression that there's something in this document that will refresh his recollection. No.

0:22:07 Lydia: Was he did not collect this meeting.

0:22:11 Thomas: Me out if a witness says, "I don't remember, do have anything you can give me that might refresh my recollection," and then you hand him the document, the message that sends to the jury and to everyone else in the room is there's something in that document that's going to refresh your recollection, but there wasn't anything in that document, and therefore it's misleading, so we're going to correct this tomorrow morning in the presence of the jury. I'm be very careful with that. I'm not accusing you of having done it deliberately, but left the jury with the misimpression that he had omitted something. You want to hand him something to refresh his recollection, you should actually hand him something that will actually do it.

0:22:48 Lydia: He was seeking to refresh his recollecions on is that her name was not in the document. Understand your ruling that amounts to there was something improper or needs a correction instruction. The point of my question was she was not in there.

0:23:03 Thomas: Bove, are you missing my point? I don't think you're responding to what I'm saying. Say you asked him the question, you gave him a document in response to that question, which gave everyone the impression that what he was looking for was contained in that document. And And that was not the case, right? Please be careful. Anything Boy, Matt, that's not good lawyering, it seems to me. I'm not the expert here, but oof.

0:23:17 Lydia: Yes. Yes.

0:23:29 Matt: Yeah.

0:23:29 Thomas: Yikes. Strikes me as like you're trying to ask the witness, so meeting, did you tell them you don't beat your wife? And he's like, no. Oh, really? Interesting. You know, it's like that kind of thing.

0:23:43 Matt: Yeah, there was like a cat in the room, right? It's like, it's kind of to that level, because Hope X wasn't participating in this meeting. Nobody said she was, she was just there. Where he really gets into trouble is when he kind of shoves this document in front of Pecker.

0:23:54 Thomas: It's so good.

0:23:56 Matt: Yeah? And he's just kind of like, oh, look at this report, right? And it's an FBI report.

0:24:00 Thomas: It's so good, it's such a class. It's such a, because here's the thing, I thought he got real lawyers for this, wasn't that the story, wasn't at the common wisdom that like all right, these are lawyers that aren't made for TV, that's how you know they might be good, maybe. Okay, we're gonna find out. Mr. Bove, like, is really hot, okay, that would be darned, because that would make sense, then it would all go back together, because yeah, it's pretty amazing to be like, this is just grade A lawyer assholery right here, to be like, I don't, did, did they ask me about Hope Hicks? Well, why don't you refresh? Okay, yeah, hand me something to refresh. And then he hands him a stick of gum and is like, well, did you, now, now do you remember?

0:24:09 Matt: Yeah. I don't think so. Sorry. Sorry, Mr. Bove. Yeah. Yeah. That would explain it otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:45 Matt: Read that wrapper. Yeah. No, it's really irrelevant.

0:24:46 Thomas: Yeah. It's a yeah.

0:24:49 Matt: Yeah. It's an FBI report.

0:24:49 Thomas: And the judge is like, obviously the jury's gonna think that refreshed his memory on it, but it didn't.

0:24:56 Matt: Yeah. It sure didn't. So, you know, that's a bit disingenuous, right? That's being kind. So, this is going to cause some trouble for Bove, because this is the end of the testimony. This is the point at which we're going to break for the day, and the jury's going home. So the last thing they heard was this thing, this whole mess. And he was also at another point trying to impeach Pecker by suggesting that he was coached, or that there's something wrong with meeting with the prosecutors, which is completely normal, obviously, in a trial. So the judge has some things to say about that too.

0:24:56 Thomas: Oh,

0:25:27 Matt: We're going to pick up the next day where the cross-examination continues, and Bove has to start his day by apologizing for what he just did with the Hope Hicks thing, which is not great. That's not how you want to be starting out an entire morning of cross -evaluation in front of the jury, by having to acknowledge that you went a little too far.

0:25:42 Thomas: It's in front of the jury, which, okay, that's interesting, so yeah, never thought about that in the, in trial before, but seeing one of the lawyers be like, completely humiliated by, it's my first day, um, that sucked and I, I acknowledge it sucked. It's not going to be good for your case. I don't think, uh, morning.

0:25:44 Matt: Yeah, yeah.

0:25:59 Matt: No, let's hear that.

0:26:10 Lydia: August of 2018. you remember that?

0:26:12 Thomas: Yes, I do.

0:26:14 Lydia: Was my fault. There was some confusion in the questioning about what had been said said, and whether Hope Hicks came up. Do you remember that? Want to apologize and move on to another meeting from that. If I ask a bad question today, I think Mr. Steinglass will tell me, but you can as well, and we'll make sure that I'm clear.

0:26:21 Thomas: Yes. Yes.

0:26:34 Thomas: Thank you.

0:26:36 Lydia: I said, We were talking About Hope Hick, right, and you knew Ms. Hicks long before August of 2015, correct? Had worked at Hiltzik Strategies.

