'Can't fathom that fist pump': Neal Katyal slams Trump's​ 'atrocious' hush money defense

Former President Donald Trump's legal team delivered an "atrocious" defense in the most recent day in his Manhattan criminal hush money trial, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal told MSNBC's Ari Melber.

The day featured testimony from Jeff McConney, the corporate controller of the Trump Organization, who recounted his role in reimbursing Trump's former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen for the alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which prosecutors say was fraudulently concealed from regulators — and Trump seemed to think it went well, making a "fist pump" gesture that was captured in the courtroom sketches, but Katyal made very clear it did not go well for him at all.

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"According to people in the room, Trump seemed to want a level of solidarity or whatever a fist pump means to him," said Melber, himself a lawyer. "Again, I'm trying to be fair in my reporting. Even as McConney said things that were incriminating."

"Yeah, I can't begin to fathom what that fist pump is doing," said Katyal. "I mean, McConney was very bad for Trump."

"He said that Weisselberg ordered this grossed-up payment, that it was $180,000 that Cohen spent plus a $60,000 bonus for him," Katyal continued. "And the prosecutor even asked, hey, have you ever heard of a gross-up anywhere else like this? And you know, he, of course, said no. And the defense by Trump's lawyer was atrocious. He basically said, look, payments to lawyers by the Trump Organization are legal expenses, right? And then he answered, of course, they are. That's not the issue, Ari."

"Of course, if you pay a lawyer generally, that's a legal expense, but not if you're doing it for other things that aren't legal expenses," he added. "I mean, if I pay a lawyer to give me some cocaine, I can't say, oh, it's a legal payment and therefore it's all hunky-dory. Of course not."

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