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Michael Cohen Expected to Begin Testifying Monday; Now, Defense Cross-Examining Ex-Oval Office Staffer; Now, Prosecution Against Questioning Ex-Oval Office Staffer. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 10, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

KAITLAN COLLINS: Objection after objection after objection this morning right now inside that Manhattan courthouse behind me as you are watching CNN's special live coverage of Donald Trump's hush money trial, a reminder that Madeleine Westerhout is under cross examination, right? Trump's attorney, Susan Necheles, is asking her, and a reminder, she ran Oval Office operations for Trump when he first entered office, about the checks that she was ferrying back and forth between Trump Tower and the White House.

Also inside the court today, I should note, evidence that you cannot cleave the campaign from the courtroom. Susie Wilise, Donald Trump's 2024 campaign senior adviser, effectively his campaign manager, is in the courtroom right now listening to this testimony, as she has in previous days, of this trial going on.

Right now, I should note that Necheles is asking Madeleine Westerhout about the checks and how they got them, essentially, from New York to Washington.

And, Paula, what Susan Necheles seems to be trying to do is say that, well, this really wasn't a big deal. You had to find a way to get the checks to the White House. The fact that they sent them FedEx overnight, urgent priority, doesn't seem to be a big deal. But, I mean, Madeleine Westerhout had a lot of familiarity with this in the sense of sometimes it would be one check she said, sometimes it would be a half inch thick of checks.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: You have to undercut any suggestion that he knew what he was signing and why. Here, you also have to address why they were being sent at times to people like Keith Schiller, his personal bodyguard, or body man.

So, I think that right now she's going through asking how difficult was it to receive things at the White House? Because I think most people know that if you send something to the White House, it doesn't just go straight to the desk of the president. There's an extensive screening process and that can delay. And when you're dealing with invoices, when you're dealing with business, that's not great. So, I think that's what they're going to get at here to allay any jury concerns about why these were being sent to individuals and not sent to the White House. Was there anything, you know, not on the up and up going on? So, that's what they're focused on. And then they just need to undercut any suggestion that he was very much aware or in the details of what it was he was signing.

COLLINS: Even though she did testify yesterday that he was very much in the details of things, like buying a Tiffany's frame and how much it cost and whether it was too expensive, even though they had a 10 percent discount. And she's now saying that there were times personal items were sent to the White House and Trump never received them.

And she is now agreeing that the delay is how Keith Schiller, that was Trump's body man, ended up receiving personal mail for the two of them because essentially setting up a box, Kristen Holmes, was -- like a P.O. box, wasn't feasible because it took too long. But it was the sense of these checks were sent to people's personal home addresses, people like Keith Schiller, Johnny McEntee, another White House aide. And the prosecution was essentially raising the idea that that's a bit odd to have it go to a personal home of an aide.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, and certainly if you don't know how the White House works, or you don't know what was going on at the time, it does seem odd, right? I mean, especially when you're talking about Johnny McEntee and Keith Schiller. These are two people who were diehard loyalists to the former president, Johnny McEntee still being around him to this day.

The idea that it was going to their personal home address, and they actually had to change it from Keith Schiller's to his address when Keith Schiller left the White House, it probably does seem very odd. And I think that's what you're starting to see here, Susan Necheles trying to explain why it was.

And this goes to the larger point that the defense has tried to make, that this was a chaotic time, that they were trying to separate the business from the White House, but they weren't really sure how it was going to work. And as we know, Donald Trump wasn't really ready to be president. Really, he didn't even believe that he was going to be elected in 2016. So, all of this was happening in kind of a chaotic time. And how do you set up him kind of easing out of his business and moving on to the presidency?

COLLINS: And Susan Necheles says, this was a way items could be sent to you, you could get them promptly to President Trump. And she emphasized the word, promptly, but the defense attorney did. Madeleine Westerhout said, that's right.