0:26:39 Thomas: Yes I did.

0:26:49 Lydia: Is a communication and strategy firm, correct. Did some work for AMI. One of the ways you met Ms. Hicks, right?

0:26:54 Thomas: Is. Yes that's correct.

0:26:59 Lydia: Think you said she did some work for Star Magazine, was an AMI publication under your watch. Testified on Tuesday that she also worked as President Trump's communications director at some point. Right. So what I was asking you about yesterday was your testimony in response to Mr. Steinglass's questions about whether Ms. Hicks was in that meeting in August of 2015, right?

0:27:02 Thomas: Yes yes yes

0:27:26 Lydia: To be fair, you said that on direct that she was in and out of the meeting, the meeting, right.

0:27:25 Thomas: That's what I said.

0:27:33 Lydia: Not as if you suggested to the jury that she participated in the meeting. Correct. You did not suggest to the the jury that you have a recollection of her speaking during the meeting correct now

0:27:39 Thomas: That's correct, Absolutely correct. Great, Matt. Not great. Oh,

0:27:50 Matt: Not the best start to your day, no. Now we've got another attempt at an inconsistency, which I thought was very funny. This is one of my funniest pieces, I think, of the Pecker testimony.

0:27:57 Thomas: Boy so he touched the hot stove and is gonna try to touch it again I

0:28:00 Matt: He's coming back for some more. Yeah. This is an amazing inconsistency, because would you assume, just as a matter of general practice, that Donald Trump thanks people for doing things for him?

0:28:11 Thomas: Probably not, but maybe I don't, I I don't know, there's weird times when he is described as being like pretty, not, you know, I yeah like sending thank you cards or whatever, yeah,

0:28:19 Matt: Generally So speaking, I would not assume that he's just with gratitude to everybody around him all the time, just from what I've described. Yeah, and just constantly reminding people of what a great job they've been doing for him, unless he really wants something out of them.

0:28:31 Thomas: I, I gonna, I'm going to quibble, I'm going to squibble slightly because I do think people like him do the love bombing thing, so I think they, I alternate, think between to love bomb someone into do doing what he wants and then when they, you, then he just completely, they're dead to him, so I don't know, I wouldn't be, so there are some interactions where people are like yeah, he was, know, you, there's even one that we've already read, I think, where he's like yeah, Trump was the first one to reach out to me and do you know, like there's... there's ways that I think in a businessy Sense, and in a kind of a, you just like that sort of business relationship sense. He does do weird stuff like that, but I think it really depends on the context.

0:28:32 Matt: That's true. That's right.

0:28:56 Matt: The anthrax thing. Well, this next clip, let's play this and we can hear how this goes.

0:29:08 Thomas: All right. Yes, yes.

0:29:48 Thomas: I did. No. I do. Yes yes yes.

0:30:33 Thomas: That's correct. I don't recall. This I was just saying this is the FBI's interview. Is that correct? That what this is?

0:31:29 Thomas: So the FBI, these are the FBI notes?

0:31:34 Thomas: So the FBI notes here, what somebody's writing down could be wrong. This is not, I know what I testified to yesterday and know what I remember. This is going back to 2018. I didn't recall back from, what I'm saying here is that during the FBI investigation, I knew what I said yesterday happened. So I can't reconcile what the FBI interview was, if someone made a mistake or not.

0:32:11 Thomas: But I wouldn't be responsible for this report. Court. Know what the truth is. I'm not, I can't state what the, what's here, why this is written that way. I, I know exactly what was said to me.

0:32:35 Lydia: Objection.

0:32:36 Thomas: Overruled. Repeat what you want, what you asked me again? I'm sorry. If you could rephrase the question. Yes. That's

0:32:59 Matt: So this is some more awkward cross-examination because he's really trying to get him to say that something wrong with this report. And of course, this again, he's working from FBI reports. These are not transcripts. It's just the FBI writing down what they think is interesting. FBI I recorded, Trump did not express any gratitude to Becker or AMI during the conversation. And Becker is saying that he was thanked during the conversation different times. And it's just, it's a mess. It doesn't get him anywhere. This is not helpful. Then Steinblas goes on to fix this and redirect. And so we can play that at 155.

0:33:29 Lydia: Did not take notes during those interviews personally, did you? Notes Mr. Bove shown you were taken by FBI agents.

0:33:33 Thomas: I did not, that's Correct, yes.

0:33:39 Lydia: One point, Mr. Bove showed you a single line in the July 26, 2018 interview, in which an FBI agent wrote in reference to the January 6, 2017 meeting at Trump Tower that Mr. Trump did not express any gratitude towards you. Is that correct? You remember him showing you that? Said, I didn't say that. He got it wrong.

0:33:57 Thomas: Yes. Yes. I do, that's Correct, yes.

