A recurring theme in Michael Cohen’s testimony this week was his evolving moral compass. Analyzing the last day of direct examination, veteran prosecutors Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord draw out some distinctions to be mindful of, and what the intense cross examination from defense attorney Todd Blanche was alluding to. In their estimation, the state will need to address Cohen’s inconsistencies in redirect and closing arguments. Lastly, Andrew and Mary sum up what to expect next week as the trial likely moves to summations.
Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Andrew Weissmann: Hi, and welcome back to “Prosecuting Donald Trump.” It’s Friday, May 17th. I’m actually not gonna give the time, because you know what, there’s neither a trial going on today. Because it’s Friday and thank God it’s Friday for so many reasons.
Mary McCord: Yes, for many reasons.
Andrew Weissmann: But also I’m in one time zone. And if I gave the time, Mary, you’d be going, uh, not exactly.
Mary McCord: That’s right. I’m five hours ahead of you. And also I do wanna thank listeners. When I said on Tuesday, I was headed to Ireland Tuesday night, I have gotten multiple nice messages from people in Ireland with suggestions about things —
Andrew Weissmann: Are you kidding?
Mary McCord: — that I should do or not do.
Andrew Weissmann: Are you kidding?
Mary McCord: Isn’t that lovely? Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: That is so great. And by the way, by doing this, you’re gonna get a whole lot more.
Mary McCord: Yes, that’s true but that’s great. I love it and it’s beautiful, and I’ve had two days of sun. Yesterday was sunny and beautiful. Today, the sun is now coming out in the afternoon, so it’s lovely and we’re enjoying ourselves.
Andrew Weissmann: When I lived in England, a good day was considered bright intervals, was considered like —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — the most gorgeous day. So, Mary there’s a lot to talk about. We’re gonna focus on the trial. But the first thing we’re gonna do is talk about the second day of his being on the stand, which was the conclusion of his direct examination and the getting of his cross-examination.
And then, turned to the third day he was on the stand, which was yesterday where I know everyone is going to want to hear us talk about the cross-examination about one of the phone calls. But let’s talk about what he had to say at the end of, the sort of the concluding hours of direct examination. And then after we do all that, we’re gonna just briefly talk about sort of what to expect next week. And —
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: — it’s pretty clear what’s going to happen. And Judge Merchan, by the way, he is such a great judge. I mean just as an aside.
Mary McCord: I agree.
Andrew Weissmann: So great.
Mary McCord: So, organized.
Andrew Weissmann: Calm.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: Judicious, wonderful judicial temperament.
Mary McCord: And sure of himself, right? And as a trial judge, that’s what you need, if you’re gonna keep things moving. I think, frankly, that’s in contrast to what we’re seeing with Judge Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago case. Now granted, she’s not in trial yet. We don’t even have a trial date.
I’m not sure this case ever go to trial, but she never seems sure of herself. I think that’s why she has hearings about things she doesn’t need to have hearings on, et cetera. And Judge Merchan who’s, of course, been a judge for a much longer time, seems to have things very well under control. It’s been impressive, I think.
Andrew Weissmann: Mary, I know you had a lot of takeaways from nuances of what Michael Cohen had to say. This is sort of the end of his direct examination. And I would say there were sort of two big picture before I turned it over to you for the two.
Mary McCord: Sure.
Andrew Weissmann: What struck you is that there was both, what I’ll call, substantive evidence, where the prosecutor had him sort of complete the story because she was going in a chronological order. And so it sort of took you through the election to the inauguration. And then the second component was essentially the pulling the teeth part.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: That is the anticipating the cross, trying to make sure that the jury wasn’t surprised to learn all of the terrible things he has done, all of the things he has pleaded to and get his understanding of that. So, these were sort of the two big buckets that needed to be accomplished on the second day of direct examination.
Mary McCord: That’s right. Because we didn’t hear any of that sort of taking that sting out about the guilty plea and various lies. We didn’t hear that the first day. But the day started off was something that I thought was interesting and I thought was very corroborative of Cohen’s credibility, at least the way it came off in black and white.
And this is when there were questions about his meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House in February of 2017. So, this is after, of course, Trump is president. He has been inaugurated, he is in the white house. And as listeners will recall from other parts of the testimony, it’s not until February that the payments start getting made to Mr. Cohen, reimbursing him for the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
And listeners will recall that this all came to be when, you know, in conversations with Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer. It was agreed that they would take that amount of hush money, $130,000 add the 50,000 they owed as a reimbursement for something else. Double that or gross it up to 360 to take into account taxes and then add on a bonus of 60,000 for 420,000. That was all written on exhibit 35 by Allen Weisselberg divided by 12 equals $35,000 a month, if they’re gonna call it legal expenses. Okay, that’s our math for the morning.
Andrew Weissmann: Mary, what I love —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — is that certain exhibits, certain evidence, prosecutors, when you’re a trial lawyer, you sort of keep going back to because they’re —
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: — anchors of your case and —
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: — like that’s why our episode from like two times ago is exhibit 35 and exhibit 36. But I can’t get that out of my head either because it’s such an anchoring fact for what happened here.
Mary McCord: Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew Weissmann: And it’s in black and white, you can’t lie.
Mary McCord: That’s right. So, what we get in direct examination on Tuesday was interesting with respect to that. One part was just about Cohen meeting with Trump and Trump, at least according to Cohen, saying, look, you’re going to get a check for January and February, it’s coming. They take a photo, right?
There’s a photo at the White House, something cool. They put this into evidence. But then, there’s questions of Mr. Cohen about these invoices. Because at first he didn’t send an invoice and he’s asked about the invoice and he couldn’t remember the amount. He had to check back in to find out with, I can’t remember now if it was Jeff McConney or Allen Weisselberg to get the amount, $35,000.
Andrew Weissmann: The controller and CFO.
Mary McCord: That’s true.
Andrew Weissmann: Chief Financial Officer.
