Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Event/Special

Now: Trump's First Criminal Trial Underway; Now: Judge Tells Attorneys 500 Potential Jurors Are Waiting; Now: Judge & Attys Discuss Allowing Trump To Attend Sidebars; Now: Trump Says He Understand After Judge Reads His Rights; Prosecutors Argue Trump's Recent Posts Violate Gag Order; Now: Prosecutors Ask Judge To Sanction Trump For Social Media Posts. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 15, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST, SPECIAL REPORT: You are looking at live pictures of the Manhattan courthouse. Behind those very closed doors, Donald Trump's hush money cover up trial is officially underway.

Welcome to CNN's special coverage. I'm Jake Tapper. And we've just gotten our first courtroom sketch of the former president, inside that New York City courtroom where his lawyers and prosecutors are currently arguing over what evidence and which witnesses can be put in front of a jury. We expect jury selection what's called voir dire to start as soon as these particular arguments are overseeing.

Kara Scannell has been inside the courtroom all morning. She joins us now live. Kara, what is the environment been like inside that room so far today? What's happening right now? And I don't know how much you are able to see it. But I'm looking at the courtroom sketch and Mr. Trump looks like he is glowering. I don't know how this -- it's art. It's not necessarily -- it's artistic journalism, but it's not a photograph. But has that been his demeanor inside?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Donald Trump has been very engaged in paying attention. I've seen that heat from my vantage point, he's been biting his lower lip at times. You know, he was talking to his attorney, passing a note to him at one point and leaning forward to look at the screen in front of him. And on that screen is some of the evidence that the prosecution is going over with a judge about whether they can use it in that case.

So, in some of these instances, it is actually tweets that Trump had put up through social posts. And also, they played some video of Trump at campaign rallies of right around the presidential election. So, he's paying attention pretty closely to that, I mean, his expression is one that I would say leans more toward frustrated and annoyed that he's in there. But he is paying close attention.

You know, he hasn't spoken inside the courtroom. Right now, this is just the discussions between the attorneys and the judge, as they're trying to fine tune what the jury can hear based on some of the judges' prior rulings. They're just trying to make sure they understand the contours of what they can say to the jurors.

And that's important, because as you said the jury -- the potential jurors have not come into the room yet. But once the judge begins the questioning, the attorneys for both sides will be able to weigh in and ask their own questions. So, they want to make sure they understand what is OK for them to say, as they begin also to think about how they're going to present this case to the jury.

So, you know, a lot of the questions right now then around Michael Cohen, he is a central witness in this investigation. He's going to be one of the prosecution's key witnesses because he was involved in structuring these deals, and he was also the person who was repaid the deals and that is where this alleged crime took place. And how Cohen was reimbursed, how that was documented on the corporate books.

So right now, you know, the prosecution and the judge going back and forth over what he will allow. Once this wraps, then the jury pool will be brought into the courtroom and will actually begin the process of voir dire, Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Kara Scannell, thanks so much. CNN's Kaitlan Collins and Paula Reid are also outside of the courthouse right now. Kaitlan?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Jake. And we are obviously watching closely as a lot of these key decisions are being made by the judge right now as to what the jury is actually going to hear once the jury is brought in. We also have jury consultant and attorney Renato Stabile here with me as well.

Renato, look, we're looking at this Michael Cohen issue that they're arguing. It's actually quite important because they're basically arguing which of Michael Cohen's crimes that he pleaded guilty to. Can they talk about here? Because they're saying, well, we're bringing up some of them but we're not bringing up the one about the campaign finance violation. The judge seemed to agree that there is concerned that if the jurors hear that they may associate Trump with that and believe he also committed a campaign finance?

[12:05:00]

RENATO STABILE, JURY CONSULTANT & ATTORNEY: Right exactly, because Michael Cohen pled guilty to those things. So, they might assume well Michael Cohen pled guilty. He's here. He says he did this with Trump. Therefore, Trump must also be guilty. So, that seems to be a fair ruling.

But generally, you know, on cross examination, they're going to be able to cross examine him about any crimes of dishonesty. That's the case and not just any bad thing he's done. But it's going to be crimes of dishonesty, acts of dishonesty, that's going to be the key for the defense.