0:34:05 Lydia: Told Mr. Bove that you have always consistently said that Mr Trump thanked you at that meeting. Is That correct? Correct. Do you know how many pages long those interview notes are?

0:34:13 Thomas: Not Off the top of my head, I'm sorry, okay.

0:34:18 Lydia: Guess that's not a fair question. I am sorry. Let me show you the FBI notes from the August 2nd of 2018 interview Mr. Bove also showed you. OK, specifically, I want to show you page six. This was literally a week after the interview in which your testimony is that the FBI erroneously recorded the fact that that you said that Mr. Trump did not thank you?

0:34:30 Thomas: Yes.

0:34:41 Lydia: And one week later, did you not tell the FBI? In January 2017, Pecker visited Trump in Trump's office at Trump Tower. At that time, Trump told Pecker, in sum and substance, that he, Trump, wanted to thank him, Peicker, for handling the Karen and doorman stories because it would have been very damaging to him. Correct? So You in fact tell the FBI that the defendant thanked you for both the Karen McDougall story and the Dino's Sagittine story? Was

0:34:41 Thomas: That's That's correct.

0:35:15 Thomas: Yes, I did.

0:35:16 Lydia: That the truth? Then is It the truth now? Do you believe that you have ever been inconsistent about this point? I want to show you testimony from the grand jury, the federal grand jury in this case, that Mr. Bove have also referred to. You remember him asking you about that?

0:35:17 Thomas: Yes. No.

0:35:33 Lydia: Was testimony given on August 13th, 2018. Do You Remember Giving That Testimony On That Date? You Remember Mr. Bove Asking You Questions About It? This was less than two weeks after the second day of that two -day FBI interview. Is that right? You asked these questions and did you give these answers in that grand jury. 26, line 22. Question. I would like to draw your attention to approximately January 6, 2017. Did you meet with now President -elect Trump at his request at Trump Tower? Answer. Yes, I did. Question, did you discuss Ms. McDougal? Answer, yes, I Did. Please tell the grand jury about that conversation.

Trump said to me How is Karen doing? Referring to Karen McDougal. So I said everything is quiet. Karen is writing her articles for the fitness magazines. Trump said that Karen was a good girl. Then he said that he says, says as, I guess it was, was very appreciative of the way I handled the McDougal story. He thanked me. He also thanked me for handling the doorman story. He said he was very grateful and both these stories could have been very, very damaging. You asked those questions and did you give those answers?

0:35:32 Thomas: Yes yes yes yes.

0:36:51 Thomas: Where

0:36:51 Lydia: That was in 2018 in the federal grand jury.

0:36:54 Thomas: In the federal grand jury?

0:36:55 Lydia: Questioning goes on. Excuse me one second. Skipping to line 19. Were you asked the following questions and did you give the The following answers. Question. And I believe you testified that former President Trump said that the McDougal story and the doorman story could have been damaging. Is that correct? Answer. That's correct. What did you understand Mr. Trump to mean by damaging? I believe he was referring to that it would be very damaging to his campaign and his election. Did you give those answers? Were you asked those questions and did you give those answers.

0:37:31 Thomas: Yes.

0:37:32 Lydia: That the truth then? Is that truth now?

0:37:35 Thomas: Yes, it is.

0:37:36 Lydia: There any confusion on your part about that?

0:37:38 Thomas: None.

0:37:40 Matt: A pretty good example of how you fix things on a redirect. I thought that was a pretty great example of a pretty, pretty good job Steinglass did of just kind of getting in and out and just kind of explaining, you know, getting him to explain about how this might have come about, this inconsistency might have come about. I think that's easy enough to explain.

0:37:51 Thomas: Feel like we covered that a lot during the Georgia thing where it's like sometimes you're kind of forced on As a witness, you're a little bit forced into saying some stupid stuff because they're like, yes or no, please. And it's, like, some, you know, thing. Thing. And then, then the, on redirect, the other lawyer comes out and is like, hey, time exists, right? Yes. Time exists. Okay. No, no further questions or whatever.

0:38:05 Matt: Yeah.

0:38:16 Matt: Meaningful.

0:38:16 Thomas: You know, it's like, yeah.

0:38:17 Matt: Turn.

0:38:17 Thomas: Okay, obviously.

0:38:18 Matt: To the jury, yeah.

0:38:19 Thomas: Yeah. Are different days, right?

0:38:19 Matt: Uh. Yeah.

0:38:29 Clip: Right. So I picked out this sidebar because it's a, uh, is it was a point here that people might might not pick up on. Pretty good stuff here from Mr. Bove. Find out an interesting fact about his recent career and what's going on in this trial. I'll just let everybody listen to it, then we can talk about what's gone on here.

0:38:32 Thomas: Critical.

0:38:45 Thomas: Now these idiot actors we hired to do this, uh, thought it was pronounced Bove, but didn't, well, okay, didn't put much thought into it. Is it Bove? Is... We've only read it, so I will tell those morons who were doing the acting next time that they, we're pronouncing it wrong. So, uh, let's get on over to that authentic courtroom audio. This was, this has got to be one of my favorite interactions I've heard thus far in this trial. Okay.