Mary McCord: That’s right. He had to check back in because he couldn’t remember the exact amount because, as he said and as he testified, and this is where I think it sort of helped his credibility, he said, I didn’t have that copy of the notes that Allen Weisselberg wrote because he wrote that down on the bank statement and then he kept it. He didn’t give me a copy of it.
And because there was no actual retainer agreement to pay legal expenses, there was nothing he could refer to to refresh him on what the monthly retainer was because there was no retainer. So, he had to figure out how much was it again? Oh, $35,000 and it’s kind of funny because then they go through each one of these invoices.
And at one point, you can tell he had cut and pasted, because I forget whether it was April or March, but the date was still the date from the previous month that he had just put in another $35,000.
Andrew Weissmann: So, I agree with you. I thought that was such a great detail. The other is, it’s such an interesting detail, if you believe him, because it’s a weird thing to make up and it’s obviously not how you bill. I mean —
Mary McCord: That’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: — you don’t ask your client, can you remind me how many hours I worked, so I can figure out what it is?
Mary McCord: So, I can bill it, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Right. And you also don’t bill in a way, like it would be a weird retainer, which is okay for a year. I’m just going to put you on retainer at $35,000. That is something Donald Trump would certainly need to know. That is if you had a retainer with the client which is, let’s just assume you’re going to be a retainer, you’re gonna have a flat fee.
Mary McCord: Yeah, like I want to know that you have set aside time for me. So, I’m going to pay you this flat fee, whether they’re services or not.
Andrew Weissmann: And Michael Cohen says, you know what, and so I’m going to do it at a flat rate. You’re telling me that Donald Trump would be involved in a flat rate —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — retainer?
Mary McCord: Also given the penny pinching that he has admitted to, it would be hard for me to imagine he agree to pay any one $35,000 a month, just to keep them on retainer —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: — because it sounds like he doesn’t like to do that kind of thing.
Andrew Weissmann: So fast forward, just to anticipate.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: Although, Todd Blanche, the lead prosecutor, opened by saying that the money that was paid was not a reimbursement. Yesterday on cross, he basically conceded, it was a reimbursement. And of course I think he had to because Donald Trump is on record.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: But not just the California case, but the somewhat contemporary in his tweets where he said that he reimbursed. And so that has sort of flipped because —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — they are kind of conceding that now.
Mary McCord: Yeah, right. So to fast forward ahead, I think to some other interesting points from the finishing of the direct, because I know a lot of people do want to hear about the cross. As you already indicated, Andrew, like a lot of the concluding moments of the direct were to talk, to really take the sting out of Mr. Cohen’s lies, his lies to Congress, his lies to the FBI, his lies to the judge.
And to let him explain those and admit them, and to take responsibility for them. And all that’s important and that doesn’t stop Todd Blanche from going through every single one of those lies in much greater detail on cross and we will come to that. But that comes out in direct, so that it won’t be new. And also I thought, another interesting part is he talks about when he first gets a letter from the Federal Election Commission.
As listeners will know, we have talked before, if you are going to make payments on behalf of a campaign, a candidate in a campaign, which if these hush money payments, remember at least according to theory, were to keep this story from coming out just days before the election in order to help Mr. Trump. For the benefit of Mr. Trump, I think that’s what we called our last episode.
So, he gets this letter from the FEC and that does cause some consternation because he’s got to respond to it. He admits that his response is misleading. Again, another thing he’s saying, yeah, I wasn’t always being forthright back then at that time. It was, you know, still, he was very much of that mindset, protect Mr. Trump, protect Mr. Trump at all costs.
But then there’s an another interesting point in the transcript, at this point, they’re talking about 2017. So, Mr. Trump is the president and at one point Michael Cohen and David Pecker are talking about this FEC letter and how, you know, this might cause a problem. And Cohen says to Pecker, according direct exam, basically don’t worry. Jeff Sessions will be able to take care of this FEC complaint.
Jeff Sessions was, of course, the attorney general, Mr. Trump’s first attorney general before Jeff Sessions resigned under, you know, pressure. So, don’t worry, Jeff Sessions will take care of this FEC complaint, and Trump had told him that. It has nothing to do with these fraudulent business records, but I think it has a lot to do with sort of what the mentality within the White House and within, you know, Mr. Cohen’s world at that time.
And this leads into more as Mr. Cohen is getting into kind of more and more trouble, he gets some attorney advice or he gets an attorney wants to help him, doesn’t he, Andrew?
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, so —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — there were lots of text messages or maybe they are e-mails with Mr. Costello and it was just very reminiscent of things that we documented in the Mueller report with respect to —
Mary McCord: It’s what of made me think of, yes.
Andrew Weissmann: — other lawyers who had reached out to Mike Flynn and left a voicemail, reaches out to Rick Gates, the deputy campaign manager, in what appeared to be efforts, and certainly we described as efforts, to get them not to flip. And this was just so reminiscent of essentially, hey, your friends love you in sort of quotes and essentially, we have your back.
Mary McCord: Right. And I should have clarified, this comes after the raid of Cohen’s, he calls it a raid, of his office and apartment in April of 2018, right? This is when —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: — there is a search warrant executed. And this is when he knows he’s in real trouble, potentially in real trouble, criminally.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: And so Mr. Costello, this attorney reaches out, as you’ve just been discussing, talks about his very close connections to Rudy Giuliani, who of course is very close connections to Donald Trump. And there’s a number of conversations that Costello and another attorney have with Michael Cohen about how he should be approaching his response to this FBI investigation. And again, this investigation is into whether he lied to Congress, as well as whether he committed tax fraud, federal election fraud, et cetera.
Andrew Weissmann: Mary, this is like so in the weeds and it’s probably because I’m so —
Mary McCord: Because you know this from Mueller, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. I just wanna make sure people understand at this point there are two separate investigations going on. There’s from the Mueller investigation. It has to do with his testimony before Congress, where the issue is whether he was lying and falsely distancing Mr. Trump from the Moscow Project.
