This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.
After months of Donald Trump's attorney's legal wrangling and trying to get delays in his criminal trials in three states and DC, a judge in Manhattan put his foot down and firmly scheduled the hush money payments trial for March twenty fifth. Trump complained outside the courthouse.
I'm going to have to sit here for months on a trial.
I think it's ridiculous, it's unfair. In fact, other judges are weighing decisions this week that will have major implications for Trump. In Atlanta, a judge's hearing from witnesses in a motion to get prosecutor Fanny Willis kicked off the Georgia Rico case, And tomorrow a Manhattan judge is slated to deliver a bombshell verdict in New York civil fraud
trial against Trump. In addition, the Supreme Court is weighing whether to put Trump's DC election case on whole while he appeals the DC's Circuit court ruling that he does not have presidential immunity from prosecution. Joining me is former federal prosecutor Robert Mintz, a partner McCarter in English, it seems like Trump now is asking that these cases be put off until after the election. They certainly ask for that in this case, and they made similar arguments in the Supreme Court briefing.
One scene that we've seen from the Trump defense team throughout all of these cases is the allegation and number one that they're politically motivated, but sort of piggybacking on that idea, they say that at a minimum, none of these cases she go to trial until after the election, and to do so before the election is an unconstitutional violation because it interferes with former President Trump's ability to campaign and ultimately interferes with the right of people in
this country to decide who should be their next president. Long standing Department of Justice policy has always been that federal prosecutors should try to avoid bringing in DIBt in a way that may affect an upcoming election. Now, that typically has meant that no indictments should be returned against an individual within sixty days of an election, on the theory that if you simply charge somebody with a crime, they are still considered innocent because they have not yet
been convicted. But the allegations alone may affect the outcome of the election, and so that generally has been the rule. Here, we're seeing indictments that were handed down long ago, but the trial itself is now beginning to bump up with a campaign season. It's not something that we've ever seen before. Certainly we've never seen it in connection with a former president running for the presidency for a third time. And so there is no real case law on this issue.
But I think all of the judges down the line have taken the view that they are trying to get these cases done before the election, but ultimately they cannot consider as a reason to delay the trial simply the fact that former President Trump wants to be campaigning for office.
Also, it seems like the judges, having seen the way Trump's attorneys act in court, some would say, you know, they're over the top and their presentation, they interrupt a lot. This judge just put up with no nonsense from these attorneys.
The judge in the Manhattan Das case has been very no nonsense from the start and set a March twenty fifth date for this trial to begin. Initially, the thought was that the trial out of the district of Columbia, the federal trial that deals with the events surrounding January sixth. That was going to be the first trial, but now that case has been hung up on appeals. Former President Trump's lawyers are arguing that he should be immune from any criminal conduct while he was president, and that has
been making its way through the court. A unanimous three judge panel for the Court of Appeals rejected that argument. The Trump defense team has now sought appeal by the Supreme Court, and we're waiting to hear whether the Supreme Court will stay the lower court trial while that decision is made, and even whether the Supreme Court will take
the case. But while the case in Washington, d c. Has been delayed because of these appeals, it has set the stage for the Manhattan Day's case to now be the first case where a former president is facing criminal charges. And unlike the case brought by the New York Attorney General, which was a civil case that dealt with the Trump organization and whether or not assets have been inflated improperly
in order to get more favorable loan terms. That case, former President Trump was not required to attend every day, and so he did sporadically but the criminal case is one where he will have to attend every day. So it will be a historic spectacle to see a former president Trump sitting in the courtroom every day during a criminal trial. It's never been done before, and it's going to happen beginning on March twenty fifth in Manhattan.
Now, there were several arguments that Trump's lawyers, they raised every argument I think you could imagine, and they said that despite the fact that the DC trial has been put on hold, they said, they've been preparing for that trial. We had to focus one hundred percent of our attention on preparing for that trial. And the judge basically said
too bad. He said, you willingly chose those two cases to represent Trump in I told you March twenty fifth was a date certain you proceeded at your own peril.