0:38:53 Clip: I've been hearing Bove, yeah,

0:39:29 Thomas: August 15, the August meeting you're saying?

0:39:48 Lydia: Objection, judge, objection.

0:39:50 Thomas: Approach. And

0:39:51 Clip: Discussion is held at Sidebar, on the record.

0:39:54 Lydia: He's trying to impeach the witness by what the attorney told the DA's office. I think that's totally improper.

0:40:44 Thomas: It is completely admissible.

0:40:46 Lydia: Will say two things to that. One, it's unbelievably confusing. I'm not sure what sense the jury will make of that. Number two, I'm Not sure what the relevance of this is other than, you know, we have confirmed that the attorney was mistaken in this recollection.

0:41:01 Thomas: Issue, as I'm hearing you describe it, is that I am confused. And if I am convinced, I imagine that the jury is going to be confused. So if if we can get through this in other way, I will let you know, but the way you can go about this, I don't think this will help us get through it. It leave it at that. Can finish your argument. Go ahead.

0:42:00 Thomas: Things. One, you're doing a very good job. That you may Be doing a Bad job in Your Opinion is of No Consequence. Whoever the defendant is, whatever the position the defendant is running for and whoever represents him, You are all being well compensated to come here and do a great job. To tell me not to hold it against your youth suggests that I shouldn't enforce the rules of evidence, and I am not going to do that. I will allow you to ask those two questions, and that's it. Beyond that, it will just get confusing.

0:42:40 Thomas: Now, are you saying that he was there? Ask him and then follow up with the second question. Yes, and leave it at that. Matt that's that's fun that's a that's cool thing ah

0:43:02 Clip: Yeah, so you might think it's a good thing when the court says, hey, you're doing a very good job. That sounds nice, right? And the fact that you may be doing a bad job, in your opinion, that's of no consequence, right. So the judge is saying that on purpose. And it's never a great sign. That's kind of a running joke with trial lawyers that when the judge tells you you're doing a great job, get ready for some really terrible outcomes. Like things aren't going to go well for you. It's both like kind of a polite thing to say, but it's also making sure that in the record it's very clear that you're not being ineffective, the judge thinks you're doing a good job, I think that's a lot of it, yeah, they want to make sure that you can't, you know, the next person who looks at this record can't come back and say, well, look, there's proof the judge agrees you're doing a bad job. So yeah.

0:43:30 Thomas: That makes sense yeah geez yeah I thought it was also Also, too, like judge, it seems to me, wanted to emphasize, no, no. Don't have a problem with this because like your performance issues. Like this just sucks. Like the thing just the point just sucks that you're making. It's not that you've fumbled over like how you're doing it. It's that this is a bad law thingy. Now, is that is that accurate? That's kind of what I took away. But I hadn't heard your analysis yet.

0:43:43 Clip: Right. Yeah. Yeah, No, it's never, never good when the judge says the issue you is that I am confused. Never good. Uh, if you have confused the court, then you have not made a good point and you should probably drop it. Yeah.

0:44:11 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Did also really appreciate the judge being like, hey, I don't care if it's your first day or whatever you said, like you're being paid a lot. Is a trial and you just do it. You got to do you are doing paid to do a good job, do a Good job.

0:44:30 Clip: And getting paid a lot. Yeah, I like that point, that like whoever the defendant is and how much you're being paid, you're here, so let's do this. Yeah.

0:44:31 Thomas: Yeah. We're not going to like spot you one juror or anything, you substantively he was trying to hold, he's trying to hold Becker accountable for like what his lawyers might have, maybe, maybe like said in a meeting that like, I don't, it's just nonsense, right?

0:44:37 Clip: Right. No.

0:44:51 Clip: It's just, judge, I think I'm not totally sure what he's going for here.

0:44:54 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Well, that was delightful. Don't hear that every day. Seems weird that this guy who's in a very important role has never done this before, but what are you gonna do?

0:45:05 Clip: A really Lionel Hutz moment there.

0:45:08 Matt: Right, and then we have a really critical piece of testimony here in which David Becker clearly states that this was to influence the election. Let's hear that.

0:45:15 Thomas: Ordered the code red.

0:45:17 Matt: Indeed.

0:45:18 Lydia: We put up People's Exhibit 182, please? Paragraph 5, and this can go out to everybody. You. Is a little hard for me to read it from back here. Is part of the statement of admitted facts that AMI entered into with the Southern District of New York that is appended to the non -prosecution agreement. Is that right? Did you say or did AMI say in this document that AMI's principal purpose in entering into the agreement was to suppress the Model story so as to prevent it from influencing the election?

0:45:38 Thomas: Is correct, that's Correct, yes.

