Legal expert flags 'proof positive' testimony showing that Trump's main defense fails
Former Donald Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks testified emotionally at her one-time boss' criminal hush money trial in Manhattan on Friday — and, argued legal expert Lisa Rubin on MSNBC, gave prosecutors new ammunition to secure a conviction.
A key defense for the former president, noted Rubin, is to say that the alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels were not a scheme to defraud the 2016 election, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues, and were simply an effort to spare his family distress and embarrassment. But Hicks' testimony seems to contradict that.
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid began by rattling off GOP lawmakers' reactions at the time to the "Access Hollywood" story in 2016, which was essential context for all of this. "Paul Ryan was 'sickened,'" said Reid. "Mitch McConnell called the remarks 'repugnant.' Trump's remarks 'demean our wives and daughters.' Reince Priebus condemned Trump. 'No woman should ever be described in these terms.' Three dozen Republicans have called for Trump to drop out. The urgency is important because we're not talking about Donald Trump in a vacuum, and all the stuff about worrying about his wife feels like it's overwhelmed by this. Was this brought up in court, the scramble happening in the final week?"
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"Absolutely," confirmed Rubin. "I want to say something about the concern about the family versus the concern about the campaign, because I don't think it's an either/or. It can be a both/and, so long as prosecutors convince the jury that the preeminent concern was the campaign first and then the effect on his family. I don't think Hope Hicks took away from that."
"When she said that Trump, for example, the night of November 4th as they're driving back, says to her 'I want to make sure the Wall Street Journal doesn't show up on my doorstep tomorrow,' that doesn't undermine the fact that his concern was first and foremost the campaign, as demonstrated by that conversation they have in March of 2018 when he tries to spin her on Michael Cohen's own coming forward in The New York Times and says, Michael Cohen did this because he really wanted to protect me against false accusations," Rubin continued. "He did this out of the goodness of his heart, which she said she knew at the time was just not true. It didn't ring true to her own experience. When Trump is musing aloud, would it have been better if this had come out at the time or now, no, it would have been bad if it came out before the election."
That exchange, she added, "is proof positive that for Trump, the number one concern was improving his chances at electoral victory, not preserving her wife's feelings. To the extent it was about his wife, it was to keep her within the camp of people helping him win that election. So again, not an either/or but maybe a both/and, so long as one ranks above the other."
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