‘Nothing like a tape in the defendant’s own voice’: MSNBC panel breaks down importance of possible Michael Cohen tapes

Reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation could be in possession of audio files recorded by long-time Donald Trump attorney Michael Cohen are significant evidence because courtrooms can hear the victim in their own voice.

"The president's allies are worried about Monday's raid on the home and office of Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, which you would expect they would be worried," MSNBC's Chris Hayes joked. "But specifically, because of fears that Cohen might have taped his conversations."

"Harry, can you imagine nuclear care with which the FBI and Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney's Office folks are going through the evidence they collected from Michael Cohen?" Hayes former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman.

"The main thing this does to me is reinforce the whole mob family thing, we're in the second half of Good Fellas here, where everyone's scurrying, everyone's scared of everyone else and it's becoming clear people have been kind of taking precautions for when the day would come," the former U.S. Attorney said, referring to the classic 1990 film by Martin Scorsese.

"And I just want to tell you -- as a lawyer and prosecutor -- nothing like a tape, nothing like a tape in the defendant's own voice to really, really nail somebody," the constitutional law professor added.

"Of course, there's some precedent here," Hayes replied. "It was the infamous White House tapes, the Nixon tapes, that ended up spelling Nixon's doom."

"This investigation has to go on," former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa argued. "There's been such obscuring of the truth over and over again by this president and by the administration, and it is fundamentally destroying and undermining our democracy and the rule of law."

"Last night, the president told the people of America to watch television programming on which the Republican former Speaker of the House compared a raid on Mike Cohen to a Nazi Gestapo tactic or a Stalinist tactic," Hayes reported. "Talking about a search warrant that was obtained and executed according, it appears, to due process under the Constitution of the United States as a Nazi tactic, that the FBI was carrying out a Nazi undertaking."

"That is the point at which we're at," Hayes concluded.