0:45:54 Lydia: That true, Mr. Pecker? Was that your purpose in locking up the Karen McDougal story to influence the election? Provisions about her being on the cover, covers and writing articles that she wasn't even writing. Why was that included in the contract?

0:46:01 Thomas: It was included in the contract basically as a disguise of what the actual purpose of it was. The

0:46:15 Lydia: Was the actual purpose of it?

0:46:17 Thomas: Actual purpose was to acquire lifetime rights to a story, so it doesn't, um, so it's not published, it wouldn't be published by American Media, it would not be published by any other media source. No.

0:46:30 Lydia: Did you ever tell Cameron Stratcher, before he consulted outside counsel, that the true purpose of the contract that he, he was asking outside counsel to review, was election?

0:46:42 Thomas: No.

0:46:43 Lydia: Prior to Mr. Stratcher's discussion with outside counsel, did you ever inform Mr. Stratcher that you intended to transfer Karen McDougal's life rights to Michael Cohen?

0:46:53 Thomas: No.

0:46:54 Lydia: You ever tell him that Michael Cohen promised to reimburse you for most or all of the money that you had paid to Karen McDougal? Was

0:47:01 Thomas: I never did. In

0:47:03 Matt: I think this is critical stuff for the people's case. I don't think it's really worth explaining that much more. That's a quick and easy one. And finally, from that day, we have Becker talking about how good Trump is for business. So let's just hear some of that.

0:47:16 Lydia: Testified on cross-examination that sometimes you suppress stories to help a friend. And sometimes you suppressed stories to gain leverage against the target of a story.

0:47:22 Thomas: That's Correct.

0:47:29 Lydia: I think you talked about Tiger Woods, is that right? You wanted him to appear on some magazine covers or do something with AMI. So you acquired a story and depicted him in a bad light and used it to leverage him into giving you what you wanted. In this case, did you suppress the stories to help a presidential candidate? It. You testified on cross-examination that Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for governor, and after he announced his candidate for governor, 30 or 40 women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment. Is that right? That you told Mr. Bove that you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to kill those stories.

0:47:38 Thomas: Yes. Yes correct.

0:48:14 Lydia: Don't want to make you do the math on the spot here, but what was the approximate average of those payments?

0:48:20 Thomas: Largest one was twenty thousand dollars and then the other ones would be anywhere from five hundred to two thousand.

0:48:27 Lydia: You spend anything like the $150,000 to suppress any story in connection with the Arnold Schwarzenegger campaign? Believe you also testified that Arnold Schwarcenegger was the front man for some of your fitness line magazines. Is that right?

0:48:36 Thomas: That is correct.

0:48:44 Lydia: Did you spend money? And when I say you, I mean AMI. Why did AMI spend money to silence Mr. Schwarzenegger's accusers?

0:48:53 Thomas: Schwarzenegger was critical to the bodybuilding industry as well as the supplement industry, as well as the two leading publications, Us, Muscle Fitness and Flex, that we had just acquired in the wider acquisition.

0:49:09 Lydia: So do I understand that to mean that you were, at least in part, motivated by your desire to protect your own brand value?

0:49:18 Thomas: It was mutually beneficial.

0:49:20 Lydia: Arrangement with Mr. Schwarzenegger? When you say mutually beneficial, it also benefited Mr. Schwarzenegger?

0:49:21 Thomas: Yes. Yes, it did.

0:49:30 Lydia: The extent it benefited Mr. Schwarzenegger's campaign that sparked an investigation into potential campaign finance violations by AMI. Is that correct? As a result of that, I believe you testified when Mr. Bove asked you questions. You made some new rules to address these concerns, correct? When you when you withdrawn prior your arrangements with Mr.. Trump. And I'm speaking of the arrangement that was formed in the August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower. Prior to that, did you ever preview with a candidate positive stories about that candidate or negative stories about the candidate's opponents?

0:49:40 Thomas: Yes.

0:50:11 Lydia: To the August of 2015 meeting, did the candidate ever give a candidate the opportunity to accept, reject, or make changes to your stories before they ran?

0:50:21 Thomas: No, no.

0:50:22 Lydia: To your arrangement with Mr. Trump from August of 2015, did you ever run attack ads against any candidates' adversaries that adversaries' polling numbers? Bove elicited from you that a lot of the articles, the negative attack articles against Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were recycled, I believe was the term that he used. Notwithstanding the fact that they were recycled at the time that that AMI reprinted them. Was AMI doing that because those candidates were surging in the polls against Mr. Trump? Was that done in coordination with Mr. Trump's campaign? Testified on cross-examination that even before your arrangement in August of 2015, that you were friends with Mr Trump. Because you were friends, you didn't run negative stories about him even before this arrangement. Is that correct? And I believe you told Mr. Bove that

0:50:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yes yes yes. Correct. No

0:51:24 Lydia: To the August of 2015 meeting in Trump Tower, did AMI ever agree to publish stories attacking Mr. Trump's political opponents? To The August 2015 Meeting in Trump tower, did am I ever agreed to be the eyes and ears of Mr. Trump's campaign.

