Prosecutors say they'll give judge brutal Trump details they purposely held back at trial
Donald Trump's lawyers demanded a mistrial in the Manhattan criminal case around the alleged hush money scheme, but it led to a threat from prosecutors.
Trump faces 34 felony counts involving the falsification of business records for an alleged effort to cover up the hush money given to adult actress and director Stormy Daniels.
Lawyers for Trump argued that because Daniels provided so much irrelevant detail about Trump the jury was ultimately unable to make a valid ruling.
ALSO READ: Trump’s Manhattan trial could determine whether rule of law survives: criminologist
In response, prosecutors explained, "Those messy details: That is motive."
The shocking information around the encounter, they argued, is the reason that Trump wanted to pay the hush money deal to begin with. They're the reason he wanted to hide the hush money payment, they say.
Prosecutors went so far as to say that they had pages of information going into great detail about the former president that they intentionally didn't ask about to avoid doing what the defense was accusing them of doing. They went so far as to offer to submit those details to the court under seal.
Speaking about the back-and-forth over the mistrial, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace asked former National Enquirer reporter Lachlan Cartwright whether those salacious details would have made it into the pages of their reports.
"In every supermarket, everywhere days before the election," he said. "And off the back of the 'Access Hollywood' tape. That's why it was so damaging."
Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann agreed, explaining that the shocking details are what make the motive.
"They are entitled to show this salacious story and, in fact, the more salacious, the more motive there would be to have," he said.
See the conversation about that below or at the link.
- YouTube www.youtube.com