So what ends up happening is that judges have to navigate the other cases in terms of scheduling their trials. There's no set rules and there is no set procedure to determine which case goes to trials first. And so what the judges here have done is they have tried to be respectful of the other proceedings and try to not get in the way of other trials that were
set to go first. And that's why we saw the case of the District of Columbia set to go in early March, and the Manhattan DA's case, the case that is now going to trial at the end of March, was going to be delayed because of the case and the sort of Columbia involving the January sixth insurrection. But now that that case is put off, the case Manhattan is going first, and this judge has said from the beginning that you have to be ready to go in
March if we go first. Now, the Trump defense team has raised a litany of issues as to why the Manhattan DA's.
Case should be delayed.
One of them, as you mentioned, is that they have been preparing for the case in Washington. Clearly everybody thought that case was going to go first, but the judge Manhattan really had no patience with that argument, by saying, you chose to represent former President Trump in these two cases. There could have been another lawyer in that case, and that is something you did at your own risk, and so he was not going to delay the trial for that reason. They also raised a number of other arguments
saying that would interfere with the campaign season. That was something that was not successful. The Trump defense team also tried to delay the trial by trying it to the recent verdict in the Egene Carrol defamation case. That's the case that was recently decided also in Manhattan, had to deal with allegations that he had defamed Egen Carroll in
connection with a sexual assault. There was a large verdict, a lots of publicity, an eighty three million dollar plain of verdict on behalf of Egen Carroll for defaming her when he denied that he sexually assaulted her. And the Trump lawyers are saying that that will paint the jury pool again. The judge thought that can be dealt with a trial. That could be dealt with during jury selection. You always have issues of a person who has a
lot of notoriety, People have strong opinions about him. Frankly, you're never going to find a jury in Manhattan that
doesn't have strong opinions about former President Trump. And so the Vadier process where lawyers get to question jurors will have to be used effectively to try to weed out anybody who has a preconceived notion about what the verdict should be, and they will ultimately have to take whatever time it does in order to select a jury that has an open mind, that will make a decision based solely on the evidence and not based upon any preconceived
notions or any extraneous information that's not presented a trial.
So now Michael Cohene is going to be key his testimony in this case. Trump's lawyers complained that Cohen had committed perjury when he testified in October in the New York Attorney General's case, and they said, how can we possibly go to a trial with a witness who committed perjury across the street two months ago. They should be investigating him.
Well, what the Trump team was referring to was in the New York Attorney General's case, where former President Trump's lawyer Michael Cohene was also a key witness. He had testified under oath that former President Trump had directed him to inflate his assets again in order to try to
receive more favorable loans from Joasia Bank. Tone later changed that story during the trial today that while he was not directly directed by former President Trump, it was implied by former President Trump that he wanted to inflate those assets. The Trump defense team has said that Cohen has allegedly admitted to perjury. Whether that was perjury or not is an open question, but the right remedy for that.
This is what the.
Prosecution argues, is that that is fodder for cross examination. Michael Cohen will be a key witness in the case of Manhattan DA's office. He already carries a lot of baggage with him because he's pled guilty the federal campaign violations, He's admitted to lying in other proceedings, and so we can expect a very rigorous cross examination of him during
this trial. And the Trump lawyers will essentially argue that you can't believe anything Michael Cohen says, and then ultimately it will be up to a jury to decide whether he's telling the truth when he testifies in this trial, and Bob.
This is the case that's going first. This is also the case that most legal analysts and others consider the weakest of the criminal cases against Donald Trump. Explain why it's considered the weakest.