0:51:33 Thomas: No no.

0:51:44 Lydia: To that meeting, did you ever agree to use your network of sources to actively seek out potentially damaging stories to report them to Mr. Trump Trump so that he could prevent their publication? Were asked a lot about this by Mr. Bove on cross-examination. Let's be very clear here. That meeting what is your understanding of what you agreed to with with respect to withdrawn. Me come at this a different way. You ever specifically use the term catch and kill in that meeting?

0:51:58 Thomas: No I did not.

0:52:20 Lydia: Was your understanding about the part of the agreement that involved money?

0:52:24 Thomas: Was my understanding that I would use the company's sources geared toward any information that would be coming out on Mr. Trump or campaign relating to specifically women who would be selling their stories, similar to what I experienced with Schwarzenegger 13 years ago. So I notified, it is my understanding I would, for these stories that come up, I would speak to Michael Cohen and I would tell him that these are the stories that are going to be for sale, that if we don't buy them, somebody else will, and that Michael Cohen would handle, buy them or try to make sure to get, that they don't ever get published. That was my understanding from that meeting.

0:53:10 Lydia: Testified on both direct and cross-examination that certain parts of your arrangement with Mr. Trump's campaign were mutually beneficial. Is that right? For example, I believe you told us on direct examination and told Mr. Bove again on cross-examination that stories praising Mr. Trump sold magazines. Is that right? How would you describe the overlap between your readership and Mr. Trump's political base.

0:53:40 Thomas: The research that the company did over the years, there was no question that the celebrity audience, the tabloid audience, or other celebrity magazines, Star Weekly, all loved reading positive stories about Donald Trump. And when he announced his presidency, or going from The Apprentice to running for president of the United States, our sales increased, as well as any comments that were made by Mr. Trump about negative comments about were not, when we published them, the sales also increased. Was, that's clear enough.

0:54:19 Lydia: If I understand you correctly, running stories that praised Mr. Trump appealed to your readership.

0:54:27 Thomas: They did.

0:54:28 Lydia: So that aspect of the agreement that you reached at Trump Tower was mutually beneficial. Is that correct? You testified a moment ago that the primary purpose for entering into the nondisclosure agreement with Karen McDougal was to acquire her life rights to help the campaign. Is that right? I believe you told us, and it was in the document that we showed you, you never had any intention of publishing her story.

0:54:35 Thomas: Yes. Yes?

0:54:55 Thomas: We weren't going to publish her story

0:54:57 Lydia: Mr. Bove asked you, wouldn't that story have sold magazines? Let me ask you the question. You published a story about a Playboy model having a year -long sexual affair while he was married with a presidential candidate, would that have sold magazines, do you think? That would be like National Enquirer gold. At the time that you entered into that agreement, you had zero intention of publishing that story.

0:55:15 Thomas: Yes that's

0:55:27 Lydia: And despite the fact that publishing that story would have helped your bottom line, you killed the story because it helped the candidate, Donald Trump. All?

0:55:26 Thomas: Correct oh okay

0:55:36 Matt: Thought that was a perfect ending there, right at the end, where he's asked directly that, even though publishing would have helped your bottom line, you killed the story because it helped the candidate, Donald Trump, and he acknowledges that. So that's all very good. I mean, the prosecution is really bringing this out even more than I thought they would about how much this has to do with the campaign. That ends Friday.

0:55:53 Thomas: Now I wanted to ask you, how detailed could this non -prosecution agreement be with regard to what he has to testify to, you like, I was wondering about that. Cause it's like, let's could say he wanted to help his pal Trump, could he have tried to emphasize like, no, I just wanted to have him personally and not as the candidate, or would it be part of the agreement that it's like, now you need to essentially tell them that you did this for the campaign. You know what I mean? Like, but that, feels that like you're, guiding you're the testimony or something in a way that, That entirely feel right. How does that work?

0:56:23 Matt: He's worked out the parameters, you know, kind of the limits of his testimony with the prosecutors already. So he knows what to expect. And I think they've already agreed on what's appropriate for him to be participating in this. Being very forthright, though. He's really saying it all.

0:56:34 Thomas: Want to feel like I understand this. So when you make an agreement like this, that may involve testifying, that happens like every day, right? I mean, people, Detailed does that get? Like what happens if you go up there and you testify a little bit differently than maybe you kind of were promising, or you, what, you know, they able to like nullify the agreement or

0:56:41 Matt: Sure.

0:56:53 Matt: If he contradicted any of the things that they admitted in their statement of facts, or you if he just refused to testify or changed the story in any way, right? Because there's like a discrete set of facts that they've agreed to in this. Just like we're talking about with the Boeing agreement, right, that Boeing was able to sit down and hammer that out, right.