What I'm watching right now, and you saw this yesterday, as soon as Susan Necheles got up there, this rapid fire kind of questioning for Madeleine Westerhout, they are trying to basically use her as a witness for them, to make her effective, to downplay that this wasn't all that unusual, that Trump was -- a million people were calling Trump when he was in the White House, that he felt the need to call them back, that it wasn't that intentional, that he wasn't seeking out Allen Weisselberg or Michael Cohen, just kind of saying, well, everyone was there, and it was crazy, and this was all happening at once.

[10:05:08]

REID: Exactly. It was crazy might be their best defense. And right now, they're also kind of juxtaposing what it's like to be in the private sector versus the federal government, right? Things don't move quickly.

Now, Westerhout said of personal mailing issues, I don't know what it was like in other administrations, but I can't imagine it would have been any different, again, the slow pace with which you can receive something once it's sent.

I think, overall, she's been decent for the defense. She said if he had the time when you gave them to him, he would sign the check right away. Necheles is asking if he signs the checks immediately. Of course, this is really the most critical part of anything she has said. She's been helpful in that she's talked about how much she enjoyed working for him, how much he adored his wife, but the issue of the checks, if he had the time, and if he was in the office, yes, she says, of Trump signing the checks.

Any knowledge she has about these checks, this is actually getting to the material that he is charged with, right, the alleged falsifying of business records. Whatever she says about this matters.

COLLINS: But she's trying to -- Susan Necheles is really something to watch as she's questioning these witnesses, because the prosecution asked her about her being known as the greeter girl when she was in the transition period. At Trump Tower, she'd go downstairs and greet whoever Trump was coming to meet.

And just to note, Necheles asked whether Trump was signing hundreds of documents a day, she testified, not always. But the question was, would you see him signing things without reviewing them? Yes, Westerhout says. And that is critical testimony because that may give that reasonable doubt, which you were saying, all they need is a hung jury. That's really what they view as a win here, if that can provide that reasonable doubt to these witnesses -- to the jury.

But I think the question is Michael Cohen is going to get up there and say he knew exactly what he was signing.

HOLMES: Exactly. But, again, this is reasonable doubt. So, we saw this with McConney and this idea that the Trump administration or, excuse me, that Trump Organization was very detail-oriented, that Donald Trump had his fingers in everything until he became president. Then it was a picture of chaos. That's what the defense did.

Now, what the defense is doing is exactly the same thing but on the other side. They're saying that, yes, they came from Trump Organization. When they got to the White House, who knew what was going on? There were people in and out of his office. Yes, of course, he was signing stuff without looking at it and not reviewing it. Now, when it comes to Michael Cohen, I mean, this is what I mean when we are talking about Donald Trump's Republican allies kind of trying to rip him apart. What the defense, as you've said, is preparing to do in terms of saying he's not a reliable witness. If the entire case hinges on Michael Cohen, the question is, will the jury believe him? And the defense's job is to say no.

COLLINS: And this update, Susan Necheles is asking her, you would see him signing checks while he was on the phone. Westerhout said, yes. She had just asked, he's a person who would multitask. I mean, she is basically trying to paint for the jury a picture of Donald Trump on the phone just signing checks and not really paying attention because he's having a conversation, he's doing this and he's running the country as the president of the United States.

REID: Yes.

COLLINS: The question is how effective this is with the jury. You would see him signing checks while he was meeting with people. Westerhout says, yes.

REID: Really effective, really helpful testimony for the defense. Because the crux of their defense is he wasn't paying attention. He was the leader of the free world. He wasn't necessarily paying attention to what exactly was happening with every invoice, how Michael Cohen is being paid. They will also argue that Michael Cohen was his longtime lawyer. Was it that strange for him to have a retainer? No. And that Trump, at this point, he was in the White House, he was not deep in the weeds of exactly what was going on in terms of how Cohen is being reimbursed.

So, all these little nuggets from her, these are really helpful to the defense. The big question is, how does it resonate with the jury?