Mary McCord: Trump Tower Project.
Andrew Weissmann: Exactly. In terms of when the conversations were, when this all happened to sort of make it as far away from the campaign dates as possible. That’s ultimately what he pled to. And by the way, that came up on cross.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: That’s like one of the missteps that Todd Blanche made, which, you know, it happens on cross. Like not everything works.
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: That was a misstep. The second investigation was the sort of more personal one that was in the Southern District of New York, a federal office at the time, that was during the hush money and then all sorts of other things that personal taxes, the taxi medallions.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: And so there are these two investigations. The search that you referred to was the Southern District of New York search related to that case.
Mary McCord: The second part, that’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. So again, super —
Mary McCord: Yeah, no.
Andrew Weissmann: — nerdy, but you know what?
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: In some ways, that’s like what the podcast is for. It’s like to make sure people understand that the details. Can I just jump for a second to the Todd Blanche mistake, just so that we have it all in one spot, which is —
Mary McCord: Sure, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — Todd Blanche when he was, as you said, went over, it’s classic defense strategy, which is fine to sort of go over the lies and sort of, it gives more color. It gives him more recency. It teases out the lies. So, the jury will remember it. I thought Todd did, you know, a fine job. It’s what you’re supposed to do, and he had tons to work with.
But with respect to the perjury before Congress, I would’ve left that alone because there was no reason whatsoever for Michael Cohen to be lying for himself. That had nothing to do with his own personal liability. There’s only one possible motive there, which was to help the president. And Todd Blanche says, well, there were these three types of lies that were going on. Michael Cohen, by the way, was super dispassionate.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: Very matter of fact on the stand. Like his demeanor, I was there yesterday, it was so clean. He was just like, yep, that’s what we did. That’s what I lied about.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: And by the way, this is in some spur of the moment back and forth with people in Congress, members of Congress asked you questions. This was part of your written statement.
Mary McCord: Yeah, right.
Andrew Weissmann: So, you had a lot of time to think about it and then you decided to lie.
Mary McCord: And work with your attorney on it.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, well that’s the problem. He says, you had a lot of years, like you had a lot of time to make this false statement. And he goes, well, we had a lot of time because that two page document was workshopped. I was part of a joint defense agreement and the lawyers in that group included the lawyer for the president.
Mary McCord: Right, right. There’s the misstep.
Andrew Weissmann: Yes, that’s the misstep. That was not a good moment for, as I said, that happens on cross. I think it was not a great choice to go into that, but he made other good choices. So, we’ll get to that later.
Mary McCord: Yeah, yeah. And before we take a break, I wanna give one concluding comment about direct, unless you have another, which is, so again, to go back to Costello, right. Costello starts basically kind of pressuring Cohen to be his attorney. Costello wants to be his attorney. Costello, again, is somebody coming to him, offering services, very close connections with Rudy Giuliani.
At one point and I think this refers to the sort of paraphrase quote you were indicating earlier and this is so much the kind of thing we’ve seen before, right. We’ve seen it with Manafort. We’ve seen it with Flynn. Costello says to Cohen, in an e-mail and this is in evidence, sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places, right. That sort of you do for President Trump and President Trump will do for you. Ultimately though, Cohen says no to that.
He is a little bit skeptical. It sounds like through his testimony. He also, I think, thought that maybe they were gonna get to talk about a pardon, a pre-pardon pardon before he ever has to plead guilty or is prosecuted. And that doesn’t materialize and even after all that pressure, Cohen testifies that he decided his loyalty should be more to his family and to his country than to Mr. Trump. And sort of pretty much concluding testimony of him before the break to go to cross-examination, he says that by keeping loyal, he violated his moral compass.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah and that last hour was very much his looking directly at the jury. And the jurors looking directly at him and he is sort of explaining all of that. And then we turn to cross and —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — let’s take a break and we can talk about all of the cross that’s happened to date. As we are recording this, cross is not over.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: So, you know, the defense did what they are expected, which is you drag it out a little bit, so that —
Mary McCord: So, that the jury has three days off to think about the cross and then you’ll come back with some more, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Right. And then you have time to think about and regroup about what else, what other zingers can you try?
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: And so you have the potential to do a little bit more. On the other hand, redirect also now is something that the —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — prosecutors get a lot of time to think about how they wanna do it. So, there are pluses and minuses to both sides from the delay but —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — let’s take a break.
Mary McCord: Okay.
Andrew Weissmann: And we’ll come back and talk about the cross-examination.
Mary McCord: Sounds good.
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Mary McCord: Welcome back. So in the break, we came back to a point that we had kind of glossed over. I had sort of set up that the ending of direct exam was Michael Cohen said that by keeping loyal, I violated my moral compass. And it seemed, reading it, and you were there, Andrew, it seemed reading it like poignant moment.
But then again, when I thought back on it, I thought you just then lost your moral compass? I mean you seem like a guy who kind of lost your moral compass a long time ago based on everything you’ve testified to doing, bullying people, lying people, et cetera. But Andrew, you were in court, how did that actually hit?
Andrew Weissmann: So, that’s such a great question on so many different levels because there is a subjective and sort of theater component to a trial as opposed to sort of analytic sort of dispassionate, let’s think through linearly what’s being said. And there’s also, there’s a difference about whether somebody is honest with themselves and thinking through why they’re doing something and what they’ve done wrong, where I think I said this on our last episode.
