Trump biographer explains just how terrified the ex-president is of indictment — and losing his supporters
Donald Trump ally, Robert Costello, is headed to the grand jury on Monday in an attempt to defend Donald Trump by tearing down the testimony of Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen.
Speaking to MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner explained that Cohen is also being asked to stand by to refute whatever Costello says.
"The reporting is that at one point in time, when Michael Cohen was thinking about basically flipping and breaking away from Donald Trump, beginning to tell the truth about his own crimes, the crimes of Donald Trump, Bob Costello was dispatched to try to keep Michael Cohen back into the fold," recalled Kirschner. "I'll tell you, if I were a prosecutor and I got to dig into a guy like Bob Costello in the grand jury, boy, I have a whole lot of fun doing it. People may not know that often prosecutors will 'grand jury cases exhaustively.' What I mean by that is they'll put every witness before the grand jury that they believe has relevant evidence. Not just relevant evidence that might incriminate the target of the investigation and forward the investigation, but potential defense witnesses."
He gave an example if he was investigating a murder case and caught wind of a bogus alibi witness, he could craft the prosecution blueprint for the trial ahead of time.
"That's what I feel like is going on here," said Kirschner. "And if I were the prosecutor, I'd welcome Bob Costello with open arms, and I would recall Michael Cohen to set the record straight."
Former biographer David Cay Johnston explained that prosecutors in all of these cases appear to be trying to shore up their cases to ensure they're "rock-solid." That is likely why special counsel Jack Smith at the Justice Department is talking to every possible witness, including employees and guests at Mar-a-Lago.
D.A. "Alvin Bragg is doing the same thing. He's making sure that defense madness was maybe a cockamamie story that comes out of nowhere and muddy the waters," he said. "He wants to have a very clear case. I've watched cases, particularly when I wrote about it at great length in the L.A. Times, where the failure of police to interview every witness at a car crash where a little boy was killed and it resulted in acquittal. Because witnesses came forward with things that the D.A. wasn't prepared for."
Costello has previously represented Rudy Giuliani as well as Steve Bannon, and legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained it could open him up to a number of questions about how Trump World operates.
Kirschner then addressed criticism that the cases were all politically motivated. He said that they are, but not in the way that Republicans are claiming.
"Any violation of the law is worth pursuing, but you know, at its while placed criticism I've maintained, for a very long time now, Donald Trump violated federal statutes, he's a federal problem, and that should involve a federal solution that looks like federal indictments. But let's face it, the Department of Justice has lagged behind. It's unfortunate that states are being made to go first," lamented Kirschner.
But it was Johnston that recalled the Billy Bush tape in which Trump said he could sexually assault women and no one would care. Republicans at that time came out and denounced it, and they needed to do something. Then the head of the FBI announced he was investigating Hillary Clinton's emails, and everyone forgot about it.
"It was a diversion, and Donald is a con artist, he's a master con artist, he is the most successful con artist in the history of the world," Johnston explained. "And now, what he's trying to do in rallying his followers, and trying to rile people is again, a diversion. He's terrified of being indicted. He's terrified of being in handcuffs, even if it's in for five minutes. And having to be fingerprinted and mugshot. That's the core thing you need to watch here. I don't know that his support is going to survive these arrests. We've already seen that his numbers are dropping in a number of polls despite his claims that the strength is growing every day."
He recalled that Trump tends to make things up, so things like support or polls or money are all lies.
See the full conversation below or at the link here.
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