One of the issues that has been dogging this case from the outset was the way in which the Manhattan DA charged it. This is basically a charge for full defying business records. And in this case, what it means is that back in October of twenty sixteen, the allegation is that former President Trump, through Michael Cone, his former attorney, was paying off Stormy Daniels, a porn star who alleged
that she had an affair with former President Trump. The allegation is that former President Trump, who was campaigning for office then, was concerned about this allegation going public and damaging his chances in the election. So there was a payment made to Stormy Daniels through Michael Cone that was later concealed as a legal payment. Ultimately, that created, according
to the Manhattan DA, a false business record. Now, typically business records violations in New York State are misdemeanors, which means they're punishable only by up to a year in prison, and they're relatively minor charges. But what the DA did here is he turned those into felonies, which you can do if the business records violation is somehow tied to
another crime, or, in this case, the concealment of another. Now, the real issue here is that the concealment of the other crime was a federal campaign law violation, and that theory tying the business records violation to a federal rather than a state law violation has never been tested in the appeals court. So although that issue was argued before the trial judge Manhattan, and the judge rejected it, I think we can see that issue raised again on appeal.
And if there's going to be a real problem with this case, it's not likely to be in the evidence that's presented a trial. It's likely to be in this legal theory, which is somewhat novel, never been tested. It's possible that on appeal, an appeals court and may look at the trial court ruling and take a different view as to whether or not there was a legal basis to bring these charges in the first place.
And another which you discussed earlier, is just that so much of the case relies on the testimony of Michael Cohen, and the defense has so many ways to attack him.
Yeah, Michael Cohen is certainly a problematic, but prosecutors deal with that all the time.
They will typically.
Argue that you don't have cooperating witnesses who have clean hands, You don't have cooperating witnesses who are choir boys, who have people who have gotten down into the DIRG who've engaged in illegal acts, and that's why they're valuable as witnesses because they played a key role in the crime. So that's sort of a standard playbook for prosecutors. But the flip side to that is that defense lawyers have the ability to question their credibility and state of jurors.
Michael Cone has admitted to lying under oath before, why do you believe he's not lying under oath now? And they'll be up to prosecutors to try to prop up Michael Cone by presenting other evidence, through other witnesses and corroborating documentary evidence to try to convince the jury that
they should believe Michael Cone. And they're going to do that by not resting their entire case on Michael Cone's credibility on his testimony, but by saying that when you view his testimony in connection with all the other evidence that's being presented, it's something that the jury can believe, something that the jury can believe. The prosecution has met its burner proof on which is beyond a reasonable doubt.
But ultimately you're correct, Michael Cohne will be the star witness and whether he's believed by this jury will ultimately determine the outcome of the case.
Trump has put himself in this position because he's trying to delay all these trials, and so they run into each other because of his attempts at delay. I mean, otherwise the DC trial would have gone off in early March, and the New York judge was prepared to put that case on hold.
Well, yeah, and that's one of the reasons the trial judge gave for ejecting the delay, saying that former President Trump and his legal team has fought critical stepoenas in the Manhattan DA's case, which ultimately delayed the trial. And that's currently true that there has been tremendous motion practice and appeals in all of these cases and it has
delayed them. And now the Trump defense it's trying to flip that on the head and saying, well, now that we're too close to the election, we really ought to carry it over until after November. But so far we're not seeing the trial judge buying that argument.
And Bob, you mentioned how important the jury selection will be in the hush money case, and there was discussion today about the jury questionnaire that potential jurors will fill out before the voisdir. The judge hasn't decided on the final questionnaire yet, but both the prosecution and the defense discussed having jurors identify where they get their news from.
The Prosecutors also want the judge to find out if potential jurors have read any of Trump's books, and lawyers for Trump also asked the judge to question potential jurors about what kind of bumper stickers and lawn signs they had in front of their homes to determine their politics. So it is likely to be a long questionnaire. Thanks
so much, Bob. That's Robert Mints, a partner Maccarter and English and in Atlanta today, in an extraordinary hearing that threatens to upend one of the f criminal cases against the former president, Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Willis took the witness stand and forcefully pushed back against what she described as lies about her romantic relationship with the special
prosecutor she appointed in the case. Highly offensive with someone lies on you, and it's highly offensive when they that you slept with somebody the first day you met with them. And I take exception two and joining me now from the courthouse in Atlanta is Bloomberg Legal reporter David Voriakis. And David, I know it's a little noisy where you are, but I'm happy to have you. It seemed very tense watching this on TV. What was it like in the.