But I’m a big fan of you Eugene O’Neill and he talks about how we all live with pipe dreams and that we, you know, are not honest with ourselves. And the hard part about being a cooperating witness and he’s, I understand, he’s not a technical cooperating witness. But I mean somebody who’s got to take the stand and is expected to be completely honest. I think sometimes people confuse whether you have self-awareness and self-knowledge about —
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: — and are being completely candid with yourself, with being able to recount accurately and truthfully what has happened in a meeting or in a conversation. And like everyone’s the hero of their own novel. And it’s very hard to say out loud, I did something wrong and I’m, you know, morally bankrupt and to admit —
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: — weakness. And I think it’s particularly hard in so-called white collar cases. I think what I’ve done in organized crime cases, one of the reasons organized crime cooperating witnesses can come off really well is a, I may have told this anecdote, but Al D’Arco, the acting boss of the Lucchese family, was cross-examined. And they said, so isn’t it true, Mr. D’Arco, that you were committing crimes every day of your adult life.
And he said, no, that’s not true. I was committing crimes far earlier. Took the defense lawyer by surprise and is a great defense lawyer, Ben Brafman. And he said, so what are you blaming your teachers? I mean, are you’re saying they’re the ones that, you know, because he was trying to figure out what to say to come back to that.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And he goes, blaming my teachers. He said those nuns, they tried everything with me. I mean they tried so hard. I was incorrigible, and you know, it was just —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — so disarming because he owned it. And I think with organized crime figures, they’re not falling from a paragon —
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: — to the abyss. They sort of know who they are.
Mary McCord: They know they’re crime figures, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. And in some ways it was a badge of honor to do that. So, that is why this sort of moral compass, I understand that. This is the part when you’re a prosecutor, people don’t understand, you deal with cooperating witnesses and you kind of have to understand their psychology and their trajectory in coming to terms of what they did may never be complete.
So anyway, that’s just a complicated picture. I do think that, that is something that, I know you had to have done this too, Mary, which is it’s really important to be an adult when you’re summing up and talking about this with a jury. I mean at the end of the day, how he feels about what he’s done and whether he’s really reformed is just not the issue.
Mary McCord: It’s not the issue, right.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: They have to make zero decisions about how he feels now and whether he is reformed. They have to decide whether he is credible and you know —
Andrew Weissmann: Exactly.
Mary McCord: — or corroborated enough that they can decide whether Mr. Trump is guilty of the 34 counts that he’s been charged with.
Andrew Weissmann: So with that, I wanted to jump to the part of the cross-examination that everyone’s talking about. But before that, just point out that there was so much to work with.
Mary McCord: Yes, a cargo container full or a whole cargo ship —
Andrew Weissmann: Yes.
Mary McCord: — we’ve discussed before, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And I thought Todd Blanche did a perfectly good job of going through it. And I mean there was just tons to go through and there were some lies and things that Michael Cohen certainly didn’t help himself with, which is, you know, he is saying, which we’ve talked about before, that when I pled guilty before Judge Polly.
Mary McCord: And this is to the tax crimes and the FEC violations and the taxi medallion stuff, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And he said some of it, I was guilty and that’s why I pled. But he said that was with respect to the tax stuff. He said, you know, I actually should not —
Mary McCord: He didn’t think he should have been prosecuted, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: He said on the stand, now I didn’t think I should be prosecuted, but I never challenged the underlying facts. But that’s not actually right. I mean he did previously challenge the underlying facts and said, I didn’t do it and so —
Mary McCord: Todd pushed him hard on that, Todd Blanche.
Andrew Weissmann: And he should have.
Mary McCord: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And he should have.
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: I mean that was a different story. And that is like, I don’t know why he’s saying that. I don’t know what his defense lawyers were thinking. I don’t know what the prosecutors were thinking, but it was a lot to work with. And there were other pieces like, did you wanna be the White House Chief of Staff?
And he said, I wanted to be offered it. I knew I wasn’t really qualified for it. It was more for my ego. But then he was confronted with various statements, which he had said he really had wanted it. That was a small matter, but it sort of helped cast doubt. And there were a lot of —
Mary McCord: These are what we call —
Andrew Weissmann: — things like that.
Mary McCord: — inconsistencies, right. So, there are a couple things that Todd Blanche was doing, which I think in terms of how lawyers are thinking about this, right. One, is to just show the jury all the things, he’s pleaded guilty to lying. He’s pleaded guilty to doing basically fraudulent conduct because, you know, tax cases are basically fraudulent conduct. He has lied during investigations.
He will quarrel with whether they’re lies or not, but lies about what you were just talking about, about his guilty plea with Judge Polly. So, one thing he’s doing is he’s trying to attack credibility by saying in each one of these cases, Michael Cohen, you had raised your right hand and you had sworn an oath to tell the truth. Just like that oath, you swear to tell just three days ago on Monday, right? The same thing.
Andrew Weissmann: Exactly.
Mary McCord: So, he is basically conveying to the jury, why should you believe him today? When he has raised his hand before in multiple other circumstances, before Congress, right, before a judge, et cetera, and that he’s lied. And he’s now telling you he lied. He lied when he was under oath. You shouldn’t believe him today. And you’re gonna hear that so hard in summation.
But then the second point you’ve made is even putting that part, he’s incredible, because he is somebody who’s willing to lie under oath. Todd Blanche also just pointed out inconsistencies, right, between what he’s saying now and what he said some previous time. And this gets to these points you’re making now. So, then that will allow the defense to argue in closing, not just that he’s a liar, but that now he’s either trying to make himself look better.
That’s why he is inconsistent or his memory is bad and he is inconsistent. And if his memory is bad, that means why should you believe the things that he now claims to remember, which is kind of a perfect lead up to the biggest moment of the cross-examination, I think, in terms of —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. The other thing is he also hit his motive.
Mary McCord: Yes, yes, yes.
Andrew Weissmann: And he was very, very good. He was like, I wanna see him convicted.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: I mean he was very much like he has destroyed my life. They played a segment from his podcast, which I thought was extremely effective. Not because of what it said, because he had already said, I want to see him convicted, but he was a very different person in like the podcast. He’s like the contrast between what you heard on the podcast and what you saw —
Mary McCord: In court, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — in court was I thought kind of striking.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And I think you’re gonna hear about that in the closing of the sort of two Michael Cohens.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: So, I actually thought that was very effective. That’s one advantage of being there.
