M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Donald Trump's attorney Will Scharf was caught off guard when he was asked a specific question by CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
She asked him: "You're an attorney, obviously: Have you ever gotten a legal retainer that was grossed up by hundreds of thousands of dollars?"
Scharf, who beyond representing former President Donald Trump (though not a member of the defense team in the criminal hush money trial) is also a Republican candidate for Missouri Attorney General, tried to untie his tongue momentarily.
"Uh-uh-uh I mean I've received payment for legal services in many ways before contingency fees, fee per hour," he said. "I think different people come to different agreements."
Collins continued to pounce: "Have you ever been owed a certain amount, let's say $100,000 that you did in billable hours and you got $330,000?
Again, Scharf verbally flailed before he finally recovered.
"Kaitlan, I respectfully, the point here is that the payments are ancillary to the case that the prosecution is trying to prove which relates to the records of the payments, not the payments themselves," he said. "Hush money reimbursement for hush money — none of that's a crime."
"What the prosecution is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is that business records in this case, entries made in President Trump's personal ledger were fake and were made with an intent to defraud and were made with an intent to cover up another crime. I don't think they're close to meeting that burden."
Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to keep hidden his fixer Michael Cohen paying porn star Stormy Daniels through a shell company before being handsomely reimbursed by Trump, whose company, the Trump Organization, recorded the reimbursements to Cohen as legal expenses.
Cohen was asked point-blank: “You called me a crying little s---, didn’t you?”
Scharf defended Blanche's strategy: "...I think Todd was within his rights in terms calling into question the witness's credibility to ask the questions that he did."