COLLINS: Yeah. Well, I mean, as we're looking at this as to what they're actually deciding about, you know, what the jury can hear. The prosecution has gotten a lot of wins over the last, you know, two hours that they've been inside this room. When it comes to how much evidence these jurors are going to be able to hear. How far can this go?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And look, the Trump team has gotten a couple of wins smile (Ph) WT, but it's interesting, the judge just told both sides as they continue to argue his motions. All right, guys, we have about 500 jurors waiting outside and urge both sides to just work out a lot of these disputes about how motions are filed, for example, so that they can move on with jury selection.

And right now, the judge is moving on to his pretrial checklist. And it appears he is beginning the process that precedes the jury pool coming inside. So, he's saying he usually gives lawyers about 15 minutes to question jurors, now that's 15 minutes for the first round, and they get another 10 minutes for subsequent rounds.

And he noted, this is not a normal case. And he asked the jury -- the lawyers rather, how much time they want to question juror. So, I think we're going to get a lot of clarity over the next few minutes about just how long this could take today.

COLLINS: 500 prospective jurors. I mean, how unusual is that?

STABILE: It's highly unusual. I mean, I think in Harvey Weinstein, you probably had about the same five or 600, but they're going to be coming in in groups of 100. And First things first, he's going to basically let people walk out the door -- because he's going to say to the entire panel. You know, what this case is about. He's going to read to them what this case is about, but it's not lost on anybody.

And if they feel like they can't be fair and impartial, or if they have a hardship, they can just get up and leave. That is highly unusual because normally you have to question each juror, hear their reasons, making an assessment of their credibility, and then the judge has to make a determination. That's not happening here.

COLLINS: Yeah. And we also have Laura Coates here with us. And Laura, you know, as we're looking at this, what Renato was just talking about there. These jurors are going to be coming in in front of Donald Trump, but obviously in front of his legal team and they're going to start questioning them.

I mean, where did they even begin? Because some of the questions that are on this questionnaire that the judge said today, I'm not changing this. It's things like what do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies? While others are, you know, what are your opinions of Donald Trump and his criminal liability here?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: So, none of the lawyers care about who is cross stitching or whether they're watching Bravo. They only really want to know about the sort of media outlets you're listening to. They want to know about your views on Donald Trump. They need the proxy questions that are being asked here.

And then of course, the process of actually trying to figure out as the prosecution and defense, who you want to keep on your trial jury are not as important. It's not as scientific as it might seem to people. A lot of psychology involved, a lot of intuition and a lot of gut check, and also on who you actually believe could be impartial.

I'm going to tell you what it's like to be in that courtroom. As I'm taking notes, essentially, whatever's happened, you're almost inviting a piece of paper in front of you that gives you the information from the different jurors out there.

You have a different jury number that might be assigned, maybe one is 201 or 202, or 203. From there taking down notes to figure out what it is you're looking at. You might have some indicators of who the person is. You might have a black male as one of the jury, who think he might be in his 20s. You're guessing a lot of this information as well.

And you're going to figure out whether or not you think this person should be on your jury. This person may have come out in a MAGA hat for some reason. I'm taking down the different notes and you're saying to yourself, as a prosecution, I want to strike this person out of my actual jury.

You might have somebody else in there. A Latino women, maybe she's in her 60s. You're jotting down important questions, she's saying. Maybe she is an avid MSNBC watcher and maybe she's somebody who's been on multiple juries, maybe she's a retired teacher. You're writing down all these notes on your different documents.

Why? Because you want to be able to show yourself and if you're ever challenged as to why you're striking a person. Why you did so? Was it for a lawful purpose or not? Remember, you have a thing called a Batson challenge here. Batson is a Supreme Court case and essentially says you cannot strike a juror based on race or ethnicity or gender or other improper means. You're taking different notes and all these different aspects of it.

At the end of it, you're going to go back and figure out who you want to keep and who you want to strike. And the numbers might actually surprise you. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Next, we're going to be joined by someone incredibly familiar with -- who is with -- someone who's going to be one of the star witnesses in the case and that's Michael Cohen's former lawyer. Joining us live next.

[12:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: All right, we're back with our special coverage of Donald Trump's hush money cover up trial in New York City. The judge says 500 potential jurors are currently waiting to be questioned as prosecutors and Trump's defense attorneys battle over potential evidence and potential witnesses in the case. CNN's Laura Coates is at the magic wall with former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. Laura?