0:56:57 Thomas: Okay. Right. Yeah. That, yeah, that reminded me of that. Okay. Interesting. I just never thought about it before. Oh,

0:57:08 Matt: There's actually a separate tab on the New York court's website that has a transcript. There's a bunch of evidence posted. You have to kind of dig for it, but it's there.

0:57:14 Thomas: Is good to know. Okay.

0:57:16 Matt: So now the rest of the testimony on Friday is not worth recreating, but I want to talk about and address a patron question here about the path that we're going to start to go down Friday and then going into Tuesday, most of Tuesday, in which there's some really painful testimony that didn't need to happen. And I'm going to talk a little bit about why it happened and what the strategy might be here. Set this up with a patron questions.

Gmork asks, "Team Trump seems inclined to refuse to stipulate to the authenticity of exhibits not not in dispute. Do we think this is going to bite them for wasting the jury's time?" What Gmork is talking about here is the fact that the next witness, Graf, former administrative assistant for Trump, is authenticating all of these phone logs and records that in the normal course of a trial would be recognized as business records, and they would be introduced, they'd be admissible.

But the defense team has not stipulated the admissibility of anything, which, you know, as a defense attorney, game recognized game, I see what they're doing here. They're just trying to stretch this out and make sure the government proves every element of the case. You can't blame them for doing that. But you do wonder, as G -Mark is asking here, because the next witness we're going to hear from is Gary Farah, who's a banker and worked with Michael Cohen.

We're goingto hear a lot about how much Michael Cohen sucks from a whole host of witnesses now. This is where we start to get into the cavalcade of people who don't like Michael Cohen, but he's talking about a lot of business records and a lot lot of things that the people could just introduce and be done with if the defense would have stipulated.

I've been wondering, because let's just go through the list, actually, I wrote up a list of the things that they have not stipulated to you that ended up having to come in through this testimony. Include deposition footage, which was already used at both of the E. Jean Carroll trials. They had to bring in the executive, like the guy who runs the deposition company. Company, they flew him in to talk about this very simple point, which is that, did take this as a deposition?

Is that Donald Trump? Yes, right? And Trump, of course, there's vital stuff in that deposition footage they want to use in here about Trump denying that he knew these people or whatever, or establishing other various facts of the case. Got C -SPAN footage.

0:59:13 Matt: This is taking a good joke way too far. They brought in, yes, Mr. C -SPAN, the executive director of their archives.

0:59:13 Thomas: We had to get it Mr. C -Span? Mr. Span.

0:59:20 Matt: That's right.

0:59:21 Thomas: First initial C.

0:59:22 Matt: I it's just bone dry. It's not exciting testimony at all.

0:59:22 Thomas: Your Is TV channel? Yes. What is the advantage of that? There's got to not be an advantage to that, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing where it's like certain common courtesies. And I know Trump's favorite thing is if anything's ever just a norm, he's like, well, then don't do it. But like, I don't know, that doesn't always work because some of this stuff is like, you're just being a pain in the ass for no reason. And like, that would make you seem sketchy, right? That would make you seem, how aware is the jury? Know they're aware of like, they see this process of, you Spann coming in and saying, yes, that's my footage. But do they know why? Like, are they able to be told, hey, this is because the other side is a piece of shit, it's being really a pain in the ass? Or are they just left to intuit it?

0:59:46 Matt: Are.

1:00:08 Matt: I'm not sure I would intuit it if I didn't know how authentication works.

1:00:10 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. I would just think that's how a trial works, okay.

1:00:14 Matt: But because it's the prosecution. Because it's not being stipulated to, the prosecution has to go through all these witnesses is and painstakingly explain to the jury that these are authentic records. And again, we're talking about C-SPAN footage. Nobody's doctoring this stuff, right? But you have to bring in a guy from Indiana who runs the C-SPAN archives, Dr. Robert Browning, to confirm that this is in fact valid C-SPAN footage that did actually run in C-SPAN, and that is Donald Trump on the video.

Same with the deposition footage, same with the phone logs, same avec the bank records, right? Just taking you through each one of them and just saying, yeah, okay, those are our records. Those are considered to be business records that are kept in the ordinary course of business that that can just be admitted if they're stipulated to, but they refused. So I will say it's can cut several different ways, right?

Because if you're one of my trials and there's a guy in Indiana, I would absolutely do this because the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in one of my trials very well might not fly somebody in from Indiana. And you might end up missing a key witness who can't authenticate

1:01:01 Matt: A record and then you don't get to bring it in. They know full well that they're not going to fall down on this, right. They're going to bring everybody in, everybody they have to, including people from Louisiana and Indiana, just to authenticate these things, because they do not want to take any chances with any of this evidence, obviously.

1:01:01 Thomas: It's better, no expense, yeah like Hey, do you know anyone in Louisiana or wherever that wants to come say Michael Cohen sucks? Because I mean, it might as well, like, two for one deal. On the flight. Yeah, yeah.

