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Michael Cohen Cross-Examination. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 20, 2024 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Well, some of that pressure is self-imposed when one campaigns. This is - this - you know that was have been, you know, prosecutors who were line (ph) prosecutors not appointed, not elected. And so there has been a notion that those who are elected have a stronger desire to try to make good on campaign promises. Letitia James is one person they've criticized for this very point.

But one of the impressions they've had for Alvin Bragg has been the decision to go from a misdemeanor to a felony. That's been the point at the most contention here. And in order to have it be - I mean you're talking about a regular misdemeanor case, which is less than six months prison time, et cetera. In fact, I have a tablet for this very notion.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, here we go.

COATES: But, I mean, it was - it was coming. And we all knew it was coming.

TAPPER: Break it out.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Bring it out.

COATES: So -

TAPPER Have it up.

COATES: If it were a misdemeanor, right, you have this idea - what we've often seen, this idea of causing these falsified business records and what it would look like. But then you have here, no one's going to my tablet and I said I had a tablet. So, go to my tablet because I have a tablet.

TAPPER: I'm looking at the tablet.

COATES: Thank you very much. I have the tablet.

TAPPER: Control room. (INAUDIBLE) up, control room.

COATES: All right, here we go. Well, I -

TAPPER: There it is.

(CROSS TALK) COATES: Thank you for my tablet.

TAPPER: Horray. Horray.

COATES: OK. So you can actually make or cause a false entry in the business records. To make it actually into a felony though, you have to have a person guilty of the idea of the intent to defraud, to commit another crime. That's the part here that's important. Now, they're going to try to use the fact that there was a conspiracy to try to have a campaign finance contribution that was not otherwise lawful or disclosed in some way, but they can also use that to suggest that they caused Michael Cohen to do this.

So, that's the - the whole linchpin of their case, this idea of buying into the conspiracy that David Pecker has talked about, the commissioning of the other crime, the idea that it was not necessary Donald Trump and that he caused there to be these different charges, 11 checks to Cohen, 11 invoices submitted, 12 entries in Trump's ledger. But he's got to make this case by putting in a combination of McConney's notes on what Allen Weisselberg has said. Allen Weisselberg was not actually there to add this whole thing up.

And so, it is a very difficult case to have all these different dots connected. It's not a through line. And for that reason he will look at it and say, well, what was the reason you chose to bring this case in this way as a felony.

HONIG: Can I just add one quick thing?

You will hear people say, well, the DA's office charges falsification of business records all the time. You hear - the DA's offices has said it's the bread and butter of what they do. That is true, but that is drawing the boundaries really, really broadly. The fact is they charge this particular statue, in this manner, tacking it onto a federal election campaign with no separate fraud charge, never, never.

TAPPER: Right.

HONIG: Twice in ten years. That's hundreds of thousands of cases. So, it's all in how you look at it, like many things with this case.

TAPPER: Tim, if you were the defense - on the defense team, what would you do after the prosecution rest? Would you call a witness? Would you call Bob Costello? Would you call a campaign finance expert? Or would you rest?

TIM PARLATORE, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: You know, it's difficult for me to say sitting outside the courtroom. You know, I'm seeing all the highlights here and so it seems like the cross is going very well.

TAPPER: Right.

PARLATORE: But at the same time, it's a game day decision you have to make inside the courtroom based on how the jurors look to you. Do you think that everything has landed? Do you want Michael Cohen to be the last person they hear from? You know, Bob Costello has some very good information that can be provided. But, at the same time, if you properly debrief Bob Costello before the cross-examination, you can use all that and get a lot of that same information out through Cohen himself potentially, especially using the emails and text messages the Bob has. So, maybe you don't need to call him.

So, whether to put on a defense case is a decision that I never make until after the prosecution rests. You know, once - once the prosecution rests, I say judge, you know, can we take a break? And that's when I actually make that decision.

So -

TAPPER: And one of the things that we talked about with - I talked about after our coverage on Thursday and Friday is the fact that how we are all taking in this trial is very different than how the jury is. We are getting tidbits from our reporters there. And we are jumping on the most interesting ones, the most credible ones, the ones that seem to be the most impactful to us. And, you know, whether they're good for the - Donald Trump or bad for Donald Trump.

