'So devastating': Experts say new documents are 'star witness' in Trump hush money trial
May 06, 2024
Donald Trump's attacks on Michael Cohen may just have been proved fruitless after prosecutors submitted into evidence two documents that appear to back up his former lawyer's claims, legal experts said Monday.
This analysis arrived after a Trump Organization employee and the former controller appeared in Manhattan criminal court to explain a series of documents linked to a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Prosecutors contend Trump gave Daniels the cash in a hush money scheme that saw him falsify business records in the reimbursement of Cohen. Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Speaking to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on Monday afternoon, Andrew Weissmann, the top prosecutor for former special counsel Robert Mueller, specifically cited exhibits 35 and 36 as the "star exhibits" of the trial.
READ ALSO: Michael Cohen claims Trump took Stormy Daniels hush-money payment as a tax deduction
Exhibit 35 is a copy of an October 2016 wire transfer from Cohen's account to Keith Davidson, Daniels' lawyer at the time, with a handwritten note about a $50,000 payment for "tech services."
Prosecutors also showed Exhibit 36, which has more writing, but on Trump's stationery. Cohen's name appears on top and the addition calculates both the payments and what Cohen is owed to cover the taxes.
Weissmann called these two documents "devastating."
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"You have these two intern Trump Organization witnesses who have written these things," Weissmann explained. "The reason it's so devastating, with respect to the scheme, is this is supposedly legal fees."
"But it doesn't make any sense because Exhibit 35 is the actual payment record that Michael Cohen brings to Allen Weisselberg that shows that this is $130,000 that he wired to Stormy Daniels' lawyer," Weissmann added.
He called it the "hush money record."
Weissmann then urged those following the case not to dismiss what appeared to be a dry day in Trump's hush money trial as insignficant.
"It may be a 'boring day,'" Weissmann said, "but this is such hard evidence. It's the kind of thing that prosecutors in summation are going to latch on to and make sure the jurors understand how preposterous it is."
According to Weissmann, the two documents contradict Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, who argued in his opening statement that Cohen was not reimbursed.
"Look at the document," Weissmann said. "Look at Exhibit 35 and 36."
Wallace noted that Trump has spent a lot of time "impeaching Cohen as a character witness." Documents like these make it useless because they confirm his statements.
New York University law school professor Melissa Murray agreed.
"You can't impeach the documents," echoed Murray. "That's what makes the documents the star witness."
See the discussion in the video below or at the link here.
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