Mary McCord: Oh yeah, you don’t see that black and white.
Andrew Weissmann: Right, exactly. But, okay, so.
Mary McCord: We’ve been leading up for like —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, I know. I mean this is like —
Mary McCord: — 35 minutes, an hour or something, okay.
Andrew Weissmann: I know everyone is just like, I know our producers are probably gonna love it because it’s like cliffhanger.
Mary McCord: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Okay, let’s get to it.
Mary McCord: Yeah, let’s get to it.
Andrew Weissmann: So, let me just describe what happened on direct and then what happened on cross. And then we can talk about our takes on it. Michael Cohen testified about various calls in connection with the Stormy Daniels piece of this, on direct, in October and then moving forward.
And there were various time periods and there’s a call sort of in earlier October about the “Access Hollywood.” There are later calls on the 24th of October. There’s two more calls on October 26. How do I pick out these exact dates? It’s not just that Michael Cohen testified those dates, but he did that because he was shown telephone records and then said, well, that’s the date it happened.
Mary McCord: And just to interrupt there, this is something that we talked about in the last episode.
Andrew Weissmann: I know.
Mary McCord: That I was commenting about how corroborative this was of Michael Cohen’s testimony because for everything he would say —
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
Mary McCord: — boom, there’s a cell phone record, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, let me get back to that.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: So anyway.
Mary McCord: Okay.
Andrew Weissmann: And he said on the 24th, he called Mr. Schiller, which is Trump’s bodyguard.
Mary McCord: Bodyguard, valet, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Body man, valet and that Mr. Schiller put Donald Trump on the call. By the way, there’s definite corroboration for the fact that happens because there’s a text message where Schiller would call and say, are you there —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — for Trump? And so —
Mary McCord: Not unusual.
Andrew Weissmann: That pattern is something that definitely happens. And he says on direct, that it was that day, he’s asked what was the purpose of calling and said, I called Schiller to speak to Donald Trump. And that’s the reason for the call.
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: Like it’s very specific that that’s —
Mary McCord: That’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: — the reason.
Mary McCord: About the Stormy Daniels payment.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah. And the substance of the call is actually not the most important call. I think that’s important because —
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: — it gets built up, as it should, on cross —
Mary McCord: Yup.
Andrew Weissmann: — as if it was the most important. It’s just basically to say, that we’re working on the deal but it’s actually, like this is my point. It’s actually the 26th, two days later.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: That’s a much more important set of calls. But on the 24th, it is sort of update on things are progressing to try and get a deal going forward.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: But it’s a very short piece, but it’s very distinct and specified on that date. Fast forward, the cross-examination, they used text messages between Michael Cohen and Keith Schiller on the 24th, where it’s very, very clear. I mean there’s no question that Cohen is calling Schiller because of a harassing call that —
Mary McCord: Multiple I think.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, that Michael Cohen is getting, from someone who then professes to be 14 years old, we don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s harassing calls. And Michael Cohen basically saying, I’m gonna get the Secret Service to look into this. And the person says, please don’t, please don’t and then says I’m 14. And Michael Cohen basically, I thought it was kind of nic, he says, look, can you please have your parent or guardian call me?
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Anyway, but so he clearly is talking to Schiller about that. And one of the ways, you know, that is that after the call, there’s a response from Michael Cohen where he gives the phone number that was used by the alleged 14-year-old. So, that clearly is part of the conversation.
Mary McCord: And says basically the dope forgot to block his phone number. So, this is his phone number.
Andrew Weissmann: Right, which is why he knows.
Mary McCord: Just to make sure, I want to make sure listeners who didn’t follow the transcript or haven’t been watching TV, which I have not. I don’t even have a TV in this cottage in Ireland. The reason he is contacting Schiller is he does, like you mentioned, he wants to get the Secret Service on it. So he is like, here’s the phone number. Can the secret service look into it? That’s what he’s, at least according the text, appear to be why —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: — he wants to talk to Schiller, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: So Cohen is asked, is basically this is where, again, this is where I think Todd Blanche, he has the documents and I thought he did like what you’re supposed to do. And so he does the classic defense lawyer thing, but he did it very well where he raises his voice —
Mary McCord: He did.
Andrew Weissmann: — and says, isn’t this a lie? You know, just, you should be using your, not just acting ability, but I mean like to stress to the jury, this is a different moment. And I thought Michael Cohen did a really good job of saying, look, he sort of remembers, but it took him a little while.
Mary McCord: Refresh my recollection with the text messages, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, exactly. By the way, I just thought this is so classically something you would forget because that’s not important, right?
Mary McCord: Right, that’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: You know, he had said there were hundreds of harassing —
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: — calls. So, it just seems like exactly what you would forget. But he sort of guy said, yeah, you know, that sort of rings a bell, but he says, you know, I still believe that this is what happened and —
Mary McCord: Meaning I talked to Trump about Stormy Daniels, yes.
Andrew Weissmann: Yes. And he said, I think it could be both. And Todd Blanche says, but the call is a minute and 36 seconds. So, one of our listeners wrote in a really good comment which was, if I were the prosecutor, I would actually say in summation, you don’t think that you can do both? You could both talk to Keith Schiller and talk to the President because he really, the part about the president was really just saying were progressing.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: And it wasn’t a long conversation about details. And he said, if I were the prosecutor, I would just say, let’s just take a break, and I’m gonna count out a minute and 36 seconds. We’re not gonna do this on the podcast.
Mary McCord: But people can do this at home.
Andrew Weissmann: Seriously.
Mary McCord: Set your —
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
Mary McCord: — phone to go off in a minute and 36 seconds. And this is something I’ve done in trials and maybe you have too, Andrew.
Andrew Weissmann: Yes.