But the jury doesn't have that. The jury has hours and hours and hours. It's possible that some of the attorneys we have on our panels are better communicators than some of the attorneys actually presenting the case one way or the other. It's possible that we are hitting issues and litigating them and discussing them in a way that is more convincing to ourselves then it would be to a jury.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Which is why -

TAPPER: We should have cameras in the courtroom.

BASH: Well, yes, thank you.

TAPPER: But, yes.

BASH: That wasn't how I was going to finish my sentence, but that's a much better way to finish that sentence. We should have cameras in the courtroom. That's why closing arguments exists, right? I mean the closing arguments, I feel like, in this case are going to matter so much because there were so many days of compelling testimony that were going to continue today with people like Michael Cohen, with Stormy Daniels.

[09:35:04]

TAPPER: Judge Merchan has just called for the witness, by the way.

BASH: Oh, OK.

TAPPER: So, we're about to get ready to rumble, as it were.

BASH: But there also have been days of very, very dry testimony. That dry testimony might be the most important when it comes to that question of whether or not he should be convicted.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: And I sort of have this broader question, as we were -

TAPPER: Just to jump in. And, again, I will be doing this annoyingly throughout all the coverage. As Cohen walked past Trump's table, and the witnesses walk in behind the defendant's table, Trump's head turned to look at him, but it did not look like they made eye contact.

HUNT: Yes.

TAPPER: Just trying to bring you inside the room.

HUNT: We, as political reporters, right, we have spent the last eight years plus breaking down all of our previously held assumptions about what voters wanted, what was acceptable in politics. And, Jake, your question about how Michael Cohen blamed all these other people. And the -- Jamie, what you said about how he would be a better witness if he was contrite, if he was willing to kind of take responsibility.

I guess my question is, has our sort of political culture changed the way that might play with a jury. I mean is the jury - people seem to be looking for in their politicians a willingness to fight, a willingness to say the other guy is always wrong. No, I'm not sorry for what I did. I mean, should we be thinking about this in a different way?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: And these are New Yorkers. They're pretty -- they're pretty tough.

Look, I think there are all kinds of questions that we simply don't know. Does a high-profile case, does Donald Trump simply sitting there subconsciously or consciously raise the bar on what beyond a reasonable doubt means, especially when you're talking about a law that someone wrote was cloudy, this misdemeanor versus felony. Does the jury get in there and they want to know, where's Allen Weisselberg? Where's Keith Schiller?

I'm going to quote my mother, the judge, I promise this is the last time. I used to asked her -

BASH: We love it.

TAPPER: No, no.

GANGEL: I used to ask her, do juries get the verdict right? And she said, yes, most of the time they do, but they come to the right verdict frequently for the wrong reason.

BASH: Oh.

GANGEL: So -

TAPPER: Well, how so? Explain what you mean.

GANGEL: Meaning that what they find compelling about a case is not necessarily what the three lawyers here think they're presenting.

TAPPER: All right. Interesting stuff. Kaitlan Collins.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Jake. And we now see that Todd Blanche is back at the lectern to question Michael Cohen as he is back on the stand. This is the same attorney who questioned him last week for those two days and now is going to finish up he believes this morning with the first cross-examination of Michael Cohen.

Paula Reid, I mean, what have we heard from the Trump team about - they felt good walking out of that courthouse on Thursday.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

COLLINS: But I still think there's an open question of whether or not - you know, we don't know how the jury saw that moment -

REID: Yes.

COLLINS: Where, you know, Michael Cohen was talking to Keith Schiller about a prank caller that he had been so flustered by, who was aggravating him. We don't know how the jury saw that and how they're viewing Michael Cohen's credibility right now. So, I wonder how the Trump team, how confident they feel about their line of questioning.

REID: They were really happy with how - how the last day of question Michael Cohen went. It took them a while, right? The first day was sort of meandering. They were jumping all over the place. I was told that was strategic to sort of throw him off his game. It didn't succeed.

But then when they came back on Thursday, they were able to successfully get him to admit that he hasn't been truthful on the stand at least once in the course of this case.