COLLINS: What's the prosecution sitting there thinking as she -- I mean, they'll get a chance to question her again after this, after Susan Necheles is done. But if you're a prosecutor and you're sitting there listening to this line of questioning, it's not helpful to you.

REID: No. And I would get back up and I would probably go back to her testimony about how detail-oriented he was, how invested he was still in his business, how attentive he was to invoices, generally speaking, how attentive was he to the task of being the president. Go back to that.

This is also why we keep hearing from publishers and getting excerpts of books about how important it is to watch every dime, watch every penny. But, again, I go back to Jeff McConney's testimony where he says, yes, that was true until 2017.

HOLMES: And the one thing I do want to point out, I mean, yes, I know that this is at the heart of the case, but I do think that her testimony, in general, helps the defense because it softens Donald Trump. I mean, look at the witnesses that we've had so far, the kind of seedy underbelly that Donald Trump was associating with or associating maybe through Michael Cohen with. Then you have the Access Hollywood tape. Then you have this alleged affair in graphic detail with a porn star. Now, you have somebody saying that they loved their wife, that Donald Trump loved his wife, that she loved him.

COLLINS: I mean, she cried at one point yesterday talking about when she left the White House, it wasn't on favorable terms because she had said some unseemly things about Trump's family and off the record dinner that, with reporters, she thought that got reported.

I mean, she broke down in tears and also talked about how she wrote a book because she thought Trump was mistreated. I mean, she was a character witness for him, basically.

HOLMES: Exactly. And that's what I think -- you know, we can take out the obvious stuff that is happening right now, which is really critical to the case, but also, ultimately, a jury is going to decide this.

[10:10:04]

And if there are some humanizing moments for Donald Trump in a seedy case about an alleged affair cover-up with a porn star, that's --

COLLINS: And, Paula, Susan Necheles is taking that invoice yesterday that Rhona Graff sent, to basically show that Trump was still involved. She sent this invoice to Trump basically saying, you know, you're president, do you still want to pay this golf club membership and the food minimum or do you want to see if I can delay it four to eight years? And Donald Trump said pay in Sharpie on it, okay, ASAP. And now Susan Necheles is trying to downplay and say he wasn't really thinking about this.

But it did go to show that Rhona Graff felt the need, someone who worked with Donald Trump for decades, felt the need to check in with him about a golf membership while he was the president.

REID: Yes. And it shows the extent of her responsibilities, right, everything from helping with the business to helping with a golf club membership. But here, I think this is pretty powerful. He just answered, pay, boom, it was off his desk. And that's what the defense attorneys want to portray, that he was just signing these checks to Michael Cohen, boom, get it off my desk, just get this out of my way, I'm busy doing other things.

So, I think that this version of events, I mean, this is helpful to the defense because it's all about just doubt, right? It's still reasonable doubt. And it's up to the prosecutors to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, that he knew that he was falsifying business records to cover up another crime. That is a high bar and it's not clear they've done it so far. And, again, if she's doing anything, she's probably helping the defense.

COLLINS: And she's going through every single line of questioning that the prosecution asked her. I mean, right now, this is -- people may be reading this and thinking, why is a Tiffany frame being brought up? But there was an email where they needed a frame for a picture of Trump's mother and Rhona Graff was saying, well, I can go to Tiffany's and buy one, but they're $650 with a 10 percent discount. Do you want to check with him if he wants to spend that much while he is president there checking to see if he wanted to spend that much for a frame? And Necheles is noting that Westerhout said yesterday, they made the executive decision to just buy it without checking with him. But the prosecution's point was they felt the need to check with him.

HOLMES: And, look, this is true still today. I mean, Donald Trump is -- yes, you mentioned Susie Wiles, the effective campaign manager, co- campaign manager, but big decisions for the campaign currently go through Donald Trump. I mean, when there's something big to comment on, they don't send something out unless Donald Trump has looked at it or unless he wants to send it out.

We know that to be true. He is detail-oriented, and he does believe that he should have final say in all of that.

