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

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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."

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Expert pinpoints 'easy fix' to 'gaping hole' in law that let Trump hold back Epstein files

Despite the Justice Department having been legally compelled to release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein by Dec. 19, only a small fraction have been released as of Sunday, prompting a legal expert to flag not only how the DOJ skirted the law, but how Congress can compel compliance.

Signed into law by President Donald Trump on Nov. 19, the Epstein Files Transparency Act required the DOJ to release all of its files on Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Instead, the DOJ released just 1% of its Epstein files, and with redactions outside the scope of what the law permitted.

Some lawmakers have sought to compel the DOJ’s compliance, including Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who asked a court to appoint a neutral arbitrator, known as a special master, to oversee the release of the remaining Epstein files. That effort was later rejected by a judge, but national security and transparency attorney Mark Zaid has since pointed to an alternative path he says Congress should pursue.

“For unknown reasons, Congress failed to include any type of enforcement mechanism, especially judicial review, within the Epstein legislation,” Zaid told The Guardian in its report Saturday. “Despite the mandatory provisions and aggressive nature of the disclosure requirements, this is a gaping hole that perhaps was unanticipated but is now openly evident.”

Despite the legislative oversight that has allowed the DOJ to openly skirt law, Zaid said there was a relatively simple fix lawmakers could pursue.

“Frankly, it would have been an easy fix at the time to include either a direct congressional oversight pathway for enforcement or even for the general public to litigate the claims through special [Freedom of Information Act] provisions,” he continued.

“The reality is the likely best way forward is to amend the legislation and create explicit judicial oversight.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who oversees the DOJ, is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 11, a hearing that’s expected to see her grilled by lawmakers over her agency’s noncompliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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Another GOP lawmaker bucks Trump admin over recent killing by DHS: 'I'm disturbed'

Another GOP lawmaker raised eyebrows over the weekend when he said he was "disturbed" by videos he's seen of the recent killing of an ICU nurse by border patrol agents.

After the death of Alex Pretti, who appears to have been shot by agents after being disarmed while carrying a concealed weapon, one GOP lawmaker had some strong words for the "credibility" of the GOP-priority agencies like DHS and ICE.

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. chimed in, "The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing."

That comment was echoed by fellow Republican lawmaker, Congressman Michael Baumgartner, who said, "I’m disturbed by what I’ve seen from today’s video from Minnesota."

"It’s critically important that the American people and Congress be given a better understanding of how immigration enforcement is being handled, including the methods federal law enforcement officers are using to prioritize, identify and arrest suspected targets, the training they are receiving, the implementation of body cameras, the threats they face in conducting operations and the challenges posed by sanctuary cities and states," he added. "I applaud the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee for quickly calling a full committee hearing. I once again urge ALL public officials to make responsible statements, based on facts, that do not inflame things."

CNN reporter Aaron Blake flagged the comment on Sunday morning, simply writing, "A congressional Republican."

Baumgartner received several comments from self-identified MAGA accounts, who accused the GOP lawmaker of being a RINO (Republican In Name Only), among other things.

Police nationwide reportedly fed up with ICE's chaotic operations: 'It pains me'

The Trump administration’s chaotic and often violent immigration crackdown is starting to turn a number of local law enforcement leaders away from the federal immigration enforcement agencies they once supported, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

“I’m not anti-ICE by any stroke of the imagination, but they’ve moved the goal posts,” said Sheriff Kevin Joyce, a 39-year law-enforcement veteran in Maine, the Journal reported.

Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to target only the “worst of the worst” in his immigration crackdown, a vast majority of the more than 328,000 migrants arrested since last January had no criminal histories, and immigration operations have often been chaotic and violent, as was the case Saturday when Border Patrol shot and killed a Minnesota resident.

Federal immigration officers’ controversial operations have started to affect local law enforcement officials themselves, such as was the case when a handful of off-duty police officers in Minnesota were harassed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

At a press conference this week, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said ICE agents had harassed his officers, all of whom are people of color, with baseless searches and, in one case, surrounded an off-duty officer, knocked their phone away, and drew guns.

“If it’s happening to our officers, it pains me to think of how many of our community members it is happening to every day,” Bruley said, the Journal reported.

Federal immigration officers have also stopped cooperating with local law enforcement, according to Faribault Police Chief John Sherwin, who leads the Minnesota city’s police department.

“At first, the narrative certainly fit that they were targeting people with significant criminal history,” Sherwin said this week, the Journal reported. “Since the New Year, they’re not sharing with us who they’re going after.”

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