Now, since that time until right now, how many reporters have asked you to talk about what happens last week? Blanche kicking off by referencing Cohen's pension for talking to reporters. Now Cohen says, I didn't speak to reporters about what happened last week. So, this appears to be Blanche's first line of attack, which is how much Cohen talks to the press, how much press he also takes it, how much he's watching this.

COLLINS: He said he's spoken to reporters who called to say hello, to check in, but I did not talk about this case. I mean this isn't relevant to what's at the heart of this case, but - but one thing that they tried to be establishing last week, John, when I was in there watching Todd Blanche question Michael Cohen was relationships that he has with reporters. Reporters that he has recorded surreptitiously in conversations before and just kind of inside world, though I mean it's clear, you know, Trump would often dispatch his top officials to call reporters and to talk to them long before he even ran for office.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, one of the things I'm looking for right now is if Todd Blanche introduces something new here.

REID: Yes. BERMAN: That the prosecution will have to deal within in redirect because the prosecution has had all weekend to prepare as well, their redirect, to clean up what happened last week.

Danya Perry, who is Michael Cohen's personal lawyer, has had all weekend with him to help him figure out how he wants to navigate through the rest of this. Unlikely, by the way, that Michael Cohen and the prosecutions spoke. They're allowed to, but it would be a problem, right, because Todd Blanche could ask him right now, for instance, have you spoken to the prosecution in the last few days? And he'd be forced to admit, yes. So, I do not think that would happen here.

[09:40:01]

But I'm waiting to see if Blanche has something extra to knock the prosecution office its feet.

COLLINS: Well, and one thing that he was asking him last week was, you know, when did you stop recording reporters? Michael Cohen said 2016. And Todd Blanche made a comment, we'll revisit that in a moment.

BERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: And we'll check both together. But it's not clear that he actually has a moment like that. We'll wait to see how this plays out.

But Michael Cohen, you know, one thing they've tried to do is to get under his skin.

REID: Yes.

COLLINS: He has not gotten incredibly flustered on the stand. He hasn't raised his voice. He did speak, you know, on - as cross-examine - the cross-examination was happening, Paula. He was speaking in kind of halting terms, choosing his words very carefully as he was answering Todd Blanche's questions after that moment about the text.

REID: Yes, you have to give Michael Cohen credit. Imagine the stress, right, of being in the situation, being on that witness stand, in front of your former boss, knowing a large part of this case rests on you, and also having at least some level of self-awareness about what a flawed witness you are. So, given the stakes, given the pressure, he has held up really well.

Now, right now, Blanche pushed the issue of talking to reporters, asking Cohen to confirm the reporters "just greeted you and asked how you're doing, didn't ask at all about the case?" "Correct."

Now presumably Blanche has someplace that he's going with this. These would certainly be wasted questions if you didn't know the answer or you didn't have any evidence that perhaps there was some communication.

Now, Blanche is asking Cohen how many times he me with prosecutors this year. We know from our reporting that he's been preparing for this for well over a year, meeting them dozens and dozens of times. COLLINS: Lanny Daivs said he spent over 100 hours.

REID: Yes, 100 hours.

COLLINS: Not with these prosecutors specifically -

BERMAN: Right.

COLLINS: But with all prosecutors from the DA's office.

REID: Which makes sense. He's the star witness in a trial like this, and he's a difficult witness. But overall he has performed well for the prosecution. He has come across calm. He has come across humble, coherent. The question is, does the jury believe he's credible?

COLLINS: And he spoke to them 20 times. He just clarified, John Berman. And he did say, before he took the stand last Monday, he spoke with prosecutors that weekend. So, that is the last known instance we know of a conversation Michael Cohen had with prosecutor.

BERMAN: Yes, and, look, you know, we've all interviewed him over the course of the last few years. Over the last few months, every time he's been on with me, I've asked, have you been meeting with prosecutors? And it's always yes. The answer is always yes.

To your point of him not breaking, he - even in the worst moment of this trial for Michael Cohen, when he was talking about the prank call, he left himself and the prosecution a little bit of an out there. He managed to maneuver it to a space where we may have talked about something else. He managed not to speak in absolutes in a way that would get him in real potential problem later on and maybe give the prosecution a way to go back at it and redirect.

COLLINS: And as Michael Cohen is back on the stand, we also have attorney Michael van der Veen here who represented Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial.