COLLINS: And she's saying -- Necheles is questioning Madeleine Westerhout saying, when President Trump was in the White House, you understood he was too busy to be dealing with this kind of thing. She says, yes. How does that resonate? And we don't, we don't know what the jury is thinking, but she's saying, Rhona Graff may have asked about the cost of the frame, but that was more about her comfort than Trump's need for approval. I mean, she is trying to eviscerate every single line that the prosecution -- every inch of ground that they made with her.

REID: Rhona Graff is not comfortable spending the president's money, right? Westerhout has said now that she spoke with Trump after the article about Stormy Daniels. now we're getting into Stormy Daniels. But to this larger question of whether he knew what he was signing, the jury is going to have to weigh what he had said about himself, and everyone said about him before he went to the White House, which is he's always in the weeds, everything goes through him, he is the mastermind, there's no way something happens without his knowledge, to what happens after 2017.

And is it -- cross-examination is now over. They'll probably -- they're expected to call another witness. Well, I guess they'll probably do redirect. But after her, I think another witness, lesser known, just someone to help get in evidence, all of this really building to Michael Cohen. But the jury -- look, they're just going to have to weigh these two portraits of Trump, the one the prosecution puts forth, that he's put forth about himself, and then this one that the defense argues is what he was like in 2017.

And that's why I keep going back to Jeff McConney's testimony, because I think it was one of the most important lines in the entire case so far. He says, yes, and then everything changed once he went to the White House. Does the jury believe that? I don't know.

COLLINS: Yes. And we'll see what prosecutors say. Prosecutors are about to question Madeleine Westerhout after Trump's attorney had the chance to cross-examine her and basically try to undermine everything the prosecution asked her yesterday. We'll see what they do now that they are back questioning Madeleine Westerhout, this Trump insider, once again about checks that were sent through official channels, not through those, but through his body man's home address.

CNN's special live coverage is going to continue after a quick break, and a Trump insider will join us in moments.

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[10:15:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN special live coverage. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

Madeleine Westerhout, we should note, just got off the witness stand and follows rapid fire questions from both prosecutors and defense attorneys. Donald Trump's lawyers asking Westerhout about the chaos she witnessed inside the White House, also a lot of talk of checks when Trump was signing checks and what he was doing while signing those checks.

And then Susan Necheles, the defense attorney, getting the one time Oval Operations director to testify about how Trump would even sign things without looking. And we should note just a few moments ago, Westerhout, as she was leaving the witness stand, smiled at Trump, and Trump smiled back at her, mouthing something so interesting there, a little interaction there between Donald Trump and Madeleine Westerhout.

But Michael Moore, one thing that I wanted to get into, because this happened during the break, there's a little bit of a redirect and re- cross with the attorneys and Madeline Westerhout talking about Westerhout, I guess, on a Zoom call with Susan Necheles last night -- excuse me, on Wednesday night and then the prosecution was also talking to Madeleine. Talk about the importance of that.

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, there's really nothing unusual and it's expected for the lawyers to talk to a witness that they know is going up. I mean, it's preparation and you do that. If you didn't do it, it'd be pretty much malpractice.

[10:20:00]

So, there's nothing particularly unusual about that.

You saw that the government then came back in and said, and had to acknowledge during questioning, of course, that they had talked to her and prepped her a number of times to in excess of what the defense did. So, they're trying to show some connection, but they failed.

And I think that probably was the importance of her testimony really is that the state put her up and she's the one closest to the Oval Office. She's the one closest to the check. She's watching the Sharpie and the FedEx envelopes and all. And the defense was able to sort of turn it around and say, no, but you're the firsthand witness. You saw how little attention he paid to this stuff.

So, they really got to count on Cohen to pull all these pieces together next week. I mean, Cohen is going to be a little bit like the marshmallow and the rice crispy treat, right? I mean, without it, you got to -- you don't have anything. Well, I mean, without it, you don't have anything. But if they don't do it right, it's going to be messy and these pieces are never going to come together. And that's really -- this is just a piece and so we'll have to see very tasty treat.