[12:15:00] COATES: All right. Let's walk through what's happening right now. It's really important thing. The key witnesses that we're going to might maybe hear from today. Walk us through a little bit of it.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah. Well, we are going to see lots of familiar faces come through this trial as we go through the next several months. Stormy Daniels, likely going to be a prosecution witness. She of course was the recipient of the $130,000 hush money payments relevant to explaining the whole thing. But probably doesn't have any evidence that goes directly to Donald Trump's criminal liability, which is on the falsification, which was happening on the other side.

COATES: And what role will she play for talking about the falsification of his records? Why would they even -- maybe call her?

HONIG: Yeah. Prosecutors like to tell the full story, give color. Not every witness is going to strike a blow at the heart of the case. Some of them are just relevant for setting the scene. David Pecker is going to be -- I think, much more relevant.

He was the chair of AMI, which was the company that ran the National Enquirer. He was working hand in hand with Michael Cohen. And allegedly Donald Trump to engineer this scheme where they were catching and killing stories, paying people like Stormy Daniels for their silence. And on that note, Hope Hicks was also part of some of those early conversations about how those transactions will happened.

COATES: Remember, these are -- we're a long way away from witnesses even being called at the moment in time. these are all very, very key witnesses. And then also there's Michael Cohen, who is going to be a very important one as well. When he will come is important, but he is at the center of the hush money payments, of course, he has a victim of crime is going to be an issue.

I think they're going to raise the other side, of course, about what he's been convicted of. And also, the testimony that may have been corroborated by documents in order for him to have any real credibility in this space. But when he actually will testify, it will be important. You and I know the most recent, and the first and the last thing you heard is going to be the most important for a jury. When will they call him?

HONIG: Yeah. It's like doing your lineup in baseball matters. That's first and who bats fourth? I think he's going to come in the middle of the case. He's going to be controversial. You don't want to lead off with someone controversial. You don't want to end with someone controversial. And speaking of, he's going to be cross examined aggressively. I think this is going to be the most important part of the whole trial.

First of all, the defense will know he's been convicted of perjury. He's been convicted of tax fraud, of bank fraud. The defense will also note that he's biased against Trump, to say the least. I mean, he essentially attacks Trump on social media and in his books and podcast for a living. So, they'll argue, you hate this guy. And finally, the defense will argue that he's the real culprit because he -- they will argue and Allen Weisselberg, the lawyer and the CFO. You're the ones that came up with this whole repayment scheme that resulted in the falsification. That's actually the crimes.

COATES: Where in this context will the tweets from Trump come in, do you think if at all?

HONIG: Yeah. So, I think they're going to try to argue that Michael Cohen was just defending himself. He likes to make that point. I'm not sure how relevant it is. There's no love lost between these two.

COATES: Right.

HONIG: And I think we're going to see that play out. And, of course, what will the defense do? Will Donald Trump take the stand? Put me down as a no on that. I mean, we'll see. He's saying yes. But look, that's not a decision that he has to make until he has to put on a case, and he doesn't have to put on any case. The prosecution bears the burden.

COATES: Remember to say there's often called the sound of all hearing, which is a fancy way of saying, look, I need to give notice to a defendant. If they're thinking about testifying, what might be cross examined, what might be get used against you. You have a third chance of seeing pretrial whether you ought to testify or not. And of course, it'd be his right to do so if he chose to do so. Jake?

TAPPER: Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Elie. Let's go to Paula Reid right now outside the courthouse. We have some information about what's going on right now in court regarding the judge and Donald Trump. Paula?

REID: Jake, we're getting these live updates from our colleagues inside the courtroom. And it appears that the jury selection process is about to officially get underway. The judge is now reading former President Trump his rights. Now Trump says that he understands. This is a pretty solid moment.

This is the first time that a former president of the United States will face criminal trial. And there is if he is convicted the possibility of jail time here. Now again, getting another update from our colleagues are saying that prosecutors are now introducing a motion to sanction Trump for his social media posts.

They argue that these social media posts were a violation of the gag order, because they appear to refer to Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. Two likely key witnesses in this case as quote sleaze bags and Trump is currently subject to an expanded gag order, which prohibits him from attacking witnesses or other key people in this case. So again, it appears after several hours of motions and other housekeeping, that jury selection is officially getting underway.

TAPPER: All right, Paula Reid outside the courthouse. Let me bring in Lanny Davis right now. He's the former attorney for Michael Cohen. Right now, we're being told Lanny, that there's a debate in between prosecutors and the defense attorneys in front of the judge about what the jury can be told about the crimes that Michael Cohen was found guilty of. What do you make of that? Why do you think it's important one way or the other?