And I wonder, Michael, what you make of how the defense has done cross-examining Michael Cohen and whether you believe that they've established and accomplished what they needed to do with him?

MICHAEL VAN DER VEEN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Well, you know, I think that they've done pretty well. I'd give them somewhere between - in the A ranges to what, you know, A - a solid A because they've accomplished what they wanted to with him. There's a lot of material to do that with. But they were able to show that he's a pathological liar. That he's lied in just about every stage of his life, about just about anything. And they don't - they necessarily haven't shaken him emotionally, you know, where he's broken down and given that Perry Mason moment of, yes, I lied. But with the text passengers last week, it was a great way for them to kind of end the afternoon. I think they have a great rhythm going. And now - and it's much easier the third time - the third day you're questioning somebody. You really have much more control over what you're asking and a lot more controlled over the witness. But the point earlier is absolutely right, you never know what a jury is thinking about. You never know what facts they're actually focusing in on it. For almost every jury trial I've - I've had, I've always been amazed at, you know, some - what we thought was not a very important fact to be a fact that they discussed and discussed and thought was a lot more important than everybody else.

So, we don't know what the jury's thinking. But it looks like the cross-examination is doing everything they want it to do.

COLLINS: Well, and that's the question here because it also could be the reverse. You know, maybe the different sees it as a really pivotal moment, but the jury may not. And so that's, you know, what we have to leave room for here.

Right now Todd Blanche is asking Michael Cohen about the prep he's done. He said that he heard several questions for the first time from prosecutors last week. He's asking about the prep that he did for his congressional testimony with now Congressmen Dan Goldman, who at the time was working for Congressman Adam Schiff.

But on that moment, you know, I was looking back at Michael Cohen's testimony and just all the testimony that we've heard over the last several weeks this weekend, and maybe that moment with the - with the 14-year-old and the prankster, you know, obviously was a moment that was not a good one for Michael Cohen or the prosecution.

[09:45:03]

But he also testified about other instances where he had two phone calls with Trump 30 minutes before he went and opened up that home equity line of credit account that he used to pay Stormy Daniels. We saw the flurry of calls with David Pecker, with Keith Davidson, who was negotiating this. I mean there is other evidence here that backs up Michael Cohen's testimony that the jury has also seen. I mean do you have doubt that, you know, that could also be pretty effective for the jury here?

VAN DER VEEN: Yes, and, you know, I think you're right, and the fact is the prosecutors, if they think they've been hurt anywhere are going to be able to come back and, you know, throw up some softball questions so he can hit them out of the park and, you know, really explain it. Well, it might have been this phone call or that phone call regarding the test. But they really will lead - they'll go through all the facts that they think they're solid in, in an attempt to really rehabilitate him.

COLLINS: If you were the defense team here, would you call any witnesses once the prosecution rests? Robert Costello, the FEC expert? Donald Trump?

VAN DER VEEN: I would. I don't know if I'd call Costello particularly. I think you can get out of - what you can get out of Costello, you can get out of the cross of Cohen. I think the elections expert is super important for a number of reasons. You know, one, to get in as much information as you can to the jury so that they can, you know, be informed as to the defense argument as to why this isn't, you know, election interference. An FEC expert would, you know, be really good for them.

But the other issue is, you know, just keeping your appellate issues fresh, you know, there -- they've been asking this judge for months now to call an FEC expert. You know, this was all done in pretrial and there were motions had where motions are. there were orders issued on those motions, so he's really boxed himself in with his rulings. And what they want to do is continue to reenforced that, hey, we're being prejudice here. There's something - if this - if the jury goes the wrong way for us on this case, we got solid appellate issues because the judge denied us this, this and this. And, you know, you should really be liberal with the defense and their ability to present information. It's the government's burden to prove this guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

COLLINS: But has he - has he -

VAN DER VEEN: Go ahead.

COLLINS: Has the judge boxed them in? I mean he - I was listening to him and he was saying his earlier rulings were basically that, yes, they can call this election expert. There are just only certain, you know, parameters of questions of what they can ask them because then otherwise the prosecution will feel the need to call an election expert and then it's going to be a battle of the experts that doesn't really serve any purpose but to confuse the jury on stating what the law is and just different interpretations of it.