Mary McCord: Particularly if you’ve put on witnesses who are talking about how long something took and the defense is going at it and that could have never happened. And like, okay, let’s sit here and see what 96 seconds feels like. You can do a lot of things in 96 seconds and that’s what this is. So, I agree that that could be a very effective tool.
Andrew Weissmann: But ultimately, the reason I think that this was damaging to the prosecution, even though, as I mentioned, this is not the most important phone call. And so far Todd Blanche hasn’t said anything about the other phone calls. And on the 26th, two days later, those are the critical one. Those are the ones —
Mary McCord: That’s the authorization, right?
Andrew Weissmann: Exactly. And those are happening, leave Michael Cohen out of it. Like he could disappear from the planet or they talk about, he could get hit by a bus —
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: — slash truck, which we talked about on the last episode. On the 26th, there are two calls between Cohen and Trump that are lengthy. And then, the payment is made.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: That is in black and white. We know that happened.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: And also if you were gonna make up a story, like why don’t just pick one that is on a Trump call. I mean there’s just no reason to pick a Schiller call.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: So, I think all those arguments will be made. But the reason I thought it was a hit is I think that, when I’ve done trials, particularly organized crime cases, my credibility as a prosecutor was what was on trial. The defense tended to be that I had coached the witnesses. I mean the proof was usually quite good, but it was like they had to figure out something to —
Mary McCord: I think you’re going exactly where I was gonna go, yes.
Andrew Weissmann: Because we’re trialers. By the way, I really think that with all of the baggage and all of the things that we can say, Michael Cohen should have had more self-knowledge and why is he saying that, I have to tell you his demeanor on the stand, the last hour of direct examination has been remarkable, you know.
Would I believe him without corroboration in terms of proof beyond a reasonable doubt? No, I’d want corroboration of that, of course. Well, here’s the problem. Normally, in federal court, you would not use evidence like telephone records necessarily with the witness. You would usually just show evidence that the witness has seen himself or herself. And then, you put it in through a different witness and then you put it together in summation.
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: To say, look, you know, you can figure out the times, you can figure out the corroboration because, you know, he didn’t know about X, Y, and Z. A different choice was made here.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: And I’m not faulting that because I think they decided what we are going to try and corroborate him sort of on the spot.
Mary McCord: As he goes, as we go along.
Andrew Weissmann: Yep. And so they decided to use the telephone records and other things, even though he had not seen them. So, there is a sort of educating of the witness problem.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: And the problem is Susan Hoffinger was tethering him to this. And I remember at the time, thinking, so this is dangerous. And also sometimes there are things you may remember, not just this, of course as he said on cross, there’s things, you just remember the substance. But you don’t exactly remember the date, sometimes though you will. Like you might say —
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: — oh, I remember. Whatever the date is that we sent the wire, I know I talked to —
Mary McCord: That’s the date I did XYZ, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Right, you can connect it to an event. But usually there are things where you’re like, especially when it’s not one event but many events, where you’re like, you know, I remembers towards the end of October X happened or I seem to recall and you sort of bring reality into what’s going on.
And instead I think Susan Hoffinger was sort of like trying to pin it to that time. But never had Michael Cohen actually say how it is that he recalled that it was that specific date and time.
And you could tell that what happened as he was thinking, well, that’s the record and that looks right. But that wasn’t teased out by Susan Hoffinger on direct and that’s why I think she took the hit. And then it also makes Michael Cohen look malleable, so that he takes a hit. And I just wanna make sure people know that on cross he eventually, in a different context said, there are things I know, I remember.
Because Todd Blanche was trying to say you had many, many, many, many, many, many, many, thousands of calls over 10 years and how do you remember the dates and times and the substance of these particular ones? And I actually thought Michael Cohen was great on that.
And he said, well, first of all, these are with Donald Trump. These meetings are at the Oval Office. I’d never been there and these things were important, but he said, but do I remember the date and time of a specific call? Of course not, but I saw a record and so I know what that’s the time. So —
Mary McCord: Can I just give you an example of what you were just saying. At one point, Todd Blanche says, given that your testimony to this jury is still, when you testified on Tuesday, that you had a specific recollection of a phone call with President Trump on October 24th at 8:02 for one minute and 36 seconds, is it still your testimony that you were telling the truth?
And Michael Cohen says, based upon what was going on and based upon the other message, text messages and so on regarding the Stormy Daniels manner, yes. I believe I was telling the truth. Question, so you were not basing your testimony on Tuesday based on your memory, you were basing it on documents the people showed you in prep?
Is that your testimony? That refreshed my memory, yes, sir. So to your point, that decision to kind of like refresh him with text messages is now really coming back, at least, as a basis for some legit cross. Although, I do still think there was some effectiveness to it.
The other point, though, beyond the point that you made about reliance, the prosecution sort of reliance on this trail of text to kind of refresh his recollection and you know, prompt him to say all the things they wanted to get out is I thought that Mr. Blanche brought out with some effectiveness, again, it’s not the prosecution on trial, but like you said, in a way they are just to the jury, is that in their providing documents and materials to Mr. Cohen, they had provided a chart of various text messages and phone calls and things for refreshing his recollection.
They did not show him, at least according to this cross-examination, these texts about the harassing call from the alleged 14-year-old. Those were not part of those. Did the people include the text messages that I just showed you between you and Keith Schiller on October the 24th on this exhibit that they showed you? This is what Mr. Blanche asked him. Do you see those text messages on that exhibit? I don’t says Mr. Cohen.
The people did not bother to include those on this chart, did they, asked Mr. Blanche, not on this chart? No sir. So, now we’re getting into this. You know, this will support an argument in closing that the people and by the people here, that’s the DA’s office, purposefully refreshed Mr. Cohen’s recollection with certain things and not others to craft the story they wanted the jury to hear. That’s gonna be the argument.