ACOSTA: We should note, they're talking to an employee of AT&T who is on the witness stand right now, testifies a records custodian under a subpoena. So, we'll follow these updates as they come out.

But, Elie do you want to push back or agree with Michael here? I mean, I do think it's interesting that the prosecution wanted to sort of make the point that Madeleine is kind of a pro-Trump witness, even though they were trying to get some important details.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I think it backfired though. There were a couple moments that weren't great on that cross, subtle, but not great. One, they asked Madeleine Westerhout, well, the reason you were using FedEx is you were trying to end run the White House process. She said, no, it's faster. And then they said, you met with the defense for an hour, didn't you? But she said, yes. And then on redirect, Trump's team came back and said, how many times did you meet with them? And it was three times for several hours.

So, nothing wrong with meeting with a witness. As Michael said, prosecutors always want to talk to witnesses, usually do get to talk to witnesses. Defense lawyers always ask and usually are told, no, thank you. So I guess the jury would take away, yes, she's somewhat sympathetic to Trump, but that didn't go well for the prosecutors, that little exchange.

ACOSTA: And, Elliot, let's not get too bogged down on that. Let's talk about this new witness. Why would this be important, call detail records, subscriber records?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, we'll see what comes up. I think call detail records and subscriber records you can track when phone calls were made, also text messages, particularly in the age of the encrypted message where sometimes you may not have a record -- you may not have a record of when a text message was sent or the text message itself may have gone, but you have a record with the cellular company that a text message was sent from Person A to Person B on this date. Then when you bring in Person A or Person B to testify, they can say what the contents of the message were.

MOORE: Sort of interesting that we're seeing the state use this AT&T, the text messaging stuff here. And in Georgia, in that case, we watched the defense use it, yes, we're talking about the text back and forth between the district attorney and her assistant.

KAREN FRIEDMAN AGNIFILO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Normally, the prosecution wouldn't have to call someone like this to the stand because the lawyers would agree and stipulate this is, this is somebody who's just a records custodian, but Trump's lawyers have refused to stipulate to anything. So, they have to call these types of witnesses that don't know anything about this case. They're just going to say that these calls were made on these dates or these text messages were made from these phones, et cetera.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Tactically, I mean, we were saying when we first realized that they were not going to stipulate, that they weren't going to just allow things to go into the record, that it was part of the overall delay strategy. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder in this case, why do they want to delay strategy?

HONIG: Yes. I don't think defense --

BASH: They want to get back out and out on the trail?

HONIG: I think part of the reason the defense team refuses to stipulate, it happens rarely as Karen said, is sort of just a move of defiance, like we're not agreeing with you on anything. The other thing is the jury won't know. The jury won't be told. Hey, folks, ordinarily people stipulate to this. They're going to just think it's necessary and normal for this to happen.

ACOSTA: All right. I want to go out to David Urban, former Trump campaign adviser, he's joining us now.

David, your thoughts on Madeleine Westerhout's testimony and, and this conversation about, you know, checks, and it sounds like the defense was trying to make the case that, well, sometimes they bring in checks to Donald Trump and he's just sort of on the phone or talking to somebody and he's signing a check and outgoes the check. Is that something that you witnessed that kind of behavior? I mean, it does sort of fly in the face, does it not, of Trump's own book, which the prosecution made mention of, that, you know, he made it very clear he wanted to sign every check, he wanted to know where all the money was going.

DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. So, Jim, let's be clear. I wasn't in the room for these particular instances or exchanges. But, you know, just like in life, there's a little bit of truth in both things, right? So, sometimes the former president was drilled down and very granular on these issues, and sometimes he wasn't. He was distracted and not paying attention.

Madeleine is -- I would have to think being in the room there, I know her pretty well, would have to be a pretty sympathetic witness. And I'm sure the former president got some souls from seeing her up there. She's a friendly witness.

