Trump News

During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday, a laughing former Southern District of New York prosecutor claimed that any advantage Donald Trump might have gained from one of his expert defense witnesses in his $250 million criminal fraud trial likely went out the window when the witness admitted how much he was paid.

Speaking with host Alex Witt, ex-prosecutor Kristy Greenberg claimed it was a "one hundred percent" certainty the money was wasted.

Pointing to New York University accounting professor Eli Bartov telling the court he billed the former president and his PAC $1,350 an hour for his time and testimony — and worked a total of 650 hours making his fee close to $900,000 — Greenberg said that would make it easy for Judge Arthur Engoron to dismiss what he had to say.

"It is interesting, he [Bartov] says he spent 650 hours on this," Greenberg began as she burst into laughter. "You wonder what he is actually looking at over that time. To be fair, to compare, the prosecution witness was paid about $350,000 — he [Bartov] has been paid more than double."

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"Here is the other thing to think about: that much money!" host Witt exclaimed. "Is it going to undermine his credibility at all? Like you were paid and, dot, dot, dot."

"One hundred percent!" Greenberg quickly shot back before explaining, "This is a bench trial, you have a judge here, not a jury. The judge is smart, he understands what was happening here. He [Bartov]was paid a handsome sum and he said what Trump wanted him to say."

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According to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, Judge Tanya Chutkan absolutely nailed it when she denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss his indictment related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on presidential immunity and constitutional grounds.

Chutkan came down firmly against the former president and his lawyer's contention made in claims that presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for acts they believe fall within their official responsibilities and duties and, secondarily, that the indictment violated the former president's First Amendment rights.

In a video he posted to YouTube, an incensed Kirschner claimed what the former president was asking, in a broader sense, is immunity for any crimes he has been accused of committing.

Noting that Trump was attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Kirschner explained, that Trump is trying to get a "get out of jail free card" from Judge Chutkan or the Appeals Court, which led him to blurt, "That ain't America."

As for Trump's attempt to get a stay on the D.C. trial that is now under consideration, while claiming he doesn't have to listen to Judge Chutkan in the interim, Kirschner warned, "This is dangerous. Danger dead-ahead. This is Donald Trump testing the waters, you know, sort of trying to test out his ability to ignore Judge Chutkan's rulings, to ignore the courts altogether. Because the courts are the greatest danger to Donald Trump's power."

Reacting to Donald Trump telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would act like a dictator the first day after he won re-election to the presidency, former Trump lawyer Micheal Cohen suggested it was not a joke and that there would be little in the way of keeping a newly-elected Trump from running roughshod over the Constitution.

Speaking with MSNBC host Ali Velshi, the former Trump "fixer" bluntly stated that his former boss is "dead serious" about using the power of the presidency to hunt down his enemies, and that Mexico and Canada may not be safe from annexation if he has his way.

"Don't listen to what Michael Cohen is saying, don't listen to what Ali Velshi is saying or any of the pundits you see on television," Cohen began. "Listen to what Donald is saying."

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"Yes, I have talked about this going back three years, two years, and then when my book 'Revenge' came out, it's all laid out that Donald Trump does not want to be president of the United States. How many times did I say it even on this show?" he continued. "He wants to be the dictator, the monarch, the fuhrer, the king — that is what he aspires to be. And when he says that he is going to be a dictator one day, I want to ask you this question, and I want to ask your viewers this question: when was the last time somebody became a dictator for just one day and then decided to give it up? The answer of course is never."

"He's being Donald. He is being dead serious," Cohen later added.

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During an appearance on MSNBC early Saturday morning, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of meddling in upcoming Jan 6 insurrection trials by releasing altered footage of the storming of the Capitol.

Speaking with host Jonathan Capehart, the legal analyst agreed that Johnson's efforts to have the faces of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists blurred in the released video footage amounts to an attempt to "taint" the jury pool.

"House Speaker Mike Johnson says he plans on blurring the faces of Capitol rioters in new footage. Is he publicly sending the message that the January 6th rioters did nothing wrong? My concern is, my question is: is he potentially tainting the jury pool by doing this?"

"He is potentially tainting the jury pool," Kirschner confirmed, "by what he just decided to do by releasing video of folks who may have been involved in criminal activity."

Adding, "Now let me hasten to add, not everybody who went to the Capitol I'm quite sure on January six necessarily committed a crime. Mike Johnson doesn't know, he wasn't there, he cannot account for what every single person did. He just said, I'm going to blur their faces to protect both the innocent and the guilty. That, to me, feels deeply unpatriotic and disrespectful of the police officers, many of whom were beaten to within an inch of their lives that day."

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"Here is the thing: all of this will be addressed in jury selection. Every single juror will be asked, 'did you see anything? Any news footage? Do you have any opinions, strong opinions, that you cannot set aside and decide this case based only on the evidence that you see introduced in the trial itself,'" he added.

Watch below or at the link.