Now they have a whole redirect to fix that, right, to rehabilitate that. And I do think the value of this, you know, point here is limited by the entire rest of the examination we’ve heard this week. But it’s a serious point. It’s a serious point that the defense made.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah and it is because this is what happens on the defense side. This is not, by way, of criticism is if you get a mistake and a flaw, you blow it up.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And you say, it’s exemplifies the problem in general as opposed to, I mean, you know, my two cents as to what I think happened here is I think the DA didn’t do a particularly good direct on sort of —
Mary McCord: On this, yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — protecting the witness and in general about sort of dates and times, and didn’t really protect the witness and tried to sort of nail specific dates and times when it wasn’t needed. And it wasn’t sort of realistic and got caught.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: I don’t mean caught like she did it intentionally.
Mary McCord: No.
Andrew Weissmann: And I think —
Mary McCord: But she could have prepped him on the Schiller text and on the —
Andrew Weissmann: Yes, right and so —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — I think this is, like let’s just get real. I mean it obviously was a mistake.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: Right? I mean they obviously didn’t know about them because it’s just a classic mistake. And it’s sort of bizarre that they hadn’t reviewed the material because it’s not like this is the material —
Mary McCord: I think they had to have. I think somehow they just missed it when they prepared their direct. I don’t know, who knows? We’ll see.
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
Mary McCord: We’ll read the memoir in like five years.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean no matter what, it’s a mistake, right?
Mary McCord: Yes, yes, it’s a mistake, whether they knew and didn’t tell him about it or they just missed it. But they would have had all these records —
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: — so, okay. Should we take a break and come back and talk about a few other things, including what we are looking for next week?
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, Although I have a question for you that I’m gonna pose to you, and then maybe we can talk about it. And the question is what would you do if you were the prosecutor on redirect on this issue? I’ll tell you my answer. I was asked that question on air. I’m giving you notice.
Mary McCord: Yes, right.
Andrew Weissmann: Lawrence O’Donnell asked me that on the spur of the moment, I’ll give you that answer after I hear your answer.
Mary McCord: Yep.
Andrew Weissmann: Okay, let’s take a break.
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Andrew Weissmann: Mary we’re back. What’s the answer? Tick-tock.
Mary McCord: So, I mean I don’t have any brilliant sort of like fix it. I do think I would directly address it with questions about, you know, let him go ahead and explain what happened with the harassing calls and why he, if to the extent he now recalls, why he wanted to talk to Schiller about getting to the Secret Service on this.
And then ask, you know, can you talk about more than one things, you know, simple questions. Do you sometimes talk about multiple things during a phone call and et cetera? And do you have any other separate recollection of actually talking to Trump before the 26 about Stormy Daniels and get those explanations? You know, I would save my let’s tick off 96 seconds.
I would save that for my summation because that’s not a question to Mr. Cohen particularly. But you know, I also don’t know what else, you know, what all they have that they might be able to use to help and to ask him on redirect. What did you say to Lawrence O’Donnell?
Andrew Weissmann: I had a really brilliant —
Mary McCord: Okay.
Andrew Weissmann: — you know, a much more astute answer Mary. I said, I don’t know. Oh yeah.
Mary McCord: I mean part of it is, you know, you and I don’t know what they’ve got that might be useful.
Andrew Weissmann: Yep, yeah.
Mary McCord: And one thing that’s interesting too, is that you do not always as a prosecutor get to talk to your witness during the recesses or overnight, because you’re not allowed to do that.
Andrew Weissmann: Right.
Mary McCord: Right? So you’re in cross and one of the things, and I think people might think, why didn’t she say, I would talk to Michael Cohen and figure out how can we make this better? No, you don’t get to do that because the idea is you can talk to your witness beforehand. But in the middle of cross-examination, you can’t do something that would give him like better answers. That’s, you know, the night when you’re like, damn, I wish I could talk to Michael Cohen, but I can’t.
Andrew Weissmann: Right. So next week, although the defense hasn’t definitively said that they aren’t gonna call anyone. I mean obviously the state said, this is the last witness. They’ll rest. The defense hasn’t said that they are not calling anyone, but it was so clear that Judge Merchan was like uh-huh, okay. Anyway, so we’re gonna have —
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: — summations on Tuesday. I mean it was just like —
Mary McCord: That’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: — he knows. I mean like, yes. Is it theoretically possible?
Mary McCord: You’re talking about some expert.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah.
Mary McCord: Yes.
Andrew Weissmann: That’s not gonna happen, I don’t think.
Mary McCord: But I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Andrew Weissmann: And of course Donald Trump, it’s his decision. He can decide that he’s gonna testify. That’s not gonna happen. And obviously one of the reasons you don’t say that is in terms of, it’s always good to have the state have to, just in the back of their head, still worry about it because they have to operate in two tracks. And you know, to be fair to them, it’s also like until you really see how the whole case goes, you don’t really have to make your decision.
So, you know, that is technically right. But Judge Merchan has seen this a lot. So, he has said he wants to have summations and the jury charge all in one day, both summations and the jury charge. Josh Steinglass is reported to be the person who’s gonna do the summation for the state. Todd Blanche is gonna do the summation for the defense. And then, the judge gives the jury charge. That is the law that the jury must apply.
But the jury is the decider of the facts and the sole decider of the facts. And then it goes to the jury. Next week the court is sitting on Monday and Tuesday. It is not sitting on Wednesdays. The judge did ask, yesterday, whether any of the jurors would have a problem sitting on Wednesday. And it turns out, at least one, said yes. So he said, that’s fine, if one per juror has a problem, we’re not gonna sit. So, we’re not sitting next Wednesday.
Mary McCord: I guess somewhat surprisingly, you know, when we started this trial, it was like almost every day, there were things that Trump was saying on social media or in rallies that prompted the government to come in and file a motion to hold him in contempt from violating the gag order, right. It was happening practically every day for the first the couple of weeks of the trial.
