'Seems unimaginable': Trump slammed by legal expert for actions against would-be witnesses

Former Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissman walked through how a mob trial works — and the lessons applicable from that to the cases against former President Donald Trump — in an interview on Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat."

This comes as the former president faces four separate criminal trials, at least three of which could have significant witness testimony from members of his inner circle, particularly the Georgia election racketeering case.

"Talking about the link between John Gotti and Donald Trump," said anchor Ari Melber, himself an attorney. "Explain to us what you do as a prosecutor if you have someone like Donald Trump, it is a defendant and he is attacking witnesses and has been gagged over that partially. 'I Forgotti' is a memorable time where witness tampering appeared to work."

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"When you were doing mob cases, there were two things," said Weissmann. "One was the actual killing of a witness, and there were instances of that where someone was suspected of and was in fact trying to cooperate with law enforcement. They would be killed or their family would be killed or threatened. The other, the instilling of fear so witnesses won't come forward and will just say that they forgot. Hence that headline."

"You have to add that to the general reluctance that witnesses have in any high-profile case," Weissmann continued. "You can't get any more high-profile than this, where people who are leading their everyday lives are not going to really want to be a central witness. Even if they are just witnessing something and are not a participant in the way Mark Meadows or Jenna Ellis or Sidney Powell are supposed to be. You have a lot of complications."

The expert continued:

"The main way you get witnesses is to develop a criminal case, so you have leverage that causes them to want to cooperate, as opposed to going to jail or doing less time, or you have people that Cassidy Hutchinson where there is some innate quality that you can draw on," added Weissmann. "You are actually supposed to comply and tell the truth. Those are the two tools that you have in a case like this to try and counteract what Donald Trump is doing. Gag orders can be useful because what it looks like is judges are very concerned about the use of violence by people that are inspired by that language and the general intimidation factor for that comes from being called out. I'm reminded by the poll workers... testified about let me tell you what it is like to be attacked by the President of the United States. It still seems unimaginable when you have someone that's leader of the free world doing that."

Watch the video below or at the link.

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