VAN DER VEEN: Well, when I was talking about boxing them in, boxing in his position for appellate review. But as far as I think his ruling so far on the expert are that basically he can, you know, go through statutory definitions, but he can't really apply the facts to the case.

Almost every case is a battle of experts. I mean that's really - you know, it never is one side presenting an expert. In criminal trials, you know, you have DNA experts, both sides. You have fingerprint experts, both sides. You got gun analysis, ballistics experts, both sides. Most every trial today is a battle of experts, and that's certainly not a reason to preclude an expert from testifying because somebody else may have one. It's almost nonsensical.

COLLINS: Yes.

Michael van der Veen, obviously it's the election law here that would be told to the jury. We'll see what happens there.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Right now Cohen is talking about how he was dealing with his taxi medallion business, and investment sale, the National Diversity Coalition for Donald Trump, all as he was preparing once Donald Trump took office, before this relationship deteriorated. Todd Blanche is now asking Michael Cohen about working with David Pecker on litigation involving the attorney Marc Kasowtiz. Cohen says, "correct." Paula Reid, as Blanche is going down this line of questioning, he

talked about whether or not Michael Cohen spoke to reporters this weekend. Then he asked about his prep with prosecutors. And now he's asking about what was going on at the time of - before we saw - you know, the before and after of his complete break with Donald Trump.

REID: I want to note that the screen moved too quickly for you to read it, but he was also working on obtaining an endorsement from Martin Luther King Jr.'s family at this time. So -

COLLINS: Blanche asked Cohen if he remembers that right around October 26th Cohen was also helping Tiffany Trump with a potential extortion issue over photographs.

REID: So the point here that Blanche is now getting to, this has been meandering, I'll definitely admit that. But here, the pointing he's getting to is that Cohen had a broad portfolio of legal services that he provided to the Trump family. So, they're going to try to tie this to 2017 and the invoices that Cohen testified were falsified and he argues that because he didn't have a retainer that these were not truly reflective of the work he was doing.

[09:50:10]

Well, defense attorneys and going to say, you never had a retainer in the entire time you worked for Trump, and you were doing different things related to legal services for various members of the Trump family and the Trump Organization. So, that's where this is likely leading to, but it's taken Blanche a minute to get there.

They're also clearly challenging Cohen's ability to remember everything that's going on in October by talking about - October 2016, by talking about everything else he had going on.

COLLINS: Saying he was busy and had a lot going on.

BERMAN: I do think specifically on this matter you're looking at right now with Tiffany Trump, they're also going to suggest that Michael Cohen spoke to David Pecker about this, maybe to introduce the idea, look, you were talking to David Pecker about a lot of things too. So, a lot of his phone records we may see between you and Pecker at this time were about that also (ph).

COLLINS: But this is key because on October 26th, that's what we were - I was just referencing --

BERMAN: Yes.

COLLINS: When he had those two phone calls. And we couldn't see the - what the content of the calls were, but there were the signal calls between he and David Pecker that they showed on the screen to the jury. And it was a flurry of calls on and around October 25th and October 26. So, they could be arguing, well, maybe you were talking to David Pecker about this matter.

BERMAN: Yes, injecting doubt. I mean that is what Todd Blanche is trying to do here, inject some doubt around some of the documentary evidence that exists here in this case.

REID: And if they can establish a pattern, right, they got that one knockout punch about him perhaps lying on the stand about one conversation, if they can establish that that has happened more than once during the course of his direct testimony, that would be incredibly damaging to the prosecution.

COLLINS: And why didn't this come up before because Michael Cohen even testified with the work he was doing for the wax figure of Melania Trump.

REID: (INAUDIBLE).

COLLINS: I mean, and we heard him - and Donald Trump Jr., some stuff for him. We heard about other work that Michael Cohen was doing. These are two aspects that - certainly the Tiffany Trump part that did not come up.

REID: Yes, a, essentially prosecutors didn't know. And, look, defense attorneys had three whole days to go through every single scintilla of evidence. I've been told for over a week that they were always going to go back at the fact that he was doing legal work for Trump during 2017, may not have been directly for the then-president, but for other people, and that is why he was being paid for legal services.