But at the end of the day, Jim, and you've got a great panel of former prosecutors, they're sitting next to you, I'm not so sure this really advances the ball into, you know, the underlying crime here of, you know, how these records were kept.

[10:25:11] What, what does Madeleine offer to that? And, and the jury sitting there day after day after day, hearing all these like building blocks, but at some point, the prosecution is going to have to make their case. And it seems like it's just taken an awfully long time to landing the plane.

ACOSTA: Well, David, I think there's a key jump ball coming on Monday. Are you worried about what Michael Cohen is going to say on the stand? You know, Michael Cohen.

URBAN: I'm not worried. Yes. No, I know Michael Cohen.

ACOSTA: He's not exactly a fan of the former president anymore.

URBAN: No. And, listen, I think that inures to the former president's, you know, benefit. The defense is going to say exactly that. Look, Michael Cohen is no fan of Donald Trump. All you need to do is tune into social media every night and watch him for six hours rail on the former president.

ACOSTA: One of the records right now, David, not to cut you off is -- is one of the records that they're talking about right now in this case is Michael Cohen's cell phone. So, we're going to be getting into some of that, Michael Cohen's name popping up in this key testimony here.

But, I mean, is that going to set Trump off to have Michael Cohen going after him on the witness stand? I mean, we saw the judge the other day, you know, basically telling the defense, control your client. He can't be muttering things and saying obscenities and so on during the Stormy Daniels testimony.

URBAN: I think at this point Donald Trump is probably amused at Michael Cohen. I'm sure, you know, that the anger ship has long since sailed in the Donald Trump-Michael Cohen relationship. It has been -- you know, you've heard Michael Cohen's own testimony and what he's told people about he didn't want to work in the White House and he did want to work in the White House. He was angry because he didn't get a job in the White House. You know, it's so much.

And then, you know, you heard Hope Hicks say, you know, most of the things that Michael had to clean up were caused by Michael to begin with.

So, I don't think that Donald Trump in this instance is going to be fuming. I think he'll be, I don't want to say, bemused but he will watch it credulously.

ACOSTA: One of the, one of the cleanups on aisle four is going to be the Stormy Daniels matter and all of this. And I'm just curious, I mean, David, I remember the days late in 2016, you and I at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, looking at those big lines going into those rallies and so on. I mean, you probably were unaware at that time of all the Stormy Daniels business, but, I mean, you know, Pennsylvania, well. What are suburban female voters going to think after this week, after all that, I mean, very detailed testimony? And I kind of wonder what you think about how the defense handled Stormy Daniels. I mean, Donald Trump's been saying all along that he didn't have this affair with Stormy Daniels. It sounds like Susan Necheles was all but admitting that in her cross-examination of Stormy Daniels this week.

URBAN: Yes, a lot to unpack there in your question, Jim, right? So, first, what are suburban women voters going to think about it? Look, if I knew that, right, I'd be --

ACOSTA: Well, no. Come on. You know, David. You know that was not helpful. I mean, maybe I'm being -- I'm doing an ask and answer here, but come on, give me a break.

URBAN: If you think it's going to be helpful, it's obviously not going to be helpful. But the flip side is there are some people that feel that -- who are Trump supporters right, to begin with, that feel this ongoing like, you know, not prosecution, but persecution of Donald Trump, it causes them to double down. It gets some people off the fence.

And, look, your panel is there. I've been watching this pretty closely. I think all agreed that perhaps the prosecution went a little too far in their dealing with Stormy Daniels. She wasn't the greatest witness for the prosecution. The court admonished the prosecution on several times for going far afield to where they were supposed to. So, I'm not sure her testimony was a net plus for the prosecution.

ACOSTA: All right, David, we'll talk again soon. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

URBAN: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: And now, prosecutors entering phone records into evidence. You've been seeing that unfold on the left side of your screen, including call and text logs from Michael Cohen sort of teeing up the star witness coming up on Monday. He's set to testify just a few days from now.

Much more of CNN's special live coverage just ahead.

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