Andrew Weissmann: Which led to 10 findings of criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mary McCord: That’s right. And we haven’t seen any more of those motions and we haven’t seen quite the same level of statements by Mr. Trump. And one could ask, why is that? Did he actually decide that he was worried about going to jail?
Because remember Judge Merchan said, if these fines don’t work, I’m gonna have to consider incarceration as a penalty for contempt. There hasn’t been a single motion since that warning was given. But what we have had is a whole lot of Trump surrogates going out there and doing Trump’s work for him, one might say.
Andrew Weissmann: Surrogates, who are members of Congress.
Mary McCord: Yes, indeed. Now the gag order did say that Mr. Trump can’t direct anyone else, right, to make statements that would attack witnesses or jurors, et cetera. But of course, you know, there’s no evidence that some of the statements that are being made by these surrogates were at Trump’s direction.
Andrew Weissmann: Wait, wait, wait, there was.
Mary McCord: Okay.
Andrew Weissmann: There were, Andrew Rice who was in court has now been on television saying when he was in court, he was sitting close to the front. He said this now repeatedly, he saw Donald Trump editing the statements.
Mary McCord: Oh my, okay. So, are we gonna see in motion now?
Andrew Weissmann: And one of the things that, I actually was on air, when I think Nicolle Wallace asked him, and was that something that other people would’ve seen, like the prosecutors and he said, I don’t know how they couldn’t see it.
Mary McCord: Statements that others have then gone on and posted on social media or made to the public or the press.
Andrew Weissmann: Exactly.
Mary McCord: All right. So, you can tell I have been away from the news script.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, I don’t know that he could do it an exact one to one, but yeah. So, you would have to have a hearing.
Mary McCord: Interesting.
Andrew Weissmann: And you have to have —
Mary McCord: And probably have to have witnesses, et cetera.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, well there’s one witness.
Mary McCord: Yep, exactly.
Andrew Weissmann: Okay. So, you have these surrogates and it’s also became an issue because the prosecution at a sidebar asked the judge to make sure that there’s people, the sort of very identifiable members of Congress. And by the way, one day, Mary, I don’t know if you saw this, but the number of the men who were coming in, all wore like the same uniform with a red tie and they looked, I hate to be pejorative, but they looked like mini mini-mes, like —
Mary McCord: Oh my goodness.
Andrew Weissmann: — a mini version.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: They’re the same red tie as the former president.
Mary McCord: Yeah.
Andrew Weissmann: And the thing that was disheartening is the statements they made were all denigrating the criminal justice process. For a Supreme court justice or a member of Congress to be denigrating a system that they’re in charge of overseeing and building and like, I don’t think any of those people have looked at the proof. And I mean, let’s just start with, David Pecker. Let’s just take his testimony. I mean he is made it absolutely clear there was a secret scheme to —
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: — denigrate Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton and to catch and kill. I mean like that obviously happened, whether it meets all the criminal standards is a separate issue, so —
Mary McCord: Right.
Andrew Weissmann: — it’s just so surreal. And we are so in a bad place in this country, to state the obvious.
Mary McCord: And that’s getting to the heart of the statements, like you said, they’re denigrating the prosecution. They’re denigrating the entire criminal legal system. And there are definitely places where the criminal legal system can be reformed. But, you know, to have elected members of Congress and others and sort of positions of power and influence to attack, you know, one of the three branches of government that is important and critical, foundational to our constitutional system is troubling.
But the other thing, and I think this is what you were starting to get to when you mentioned the sidebar but we didn’t get through the thought, is in addition to them being out there, speaking in general, outside the courthouse, on social media, on TV, they’ve been coming and visiting court, which they, of course, can do like any member of public. It’s a public courtroom and it’s open to the public. But they’ve been coming in with security entourages in ways that are very visible, right, to the jurors and to everyone in the courtroom.
And that was the subject of the sidebar yesterday which was I think it was the assistant DA calling the judge’s attention to, could you ask that when members of Congress come into the courtroom with their entourage, that they don’t do it in the middle of cross-examination, right. So, that they do it like at a break, so that they’re already seated when the jury comes in, not so that the jury suddenly is distracted from the testimony by this member of Congress, walking in with a security entourage.
And Judge Merchan definitely thought that was something that was concerning. He asked, I think, it was Mr. Blanche for the defense to, you know, see if they could resolve that. And Mr. Blanche said, I don’t have control over these members who, you know, have a right to be here if they wanna be here. And I mean he’s right, he doesn’t have control, but just like the prosecutors didn’t have control over Michael Cohen and what Michael Cohen could say, they could at least ask. And the judge could also ask.
Andrew Weissmann: Yeah, also the idea that Donald Trump doesn’t have control over them is really, like come on, far-fetched. I mean they’re only there because he has control over them.
So, Mary, next week we will be doing this on Tuesday where it will be really interesting. We will be able to talk about something really interesting, which is obviously whatever else is brought out on cross examination. But the issue of that we’ve been speculating on is how would we deal with this? We will know —
Mary McCord: That’s right.
Andrew Weissmann: — the answer from the prosecutors and then we will be onto summations unless, you know, the truly unforeseen happens, which is there’s a defense case that includes Donald Trump. So with that, Mary, I know I have taken you away from your vacation. So, have a wonderful continued vacation.
Mary McCord: I’m gonna get back to it and we will talk next week.
Andrew Weissmann: Take care.
As the trial continues and winds down, Mary and I will bring you new episodes twice a week to keep you up to speed. And we want to continue to answer your questions as they come up. So, send us questions. You can leave us a voicemail at 917-342-2934 or you can e-mail us at prosecutingtrumpquestions@nbcuni.com Thanks so much for listening. We’ll have another episode for you on Tuesday.
This show is produced by Vicki Vergolina. Our associate producer is Janmaris Perez. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes. Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC Audio. And Rebecca Kutler is the Senior Vice President for Content Strategy at MSNBC. Search for Prosecuting Donald Trump wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series.