They're also going to emphasize how their client is notoriously cheap and he wouldn't just mark up some sort of reimbursement out of the goodness of his heart, that he truly believed that this was for illegal surfaces. That's going to be their argument. Whether the jury buys it, I think that's the big question.

COLLINS: Yes, Jake, obviously that's a big question of Michael Cohen's credibility and what Todd Blanche can do in these next two hours to try to undermine it with the jury.

TAPPER: A very, very, very important point. It's not up to us. It's not up to the viewers. It is up to the 12 people in that jury box.

Let me ask you a question. I was talking to somebody who is aligned with the defendant in this case. And this person was just speculating about a specific juror. This person had been in the room and said I think we have juror - this juror on our side, not based on any - anything shady, just based on body language.

Is that how prosecutors and defense attorneys look at cases? Do you - are you looking at all 12 or 18, if you have alternatives that might be coming down the line, and you're trying to figure out who seems to be receptive, who seems to be following closely, who seems to be somebody, if you're a defense attorney, that maybe you should be directly appealing to when you address the jury?

COATES: One thousand percent.

HONIG: Yes.

COATES: I mean that's the whole point of having the jury voir dire process, trying to understand their background? What might make them tick? What might trigger them? You use it more for the summation as you're tailoring what parts of the evidence you - came in to the individual person. You're never 1,000 percent sure, by the way. In some instances, in some cases, you will have alternate jurors who might be the ones who are more on your side and you got a different issue.

You'll also have people who might be very strong willed and you want to lean into that person and think, well, that is the person I need to convince the most because they may be the one waffling. You have to guess at many times. But at the end of the day, it's not unlike what we do for the Supreme Court when we think, all right, we've got this person, I think we'll get these votes. Or in Congress, I think you get these votes.

TAPPER: Oh, we can appeal to John Roberts.

COATES: Right, that person.

TAPPER: We can appeal to Neil Gorsuch.

COATES: Exactly.

TAPPER: Yes.

COATES: Or we could probably appeal to, you know, a member of Congress if you were trying to the legislate over the hurdle. Jurors, obviously, are neither part - neither category of people, but you are trying to read the body language. You're trying to understand, are they wincing? Are they leaning in? Are they visibly disgusted? Are they weepy? Are they looking empathetic or sympathetic?

BASH: Are you usually right in your assessment at the end of the - no?

HONIG: No.

COATES: You know, well - well, I'm always - I'm always right. I mean that's why -

HONIG: I'm not.

So, Laura's exactly right, we do it all the time. It's impulsive. We're - but interpreting juror body language is inherently fraught, right? There's so much ambiguity. But, I mean, the way it works is, you're sitting there. The jury's right there. And all you care about is, how are they taking this? And you're so tempted, as a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, to just sort of like cast - but you can't stare at them because you don't want to weird them out. And so you try to take your opportunities -

HUNT: Just like attending a party (INAUDIBLE).

HONIG: No, totally. Totally. But let me just tell you one thing, with the risk of interpreting, I one time had a defense lawyer closing and I noticed one of the jurors was like this. And I thought, oh God, we're in trouble. Then I got up to give my rebuttal. I realized she was just rocking in her chair, and she was nodding for me as well.

[09:55:03]

So, it is inherently sort of dangerous to make those kind of guesses.

PARLATORE: The rocking chair is very important, though, because it lets you know that they're awake.

He's right, when you're sitting at the table, you don't want to stare at them. But one thing that, you know, I do as a defense lawyer, prosecutors don't get to do it as much on direct, during cross- examination, I'm not even looking at the witness. I'm making eye contact with the juror. I'm watching the jury. And based on, you know, how they're receiving the questions as I'm making eye contact with each individual juror, that's when I decided, OK, I'm going to do a few more questions on this, or this is a stupid line of question, they don't like it, let me move on. And so, it's all about the jury.

BASH: So fascinating.

PARLATORE: Only 12 opinions of matter -

GANGEL: Yes.

PARLATORE: Yours is not one of them. It's all them.

TAPPER: And so the - you know, with - there is - the defendant has some money and I'm wondering also, they obviously know who these 12 people are that we know. They know which ones - like, we all know that there are two lawyers on the jury. They know who those lawyers are. They have looked at the social media profiles. They did this during voir dire when they were picking the jury. They're probably still following and looking at the social media profiles and the social media profiles of people close to the jury, right? I mean they're looking at everything. They're really trying to get any clue they can about these people.