Courtroom at different times? It was quite tense, particularly when Fannie Willis was on the stand. She was at times combative, she was funny, She pushed back on many different points that the sense lawyers questioned her on and again the Trump Co defendants are accusing her of misconduct removed from
the case, and she's very emphatically pushing back against that. So, yeah, tense is a word that I was used to describe the atmosphere when she was on the stand and when Nathan Wade was on the stand as well.
Let's go back to Nathan Wade for a moment. What did you make of his testimony? He contradicted what one of the earlier witnesses said about timing of their affair, and timing seems to be very important here.
Key to the timing is that Nathan Wade was hired in November of twenty one, and the Trump Co defendants claimed that he was having an affair with Bonnie Willis at the end of twenty nineteen, which he hotly disputes. He said it didn't begin until early twenty twenty two, which is also what Bonnie Willis testified to. The timing matters because it goes to whether the two of them, twenty wee Willis and Nathan Wade, were deriving improper financial benefits from the investigation.
There was a lot of quibbling, it seemed to me, overwording because they had his derogatories in his divorce case that they were quizzing him about.
There was a basic point. Nathan Wade is still married, and in his eyes, he testified that he has not been married for several years because his marriage is irretrievably broken and so he can do what he likes, and so in his divorce proceedings, which are happening at the same time in neighboring Cobb County, he filled out after Davis that said that he did not have romantic relationship outside of his marriage, and so Trump Co decendants are trying to pin him to those words while he's also
admitting that he had an affair with Bonnie Willis for a year and a half and so the question is he married or not. He's still legally married.
So now when she got on the stand, and there was this dramatic moment because they were arguing about whether or not she would have to be called, and she suddenly appeared in the courtroom and said, I'm ready. I'm ready to go right.
Sister Attorney's office had fought the subpoena for her. They tried to quash it, and the judge had agreed earlier this week that he would temporarily quash it until he saw what the testimony was and decided whether she would need it or not. So then when frump codfendant Michael Roman's lawyer, Ashley Merchant, called her, there was a dramatic moment where the Sister Attorney's office said that they were
dropping their objections and that she wanted to testify. So then she came to the courtroom and everyone was sort of taken aback.
She was very dramatic on the stand. I mean, she seemed like she was in control of the questioning because she got in what she wanted to get in, no matter what the question was.
Well, the judge didn't always agree with her approach. There were times when he thought that she was making speeches and not answering direct questions. She felt she needed more room to answer those questions, and so there were some tense moments with the judge. But clearly this the woman who's charismatic and a strong speaker, and I guess is used to being able to state things the way she wants to.
And what do you think she established in her testimony or what did the defense establish in her testimony?
Well, the defense raised some substantial questions about how she manages cash, and she testified that she had had several thousand dollars in cash in her house at various points, and that she consistently reimbursed Nathan Wade for their travels with cash. And so the defense makes the case that there's no receipt of that, there's no proof of her
claim that she in fact made these cash reimbursements. So that's going to have to be the question that's left unresolved, and it's something that Judge Scott McAfee is going to have to decide who's more credible here, Is it Wade and Willis or was it the friend of Wade who took the stand earlier and said that their affair began in twenty nineteen.
Let's say they had an affair. Let's say the affairs start in twenty nineteen. How does that prejudice the defendants here.
Well, because it's an undisclosed conflict of interest. They argue that it's something that she should have disclosed to the county, which is paying for his bills, his invoices. And it also suggests that they have an improper motive in the prosecution, and carrying the prosecution on has been the more money he makes, the longer the prosecution goes, the more the two of them benefit.
So what happens now is the hearing over.
The hearing will continue on Friday. The judge and the lawyers just made clear that it's going to take most of the day. The judge will then entertained legal arguments after tomorrow. He's going to try to get through the evidence ary part of this hearing tomorrow, and the judge also made clear that it's going to take him a while to make a decision.
Here.
Do we know what other witnesses are coming up? She mentioned her father a great deal.