LANNY DAVIS, MICHAEL COHEN'S FORMER ATTORNEY: Well, I don't make much of it. There already public knowledge. He pled guilty and went to jail. He withstood harsh cross examination already by the Trump team in New York attorney general's office. It was very harsh. The judge heard it all and made a decision that Cohen was credible.

[12:20:00]

I suspect that 12 jurors will hear similar attacks on his credibility because he was convicted and pled guilty to these crimes, most of which were done on behalf of and according to federal prosecutors at the direction of Donald Trump. And then we'll see whether the jurors find him credible. That's up to them.

TAPPER: So, Mr. Trump's attorneys will no doubt say something about the fact that Mr. Cohen has been found guilty of perjury. And they'll say something along the lines of you were found guilty of lying. Then why should we believe you now? And what would be your answer?

DAVIS: Well, if I'm his lawyer, I would say tell the truth that you lied about the duration of your calls, concerning the Moscow Trump Tower. That was the charge. That was the lie to Congress. And that he did it not for his own benefit, but at the direction of Donald Trump.

And if there's a quarrel about whether it was at the direction of Donald Trump, the evidence found by federal prosecutors in the Trump DOJ administration, use the word direction. So that would be what Michael Cohen was a truthfully. And that happened during the New York A.G. trial. And he was found to be credible.

TAPPER: Michael Cohen has gone through quite a transformation from one of Donald Trump's most loyal lawyers, employees fixers to a key witness in this very first criminal trial against Donald Trump. In fact, one can say he -- possibly he's the key witness in the trial against him. Why does he now think this is the right thing to do?

DAVIS: Well, it's a long process. He first called me in June of 2018. And said he wanted to go public and tell the truth. I asked him why. And he said that he wanted to do it for his family and his country. And then we tested that in front of the American people in the world in public testimony before the house oversight committee.

He began the testimony by saying, I'm ashamed. I have no excuses. I do not ask to be forgiven. So, he owned his crimes. And then the question is whether these 12 jurors will believe him, and I'm going to leave that up to the jury. Jamie?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: For the record, Donald Trump has denied this alleged sexual encounter. But the under -- one of the underlying questions here is what was the motivation for the payment? And two things can be true at the same time. So, Trump's lawyers might say it was to protect his wife from finding out about what he denies happened. The other is we're in October, access Hollywood has happened.

He's running for president. And we're in the weeks leading up to the election. Do you have any insight from what you know about the case, about what might speak to the election being the motivation?

DAVIS: Yes. I have a lot of insight because I sat in the room for almost two years with prosecutors, questioning Michael Cohen. And I can't talk about that. I can only say which I've been allowed to say before. Whatever Michael Cohen says about the timing of that payment, end of October before the election in the courtroom, will be surrounded by text messages, telephone records, documents, and other corroborating witnesses.

So, I can assure you that it will not be Michael Cohen's testimony alone that will describe the political motivation of the timing of the payment to Ms. Daniels.

TAPPER: All right. Thanks so much, Lanny Davis. Coming up, we're going to be joined by a retired judge who is friends with the judge overseeing Trump's historic criminal trial. And his personal insight into how judge Merchan will oversee this case. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COLLINS: We are live outside the New York City courthouse where Donald Trump's first criminal trial is under way. Moments ago, they just took a break for lunch. They have been inside that courtroom for several hours. But no actual jurors have yet been brought inside the room, as they are still arguing over stuff that happens before the trial gets officially underway.

What evidence can be argued? Whether or not, Donald Trump has been as violented his gag order. I should note, we've spent a lot of time outside this Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump is going to be spending the next six to eight weeks.

Today is especially loud as you can hear some of his supporters are out here. Some of his detractors are over to our left. Obviously, a lot of members of the media as this is fueled intense coverage. Given its historic nature, it is the first criminal trial of a former president to ever be held. And so, we are watching all of this.

And Paula, you know, right before we got into this break, what prosecutors are asking the judge to do here is to find Donald Trump for violating his gag order.

REID: That's right. They're pointing to three posts that he has made. At least one of which he refers to Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, potentially two key witnesses in this case, as quote, sleaze bags. And here the prosecutors are asking for him to be fined $1,000 for each post and also asking the judge to warn Trump. Remind him that if he continues to violate this gag order, he could be held in contempt. Now the judge has not yet ruled on this motion, and of course, we are in a break.

[12:30:00]