And again, I'm not alleging that any - first of all, I'm sure the prosecution is doing a too. Second of all, I'm not alleging anything wrong with it, it's just information that, if its public, you can get it.

BASH: Well, one, I mean -

PARLATORE: No, you can see -

BASH: Yes.

PARLATORE: It's important because, you know, you have to do that not only for figuring out how you're presenting the case right now, if there's any juror misconduct. I mean this is how -

TAPPER: Right.

PARLATORE: The death penalty for the Boston Marathon bomber got overturned, was going through the social media of the jury. So, it's very important.

TAPPER: Wait, tell me more about that. I don't - I don't remember that.

HONIG: What was the impropriety?

PARLATORE: The circuit overturn the death penalty because they found that one of the jurors had posted about the case and was saying, you know, that they had prejudged it.

TAPPER: Oh.

BASH: Wow.

COATES: I mean it's - yes -

BASH: I don't remember that either.

COATES: It's so important to think of. And again, one, if your case is hinging on maybe trying to get somebody to like you on the jury as opposed to your burden of proof being met, you're in a world of hurt and trouble already. But even more importantly, the jurors are looking at the council. They're looking and setting at the defense counsel, at the prosecution. They want to understand every time there's a sidebar, what is the bile language of those who are fighting in front of the jury? If you have your client who's leaning over to you, you're almost - we were talking about this. You're almost performing for the jury.

You know full well they're staring at you. I always was a person who had a very clean desk. I never had a lot of papers. Why? Because if you walk into a room (INAUDIBLE) the prosecutor and you think that I'm disheveled, then maybe our team who investigated was too. Maybe the cops did a sloppy job as well, as opposed to, didn't matter what you said, I knew my case.

If you're the - if you're the defense team and you lose a motion or a witness comes off the stand, you know this very well, Tim, they might come down and the council for the defendant is smiling like that was, you know, no matter if it was wrong. It was great. Everything is wonderful.

PARLATORE: True. Guilty.

COATES: Because they know full well that the defendants, the jury, is looking at it, right?

BASH: Like (INAUDIBLE).

PARLATORE: Exactly.

TAPPER: So, right now in the case, Todd Blanche, the defense attorney for Donald Trump, and Michael Cohen are getting into a back-and-forth about a business opportunity Cohen was working on in October 2016. Remember, this is the key month here that we're talking about in terms of when this all went down, in which Blanche says involves taxi medallions, but Cohen says, no, it's actually related to a mortgage in Florida. Cohen says he was in frequent contact with Gene Friedman (ph), who ran Cohen's taxi medallions in New York and Chicago. During the period Friedman's checks were bouncing, Cohen said. Attorneys are now sidebaring.

Let's talk for a second about being on a jury.

Have any of you ever been on a jury?

BASH: No.

TAPPER: I have never - you have?

GANGEL: Yes.

TAPPER: So, tell me about that experience, because one of the things I keep thinking about is, there's no way for the 12 jurors and six alternates to not be aware of the momentous of this case, right? I mean they are - even if they're not like incredibly well read newspaper readers or CNN watchers, they know Donald Trump. They know he was president. They know he's controversial.

By the way, Blanche right now in court is walking through all of the other business Cohen had going on during the time that this hush money payment occurred in October 2016. No doubt trying to establish that there was a lot going on. Maybe Cohen's memory is not 100 percent.

In any case, I think about the OJ verdict. And I think about, that was not a verdict, in my opinion, this is just my opinion, my interpretation, that was completely devoid of all historical record having to do with being an African American living in Los Angeles. That's just my interpretation, OK. I look at that verdict and I think that was a political verdict. And, yes, I understand the reasons why there were Mark Fuhrman was not credible and all the mistakes, this and that, but I do think that there was a, I'm looking at history and I'm making a decision within the realm of history.

[10:00:00]

Is it not possible that the jurors will do that too? I mean I know that they won't admit to it, but is it not possible that would happen?

GANGEL: So, first of all, public service announcement, everyone should do jury duty.