Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen will, along side all people, see one thing surreal this week: a former President of the United States arriving at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to take a mug shot and be fingerprinted, all as protestors collect outdoor. “I expect complete and total mayhem,” stated Cohen.
“This is his worst fear: being mugshotted, fingerprinted, being referred to as a felon,” he stated.
Costa requested, “Trump keeps projecting confidence, but you sense fear?”
“Oh, yes. Not fear; he’s petrified.”
CBS News
During Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign, Cohen made hush-money bills to grownup movie superstar Stormy Daniels to stay Daniels from going public about an alleged affair with Trump. Seven years later, the alleged falsified information of the ones bills, and Trump’s position, are at the heart of Trump’s indictment.
Cohen, who has served a jail sentence for Trump-related crimes (together with the bills to Daniels), is the key witness in the case that has sparked a firestorm.
Costa requested, “If you met someone in an elevator and they said, ‘Hey, Michael, I’m not sure I should take your word on all of this, because Republicans have attacked your credibility,’ what would you tell them?”
“I’m not asking you to take me for my credibility,” he answered. “Let the documents and the evidence speak for itself.”
Trump has been busy talking for himself as he as soon as once more runs for president. “Our opponents have done everything they can to crush our spirit, and to break our will,” he stated at a marketing campaign rally in Waco, Texas March 25. “But they failed. They’ve only made us stronger.”
Trump’s attorney in the New York case, Joe Tacopina, tells CBS News that his consumer has performed not anything fallacious, and sharply criticized Cohen’s credibility.
For CBS News criminal analyst Rikki Klieman, it isn’t such a lot the crime, however the coverup of the crime. She stated the Manhattan District Attorney will most likely focal point on how Trump treated the expensing of the bills. But she does now not consider it is going to be an open-and-shut case.
“The district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has a very tough road ahead,” she stated. “Where Alvin Bragg has issues is going to be with the court. You’re going to have a judge who’s going to have to rule on the legality of this case going forward. This is not going to be a simple case.”
And do not omit, she stated, this is only one of a number of ongoing investigations of the former president, together with a distinct suggest probe of Trump’s behavior round January 6.
“Donald Trump has some very serious legal challenges, far more serious than the one in New York, where you’re dealing with crimes against the United States of America,” Klieman stated. “That’s very different than a scheme involving business records within the Trump Organization. Those are serious crimes.”
This crossroads is a reckoning now not just for Trump, however for Republicans. Many of them, even those that have had some variations with him, have rallied to his aspect, together with former Vice President Mike Pence, who stated, “I think it’s clear to the overwhelming majority of the American people that this is nothing short of a political prosecution.”
Costa requested Cohen, “Why do you think Republicans, at least many of them, keep staying with Trump?”
“They’re in the cult,” Cohen answered. “And I know what it’s like to be in the cult.
“It’s time to scrub your eyes and to look precisely who Donald Trump is,” he said. “It’s time to begin to concentrate to the fact. See, that is the drawback: Donald Trump does not inform the fact, ever. Ever. Everything that he says is both a mis-exaggeration, incorrect information, disinformation, malinformation, or only a blatant lie. And that information is all performed with the intention to get advantages one individual, and one individual simplest, and that is him.”
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Story produced by way of Jay Kernis and Michelle Kessel. Editor: David Bhagat.
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