There's going to be some financial records. There's going to be continued questioning of Fannie Willis, which could take some time tomorrow. Then the DA's office said that they have witnesses that could take them four hours or so, but they didn't spell them out.
Wow, that's a lot more than I expected. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us, David. That's Bloomberg Legal reporter David Voriakis, obviously coming to us from the courthouse in Atlanta. Up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, we'll talk more about the hearing in Georgia that could upend one of the criminal trials of Donald Trump. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. He started dating shortly thereafter correct a line that's one of you lives.
A fiery Fannie Willis took the witness stand and denied she engaged in any misconduct in her election fraud prosecution of Donald Trump and his co defendants. They're trying to disqualify her over a romantic relationship with her. Lead prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade, the Fulton County District Attorney, adopted a combative tone as Trump's co defendant, Michael Roman claims she and Wade financially benefited from overseeing the sprawling case.
Joining me is former federal prosecutor Michael Zelden. Is it just me? Or did this seem very tawdry?
The case has sort of a tawdry overlay to it because the accusation is that Wade and Willis with bad purpose, manipulated a system so that they could benefit personally during a romantic relationship. I don't think the evidence has established that, but the accusations surrounding those theories are such that they are upsetting to everyone who's in their minds being falsely accused. So you can see why tempers are running high in this case.
So, in other words, the theory is that they prolonged this case, or they brought this case so that he could make a salary and take her on vacations. Is that the theory here?
Yeah, The theory is they have a pre existing relationship, she hires her boyfriend, who then is making good money, who is then taking her out on expensive trips with that money, and that they are prolonging this case with an indictment and an extended discovery process so that they can keep the gravy train going, it seems to me is the theory, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. And in fact, the judge at one point when Wade was understand said to the moving party, why is the
amount of money he earned relevant? Meaning he's a private sector lawyer who was brought in as a independent consultant to help them in this case. Whatever the state wants to pay him, the state can pay him. And unless you can establish a link that somehow there was almost like Menendez like fraud that they earned money on false representations, his submissions about time was wrong, or his requests for
reimbursements or fraudulents. It's an arms length agreement between the state and an individual, and that is the states and the individual's prerogative. And in fact, I don't see how but for appearance purposes, the fact that they were in an adult relation with one another during the tendency of this case so far, and now they've broken up in August we learned, has anything to do with emotion for disqualification. It's just not seemingly relevant to me.
I'm actually surprised that the judge had this hearing in open court. Isn't this something he could have disposed of in his chambers.
The state moved to quash this subpoena and prevent this hearing from going forward. But the judge, I think, trying to you know, be careful and ensure that there's no allegations of sort of politics on his part, decided to let the hearing go forward. I think he could have ended this hearing before it started. I think he could
have ended this hearing long into the day. But you know, he's a smart guy, and he decided this wasn't the best interests of the case and all the parties to have a full hearing of all the allegations, and then he'll render his decision based on the evidence that I've seen so far. See any basis for the disqualification, nor do I see any basis for the dismissal that all said.
If I were Nathan Wade, having been sort of found not to have violated any other ethics or the criminal lawyer, I would say, you know what, in the interests of the best interest of this case, I'm going to now step aside and let somebody else take over. It's just too much of a distraction to have me here.
Let's talk about his testimony for a bit. How did you find his testimony? Was he credible to you?
He was very calm and collected, and he took issue with I thought a lawyer who asked some pretty unfounded questions, meaning there was no foundation for her questions. Look, her very first witness, she couldn't even get testimony out of him, and she had to dismiss him. The second witness seems to have had a bias that she didn't bring out herself because she was fired by Willis. So when you get to Wade, who was very calm, very collected, answer
your question was in a business like way. I don't think she made any headway with him, and I think that he came off looking, you know, rather sober as a witness.
He did quibble with the interrogatories in his divorce case. And you know what exactly the questions Matt It sounded like he had a different interpretation of the questions than most people would.
