'Certain conviction': Watergate prosecutor says Trump can't beat hush money evidence

Former President Donald Trump is facing a guaranteed conviction in the Stormy Daniels hush payment case, argued former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman on CNN Wednesday — assuming that the trial is able to move forward.

This comes amid reports that Trump, who is charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with criminally falsifying business records, is planning to attend a hearing on the case Thursday that will decide some of his pretrial motions.

"There's so much going on," said anchor John Berman. "It's hard to keep track of, but the point I want to make is this week there's real rulings coming down and real decisions being made in real court cases. Let's start with one Donald Trump will go to tomorrow. We shorthand it as 'the hush money case,' it's the criminal trial right here in New York, but it's really more than that."

"Oh, it's much more than that," agreed Akerman. "I mean, this is an extremely important prosecution. It's not just about Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels. This is about Donald Trump, in the 2016 election, trying to hide and conceal from the public very important information that would have absolutely torpedoed his election chances.

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"And it came on the heels of that 'Access Hollywood' tape and all of these allegations by other women, this would have been the actual killer item that would have ended his campaign. And he obstructed that, and it was a very organized scheme that involved the National Enquirer, involved his own lawyer. And this is an important case."

"What will we learn, do you think, tomorrow?" Berman asked.

"We're going to learn if it's actually going to trial on March 25th," Akerman replied. "This is a certain conviction as far as I'm concerned. Two co-operating witnesses corroborated by a tape on which Donald Trump's voice appears, as well as a lot of other witnesses who are going to corroborate and support little pieces of that case."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

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Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, has received a $139 million fine by the European Commission.

The penalty is the first-ever issued under the content moderation laws and was issued today (December 5) to the social media site, Politico confirmed. Plans to fine X were aired earlier this year, which prompted vice president JD Vance to suggest the EU should not follow through with a "garbage" notion of fining "free speech".

The EU Commission confirmed that X was in breach of their transparency obligations, with the fine sent to X because of a "deceptive" change of how blue check verification worked. The European Commission’s Executive Vice President for Tech Sovereignty Henna Virkkunen said it was not about the highest fines possible, but about making sure appropriate changes were considered and made.

Virkkunen said, "We’re not here to impose the highest fines, we’re here to make sure that our digital legislation is enforced. If you comply with our rules, you don’t get a fine." They added the fine was "proportionate" to the value of the company, with DSA regulations meaning a maximum fine of 6% of a company's worth can be issued.

While the fine may not come as a surprise to X, vice president JD Vance warned the EU Commission that they should not be taking aim at Musk's website, something the tech billionaire made clear he did not appreciate.

Vance wrote, "Rumors swirling that the EU commission will fine X hundreds of millions of dollars for not engaging in censorship. The EU should be supporting free speech not attacking American companies over garbage." Musk replied, "Much appreciated."

Virkkunen would respond to Vance's comments, saying, "The DSA is having not to do with censorship, this decision is about the transparency of X. On this subject, we have agreed to disagree with the way that some people in the U.S. look at our legislation."

"It's not about censorship, and we have repeated several times from this podium, so on this we really agree to disagree on how it is perceived."

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There is one Trump-opposing Democratic lawmaker who could potentially represent "the biggest political disruption in a generation," according to a former Tea Party GOP lawmaker who recently became a Dem.

Former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh, who recently accused Donald Trump's administration of a massive coverup, wrote in a piece on Substack about who he thinks could be the next effective leader. According to him, the key is something that Trump himself has utilized: electoral populism.

"But here’s the thing: populism isn’t an ideology. It’s really a style, which is why it works across the political spectrum. A populist is someone who is brash, relatable, unfiltered, charismatic—someone who sounds like a normal human being instead of a talking-point robot. A non-politician politician. And God knows, in this moment, people are starving for authenticity like that," he wrote, hinting at who such a person might be.

"Listening to Sen. Mark Kelly punch back at Trump and Pete Hegseth earlier this week got me thinking about this concept. I was struck by the fact that, in that moment, Kelly channeled the kind of voice necessary to win nationally and, most importantly, the kind of voice that can restore our social contract. We need someone who is responsible, serious, moderate, decent, and service-minded—but who has a tough, take-no-bullshit approach understood by regular folks," the ex-lawmaker wrote. "What we need is a centrist populist. At first glance, it sounds like a contradiction. Centrist politics conjure up images of bland technocrats, committee chairs, compromise-for-the-sake-of-compromise. The establishment. Populism is raw, emotional, pissed off. Can these two ever coexist?"

He continued, saying, "I believe they can. And we desperately need them to."

Walsh added:

"Here’s the problem with today’s populists: they’re mostly captured by the fringes. MAGA populism channels outrage in service to conspiracy theories, culture war nonsense, and really ugly white nationalism. The left’s best-known populist voices are far more benign, but, for better or worse, the policies they espouse simply wouldn’t fly across most of America."

Walsh, who became a Dem six months ago, concluded with, "The big question: is it possible?"

"Yes! Absolutely. But it requires something rare these days: a leader willing to be loud without being reckless, bold without being destructive, authentic without being cruel. Someone who isn’t afraid to meet the country where it actually is: exhausted, divided, angry, and yearning for something different," the analyst answered. "A centrist populist would be the biggest political disruption in a generation. And I think it’s exactly what America needs."

Read the full post here.

Reacting to another attempt to get a grand jury to issue an indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James on fraud charges that fell flat on its face, the Department of Justice under Donald Trump appointee Pam Bondi was leveled on MS NOW on Friday morning.

Late Thursday, the DOJ once again came up empty-handed in its pursuit of one of Trump’s main antagonists, who, unlike the DOJ, was successful when she convicted the president of business fraud, only to have an appeals court rule the financial penalty was “excessive.

Thursday's failure to get a true bill from the grand jury comes just two weeks after a judge tossed similar mortgage fraud case against James because the prosecution by Trump appointee and real estate lawyer Lindsey Halligan was deemed unlawful.

Reporting on the latest blow to the DOJ, “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire expressed disgust with the efforts to get James when there is little to no evidence of a crime.

“But the president and his team want to persist. They say they're going to go back at Letitia James. We don't know if they'll go back yet,” Lemire explained before adding, “So it has been, to this point, pretty Keystone Cops. But yet at the same time, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that these things keep falling apart, at least for now, that this remains an extraordinarily dangerous abuse of power, I would argue, of presidential power and blurring the lines entirely between the West Wing and the Department of Justice to try to enact some sort of legal punishment against the president's perceived foes.”

Bulwark editor-in-chief, and MS NOW contributor Sam Stein agreed.

“Yeah. I mean, this is embarrassing, obviously,” he replied. “Let's just call it what it is, this failure to get an indictment from the grand jury.”

“Remember, they had already failed to get several other indictments in several different cases,” he recalled. “This isn't like Major League Baseball, where if you go, you know, one for three, it's a success, right? This is bad stuff.”

“On top of that, it's a huge waste of resources,” he pointed out. “But obviously the problem here is that they completely gutted the Eastern District of Virginia's department because they were pressing so hard to bring charges against Letitia James and [ex-FBI Director] James Comey that all the actual real lawyers in the office said no, and then they quit or were fired.”

“And I think we need to step back a little bit, because obviously this is an abuse of power, and it's just using the Justice Department to go after your foes.”

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