1:01:22 Matt: Just forming a line here. Yeah. That's a good question that G -Mark had there. And it's a question I was having as I was reading through these transcripts about some of This could have been authenticated, but at the same time, as a defense attorney, I'm never going to fault any of my colleagues for forcing the government to prove its case, which is what they're doing here. They're saying, you know, if you want to introduce these records, show us where they came from, um.

1:01:25 Thomas: Yeah.

1:01:41 Thomas: C-SPAN being a thing that exists is not like proving your care, I don't know, I, so it's so Do you think, what's your, your impression of how uncommon this is? I mean, for nothing to be stipulated, okay.

1:01:46 Matt: It doesn't. Oh. Extremely uncommon. I saw a court reporter saying that she'd never heard, she'd been, she'd been corporate for a long time, and she'd ever heard of anybody bringing in uh deposition witness to to confirm that this is an actual deposition video. That Nobody doctored or whatever, never heard of it myself, I'm sure if it does happen, but uh certainly unusual to have this degree of authentication from this many people for things that are just ordinary, ordinary business records.

1:01:53 Thomas: Okay Oh. That is weird. And It, I mean, if the jury's not gonna really puzzle that out, I don't, is there a way it really hurts him? I guess, yeah.

1:02:18 Matt: Think this might be more PR than anything, because he's out there every day out in front of the courthouse talking about how it's an icebox, and they're forcing him through this torturous thing. And he's doing it to himself, like he easily could just not have all this happen. Could have skipped all these, you know, basically a full day of trial if these witnesses are more. But yeah, that's what's happening.

1:02:30 Thomas: Did Matt, well, that took us through the 26th, which, I mean, that's not so bad considering how time intensive this is. And, you know, I do want to also mention we've gotten a lot of feedback that has said, hey, this thing you're doing is, you, it's unique. Like, I'm not hearing it elsewhere. Are getting the instant reactions places, but they aren't necessarily getting this anywhere else. And so therefore there've been a lot of kind folks who have said, Hey, take your time. We get it. Like, can hear the instant reaction or the, the live blog anywhere, but this is something that takes a little more time, a little bit more thought, a lot more work. And people have been really cool about that. So I appreciate that. I do want to get them out. Like, I keep feeling like, Oh, I got to get these out right away because it's so pressing. It, it is an enormous amount of work. So I do appreciate being, this into a different category other than live instant react kind of thing.

1:03:26 Clip: And of course, the quality of the acting requires some and study so we all appreciate that Yeah, of course, but yeah, no, seriously, I do think it's a completely new way to cover trials else. It's fun to listen to. I've been enjoying it. Out also, the trial, hate I to tell you, it's not over. We've got several more weeks of this.

1:03:30 Thomas: Coaching, you Know, dialogue coaches.

1:03:43 Thomas: I was going to ask you. Yeah. What is the current best guesstimate of how long this thing is going to last?

1:03:49 Clip: He's allowing to attend Barron Trump's graduation on the 17th of May. So they're thinking at least through that. Think that's a pretty fair guess. I would think at this point, through the end of the month, from what I understand of what's left, deliberations could be a little while. Maybe not. Who knows? We'll see.

1:04:00 Thomas: Yeah. I told people to stick to the end to find out how to audition. Audition and you go to openargs.com slash audition and I'll link that in the show notes, there will be an explanation for you. It's going to be just a couple things that you can read and send in to the email openarguments@gmail.com that now, now it only goes to me, which is cool with the subject line audition. The directions will be there, but this is something that you're going to need to, you don't have to have like a professional audio setup, but you're, don't bother if you only have like, Walkman you headphones from 1987, like it's gotta be at least, it's gotta be like a, like a real USB mic at the, at the very least apologies for that, but but it just isn't going to sound good if, you know, like one of the people is recording through a Game Boy headset or whatever. It's not going to work. So other than that, if you have anything remotely good, feel free to give it a try. The instructions will be there. So openargs.com slash audition.

1:04:54 Clip: And we don't even need a headshot. We don't care what you look like.

1:04:55 Thomas: No, not at all. Being said, I think that's our episode, Matt, right. We've got even more transcript to come. And after that, probably even more transcription, some, some other stuff. So look for that soon.

1:04:59 Clip: Right. Well, we'll be back with another worth of coverage here pretty soon. Witnesses coming too, so yeah, good stuff.

1:05:11 Thomas: Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Support the show at patreon.com/law and grab that, uh, you know, insider recording there and we'll see you next time.

1:05:18 Clip: Congratulations to sole owner of Opening Arguments, Thomas Smith.

1:05:20 Thomas: Thank you.

1:05:21 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

1:05:38 Lydia: So once you met Mr. Cohen, you started, I don't know what to do.

1:05:41 Thomas: Not think that's you. No, just do it real. I'll check. Just do it like you're actually objecting.