Well, you know, you get a written interrogatory and you read it and you answer it the way you understand the question to be on the paper. You don't have to say, well, what was the questioner really trying to get at here? That's not your job. Your job is to answer the question, and he answered it, and they explain his thinking in the manner in which she answered it. So I think in some respects, bad questions are on the questioner, they're not on the answer.
Then we had this moment of real drama where they're arguing about whether or not Danny Weiller should have to testify, and she appears in a shocking pink dress in the frame of the camera and says, I'm ready to go.
Yeah, that's right, and she went, and she was pretty forceful that she is an independent woman who I think. She said that she and Wade broke up because Wade said something that was rather sexist, misogynist, and she said, you know what, I don't need this and walked away from it. So I think that, you know, if you're watching this from the standpoint of a powerful prosecutor despending herself from accusations that pertain mostly to her private life, I think she did a good job.
Yeah, and I was surprised that the judge lets some of the questions go on and on. For example, so she and Nathan Wade said that she reimbursed him with cash for the expenses he paid for and she said she kept cash in her house, and she went, you know, through along litley of how her father told her that, et cetera, et But then they kept questioning it, Well, where in your house? You know, how much did you have? Where did that come from?
Yes? I thought that that could have been cut much shorter. Now, look, if she was a criminal defendant on trial for money laundering having money that exceeds your means, then those are sort of routine questions. But that's not what she is. She's not a criminal defendant and she's not on trials for money laundering, and they're asking her, how do you pay your bill? I pay a lot of bills by writing a check. I think I'm sort of an outlier there.
Most people don't pay that way. Most people are venmoing or credit carding or debit carding. I just don't like doing that. I like having a check and I like getting it back in the mail. So does that make me what old? Yeah? Does it make me a criminal? Absolutely not.
So. Do you think it was an example of the witness in control of the examination?
Yeah? I thought the direct examination and the cross examination across all of the witnesses was pretty pedestrian. And you know, it's funny because they all know one another. Willis and the lawyer from Rohan, they tried cases against one another when she was a public defender and she and Willis was a prosecutor. Willis knows Wade professionally, and Wade knows Merchants.
You know, when Merchants said in the beginning of the way too, you know, of course I supported you Wade when you ran for offense, and I wore your T shirt and my kids wore your T shirts. It just said I'm sorry, miss Merchants. That has nothing to do with anything. So there, you know. It is a group of sort of friends who you know, have all gone
sideways with each other. And of course is your Tea, the former friend of miss Willis from college who willis fired, is testifying that this relationship started years before anybody else seems to support it. And of course the clear bias was established by prosecution for the state thing. You were fired by her, weren't you, And she wouldn't even say yes, you're well, I resigned. Well you resigned because you were told you're going to be fired, you know, So the
whole thing was circus like. But when you asked the ultimate question of do you think that they presented sufficient evidence to require, as a matter of law, the recusal of Willis or the recusal of Wade, or the dismissal of the indictment. I think the answer at this point is no. We come back tomorrow to see part two. But on part one, I think they have not met their burden.
And I thought that Willis was really dominant and expressed her outrage and waving papers around and saying, these people are on trial for election subversion. I'm not the one on trial, and really her outrage at this happening to her and the lies that she said were in the motions by the defense attorneys here.
I think she showed righteous indignation, which I think if you're watching this as a lay person and you're thinking, what would I be like if I were in miss Willis's shoes, I think that most people would say absolutely good, you know, you go girl, or whatever the expression is, stand up for yourself.
And also what came out too was how hard it's been for her since she's had this case, because she's had to keep moving because of death threats. So that was another sort of human element. So she was tough, and she was funny, and she was sort of, you know, telling a story.
I think you could feel both, you know, so sympathy and empathy for her. And you know, she's a young African American woman who has done miraculous things in her career. And now you have this head of the Republican party in Georgia and his lawyer accusing her of wrongdoing. And I think she said, essentially, you are the ones who are doing this for political purposes. You are the ones whose motives are to be impugned, not me.
So we'll see how her testimony concludes tomorrow. Thanks so much for your insights, Michael. I really appreciate your being here. That's former federal prosecutor Michael Zelden and that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg