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hello and welcome to our new special. the state of new york versus donald trump. on this first trial of an ex- president in american history, and what we can say as we report right now, what will be donald trump's only criminal case that is definitely headed to trial before this election. tonight we hear from legal experts and over the course of the hour for perspective on the history, michael-- on the literally unprecedented trial and reckoning for the nation. we big we begin with how we get to this trial and we don't know how it will end but it will be marked in history and in law schools and many other

conversations for decades to come in this nation. the new york da made legal history as the very first prosecutor to ever indict any former president in a decade, any century, any state. this is the first. he was the 1st to indict trump and the case is based on what is in many ways a set of proven hush money payments that we now occurred in 2016. what is new and the reason that he could be facing a felony conviction or a jail sentence, is that this da indicted those known payments and scandals as criminal. he has charged donald trump for falsifying business records and how he handled those payments, purchasing negative information and intentionally mischaracterizing those then recorded payments. let me tell you something right up top as we get ready for this

trial of the decade or the century. this is ultimately about facts and by the standards of, say, whether you have the evidence to show something is true or the standards of journalism where we say we have reported or confirmed something as fact, that part i just mentioned is a fact. it is established. there are detailed records of those purchases. there are several eyewitnesses and direct participants. it is established. we begin right now with another hard legal issue for this da. what i just said sounds bad for trump, but is not in itself a felony under the law. to make this a felony case, this da used a powerful tool that to be clear many prosecutors use all the time, took all of this damning evidence against his potential defendant and he combined it into a legal argument for a larger crime. it's the same way we've seen from movies to real life, other prosecutors use financial

schemes to argue that a group is part of a larger conspiracy. that is the kind of approach that this da took. taking what i referred to to establish lies, the biggest records, lies which are a misdemeanor, smaller infraction. and using a valid law to combine it into an election plot felony. what you see on your screen is what the jury will see and this is from the das office. not one of those summaries that we have made here as journalist. this is the theory going down through those arrows about how all of those lies, some of them proven like the lies about the retainer payments becoming an election crime. if you remember nothing else keep that in mind. it is the crux of the case, the da telling the jury a lie alone is a misdemeanor. but this is a lie plus a grave campaign crime.

trump is legally presumed innocent and he will have defense lawyers who can argue that the state basically took a bunch of things that they argue are small and try to take all the small things and throw them against the wall. they argue this is not really a true big felony case and should be the world-- resolved the way other financial misdemeanors are involved. the jury will also hear messy details about backroom deals, secret payments, and alleged interests. the da will argue those plots to hide and illegally purchase stories about those contacts is a big deal. to understand all of this the jury and anyone else following which might be you and a heck of a lot of other people who are interested in law justice and politics, to get into it you have to go back two election cycles to the infamous tape that many thought, including republicans and trump insiders at the time, would basically be the end of his hopes for the presidency. >> i'm automatically attracted

to-- i just start kissing them. it's like a magnet. and when you're a star they let you do it. you can do anything. grab them by the--. >> you take a look at that, take it all in together and let me show you the next point here. that was a big deal. the blowback was powerful and a lot of people thought the race was over. >> donald trump's presidential campaign in turmoil facing withering political fallout. >> he drops from 41 to 38 and then on the weekend after everyone saw the tape he falls through the floor. that's why they are driving the republican party and donald trump off of a cliff and into the abyss. >> this election ended, all i can say is i am sorry. >> now, the election did not end. those polls and much of the

criticism did probably capture something in an initial horror and revulsion away from trump. and that is important for the reasons i'm going to explain now legally. the point is not that pundits overreacted or people thought america could not stomach that guy on that tape becoming president. we've had those debates for years and we can continue to have them but tonight we are looking at how this will matter only in the context of this criminal trial of defendant trump. he did get fewer votes and he did lose women under 40 but he won the electoral college. the legal case only cares about how that tape and the reaction may show donald trump's motivation at the time, what prosecutors call criminal intent. the da is arguing that donald trump is a criminal. so this is not about some quarterbacking post election even though it relates to an election. it's not about that the case will involve politics only to go back to trumps criminal intent and again his lawyers

may have defenses to this but there will be fascinating political observations in the service of proving that what the da says was clear criminal intent because they had a campaign criminal motive. we've heard about these reports of a total panic within the campaign as the indictment notes, there was a catalyst from that panic to then get the hush money payments first going toward stormy daniels and that was arranged by michael cohen. $130,000 to hide the story which was finished up three days after that access hollywood tape broke. indictment alleges that trump was hoping to drag it out so he would never have to pay daniels at all which, while misleading or disingenuous is not in itself any kind of crime. but again, it goes to criminal intent because he instructed michael, to lay the payment until after the election which

was the original plan and at that point it would not matter if the story became public quote unquote. the da site to that as the exact evidence for why this was a campaign crime cover-up rather than some generalized desire to make that story go away. and as i mentioned lawyers may argue no, this was an embarrassing thing. he may have paid for these kinds of things before and they are going to argue that it was not with the criminal intent to break campaign laws but more evidence bolsters the prosecution because there was another scenario involving a second woman. a former model and the da says she was also paid $150,000 but from a different source. instead of michael cohen taking that money on behalf of trump, his tabloid the inquirer basically used trickery to get her to be silent about her history with trump. the publisher has already confirmed this to federal prosecutors. remember when i said some of

this has been established? all the way back in 2018 this was a different office than the da, but they got that confirmation with receipts by giving that tabloid figure immunity. two former lawyers for that model told us about this and i asked if they were aware of what the potential intent, what the motivation was of the tabloid when getting that story. >> i'm not so sure of it was, if i was aware of it at the time that it was their intent to bury the story but i think they had clearly announced their editorial and preferential candidate. >> was the national enquirer acting as the arm of donald trump and michael cohen and if so is there something wrong with that? >> we strongly suspect they were. >> those are lawyers speaking like lawyers but saying they had reason to believe the evidence-- that was the plot. that was years ago and we try

to go as close to the source as we can. if they won't talk but they have an ally or a lawyer we talk to them. the da says trump was aware of those transactions and cohen was aware enough that he secretly taped trump at the time long before he flipped and now it's evidence showing that he was apparently in the loop of these tabloid deals including the tabloid chief. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of that info regarding our friend david. when it comes time for the financing-- >> what financing? >> we will have to pay. no no no. >> pay with cash. i've mentioned this before. i bet you the jury is going to get an earful about this because it is so bad for trump and that little secret setting he thought maybe would never come out, he didn't know that

cohen was taping him, he said pay with cash. he sure as heck didn't sound like he was planning to tell the truth or anything like that. he says no no no. what happens next goes to why the da is so confident that they say they can nail him on criminal intent, bring home the case and when it. this is our special report. we are going to fit in a break and i will show you the evidence when we come back in 90 seconds. ♪♪ these guys are intense. we got nothing to worry about. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? got him. good game. thanks for coming to our clinic, first one's free. sometimes jonah wrestles with falling asleep... ...so he takes zzzquil. the world's #1 sleep aid brand. and wakes up feeling like himself. get the rest to be your best

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>> back to our special report on this first criminal trial ever of a former president. trump accused of this hush money cover-up and here is where these false records come into play. after trump became president he worked with a man who is right now as i am reporting this to you, back doing his second term in rikers island jail in new york. the cfo allen weisselberg who is involved in these payments which cohen made. the images may look familiar because over the course of 2017 trump as president said -- sent cohen several checks that they called for retainer or tax purposes and what is bad for defendant trump is that he might be a busy president and a busy business owner and was personally signing all these checks himself. the da alleges that put the trump organization on the hook to then falsify records and call what were payments to an external party quote legal fees. in business you can't just pay

a and call it something for b. if anyone could do that all the time we wouldn't have any taxes paid are accurate records. all of this came out when the wall street journal broke the original story and donald trump lied. in his first comments first he claimed he didn't know what was going on. we have the tape showing that which is why i can accurately carefully and clearly call that ally and then he went on to blame his lawyer. >> did you know about the payment to stormy daniels? why did michael cohen make it? >> maybe you will have to ask michael. >> no, the claim there, is a boldfaced lie and there aren't

a lot of ways to spin it because it is so clear. he says he didn't know about something that we have him on tape strategizing about, no he says about something that we have on record and paper signing about. he does tend to keep track of the money that gets pulled out of him and as i mentioned earlier in the report that's a long time coming to even get those bills paid. this was not going to hold up. you had cohen, investigators, lots of paper and financial records out there so other lawyers were involved for donald trump who also themselves went on to be indicted and were then figuring out the strategy. while it might look sloppy we know a lot more now than we did then. what we know now is that lawyers around trump figured this is going to come out so we have to start getting it out. someone who is then relatively new to the team, rudy giuliani, discussed it on fox. take a look. >> they funneled it through a law form-- a law firm and the

president repaid it. >> he did? there's no campaign finance law. 0. >> you can hear the disembodied voice. i didn't know that. guess you have to change your talking points if all you do is repeat what trump says. that moment looks almost farcical all these years later and really judy-- rudy giuliani would go from that field cover- up to the big lie to, as i mentioned being a codefendant in the rico case which may not go to trial before november but is a huge deal down in georgia. meanwhile, cohen was initially saying trump was not involved in the payments. we know that to be false as i mentioned for the reasons stated. knowing that it's false and that some of them were lying does not mean they have yet met the burden for a criminal conviction. i'm trying to be very precise about what the da has to prove but we know they were lying. the stormy daniels then

attorney who had his own legal problems since then, convicted for a string of crimes related to dishonesty, back then was leading this charge against trump and cohen and called the claim ludicrous when he appeared on this very program in 2018. >> this suggestion that somehow mister cohen was operating of his own volition and not reporting to anyone, spending all of this time-- this was not a negotiation that took 30 minutes. the fact that he wants the american people to believe that he was just out there doing all this on his own and not reporting to anyone about it is not believable. >> daniels then attorney saying it was not believable. it was not believable and cohen would later recant. first he would take the fall pleading guilty to tax fraud and line charges in connection with this very payment and-- to a federal campaign finance crime which was not for his own personal benefit but for donald

trump. he went to prison for all of that and in an effort to reduce the sentence he also did something that weisselberg did not do. that giuliani has not done. cohen, unlike so many other people around trump, did flip on his former boss and revealed in high-stakes, significant testimony to the united states congress, that trump was in on all of this. >> what i did each and every time is goes straight into mister trump's office and discuss the issue with him. he acknowledged that he was going to pay the 130,000 and that alan and i should go back to his office and figure out how to do it. >> that was about five years ago. the blow-by-blow, what everyone thinks of some of these figures, the big question we are dealing with is not your feelings or opinions about these people.

that's not supposed to be the jury's feelings. it can be very compelling testimony from people that juries don't like or that they hate or that they might fear. convicted murderers. drug dealers. gang members. senior mafia members. they sometimes make some of the most damning witnesses because it ain't a popularity contest and certainly isn't supposed to be a political campaign even if it discussed-- involves discussion of campaigns. does this person have firsthand knowledge of what they are talking about and can any of it be corroborated? in the case of mister cohen the answer to both is yes which is bad news for trump. the das office continues to investigate all of those schemes and payments and look at whether cohen 's story added up beyond just what he said. what did he know, what did he do, and what else on paper corroborated all of this? after a lengthy process, and we have pressed some people about

why it took so long, the manhattan da did indict him through a grand jury probe and heard testimony from the witnesses i mentioned including cohen, daniels and the reclusive but pivotal figure in all of this, the tabloid publisher. many of them are expected to bring their testimony, a testimony which helped charge donald trump, they are going to bring it to this trial. then there is joe. he was at the time it key defense lawyer in new york on this high-stakes case. we had him on the beach and he vehemently defended what he said were the reasons why the should not be a case at all for his then client and we discussed this on the beat. >> these payments were made and they were according to federal filings, classified on the trump side as legal services. that was false, wasn't it? >> the payments were made to a

lawyer. not to stormy daniels. they were made to donald trump's lawyer. this would exist irrespective of the campaign. >> you are making a potential defense that he would have had this out regardless? >> now that was interesting. all these years later and that was just about a year ago, tacopina who at the time was representing trump and has since left, was really making the cohen argument. tacopina is making the same argument that whatever money went to the lawyer, whatever trump did he was told to do but was not in the loop. if you are watching the entire special report i said a couple minutes back, criminal intent is what matters. the debate is not over the money. we know the money went over there. the debate is whether he had the criminal intent and knew what was going on as others say he did, or whether he was just signing something and as tacopina argues, went over the legal fees and the other people

were filling in the details. the da ultimately was the first prosecutor to indict a former president and others have followed since then. again, in our effort to get the facts we actually had the then sitting da months before that happened when he came on the beat and i asked him about indicting trump back then. how much controversy there have been about the process. there have been other theories and here's what he told me. >> as i said back in april in a statement, investigation is ongoing. this was one chapter. i caution people against reading ahead. the work never stops and we were going to continue to do that. >> one chapter and we are going to continue. that's what the da told us face- to-face while sitting in the office. we don't know exactly what was in his mind at that point. was it up in the air?

was he gathering facts? was he closing one case to continue another? was he thinking this would wind down? or did he say one chapter because he knew the biggest was about to begin and he would do something that no one in the history of american law and every prosecutor around the country, and prosecutors dream about big cases but they are supposed to follow the fax. he knew the chapter that's coming would be the biggest chapter of all. the indictment of a former president. he acted first and while there has been much discussion if some of the other cases are potentially more serious, by acting first he got the case going and trump and his lawyers and his tricks and his government connections have gotten some other cases slowed down. not new york where there is an independent prosecutor. not new york where even a future president would have no ability to pardon any crime convicted in new york. the da did with so many others had not. he acted first and that's part of the reason why he will now be the first he will now be the

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>> yeah, i would testify, absolutely. all i can do is tell the truth and the truth is that there's no case. >> donald trump facing questions about the trial set to begin on monday and we are joined by maia and kristi, veterans of the famed southern district of new york. we looked at this long road here and why so many of the details that seem to proven are still subject to debate in the courtroom about getting both crimes proven in the context of trumps criminal intent about the election. your thoughts based on the road we've just gone down? >> i would say, this case has all the hallmarks of a serious fraud case with tremendous jury

appeal. it is easy to understand this crime. the deception leaps off the pages of documents as you describe them. a fake settlement agreement to referee-- false claims against david denison. these are fake names that disguised donald trump and stormy daniels. it is interesting. there were no claims. this was just an agreement for hush money payments obviously. the shell company being used so that we can keep donald trump's fingerprints off of any of the payments. and then he reimburses payments with his very distinctive signature so you've got a great case in documents and then the question will come down to the witnesses. as much trouble as michael cohen is going to have, he is in many ways corroborated by documents and witnesses and most importantly by donald trump's own words. as you play parts of the audio recording the part that stands

out for me in that recording that really goes to his intent is, he's talking generally about all the damaging information that he doesn't want to come out. he says at one point we can just delay. something to that effect. delay until what? it was clear from the context, delay until actual-- until the election. these payments just on the eve of the election, it was clear that the reason these payments needed to happen when they were happening was to make sure that he would silence these women and it would not affect the outcome of the election. i think proving that piece of criminal intent will be very easy. >> let me slow you down though. you are almost a new york fast talking lawyer and it takes one to know one. it matters to new york law that he only wanted to pay before

election day. why? >> to level set, if you make a hush money payment, that in and of itself is not illegal. if you falsify business records, that is on its own, a misdemeanor. what makes this a felony and what makes those hush money payments illegal campaign contributions is the fact that they were made with the intent to influence the election. that is the key element that alvin bragg and his team are going to have to prove to elevate these crimes to felonies. >> we are going to start with jury selection on monday and it will take time before we get into the heart of it but you can imagine these prosecutors through witness questions trying to show over and over to the jury that the guy has 100 k plus payments going, which, that is real money, and if you

could just of any corporation. i don't care if it's a tabloid or a secret corporation or the corporation of your rich friend. just make $100,000 plus expenditures to help you on the campaign but we wouldn't even have a campaign finance system. there seems to be a larger point they can express to the jury once you get through the long history that we show. >> well look. absolutely and i think here's the point of what we are going to see in the process of selecting a jury. one is, if you are donald trump's lawyers you are hoping you can find some jurors who just like a donald trump and they are not going to say it that way, but you are looking for the people who, although they are neutral because of they are getting to this stage of the process they will be holding themselves as neutral. but who find trump relatable and find a situation relatable. the job of the prosecution in

this case is to also suss that out and say we cannot have any stealth supporters in this trial. we want people who understand what the actual case is about and who are able to understand especially what the judge has already said. count number one. this is a case about people getting together to make an agreement to interfere with the election and this is the process by which they are doing it. that's for the jury to decide. applying facts and deciding what the facts are and deciding which witnesses to believe. that is the job of the jury. but with the jury, they are exactly right when she says this is a case where a lot of people are going to understand as being about defrauding voters at the core and concealing so that voters don't have all the information to make an assessment that they want to make before casting

their vote. and witnesses can eventually cooperate that in terms of his state of mind on access hollywood as you so rightly point out. >> we just showed a lot of the reporting we've done and the people we've heard from. i should stormy daniels earlier and later lawyers. he broke his silence. i reached him by prison phone call for that interview this week and as i mentioned, these are people who have information regardless of what one thinks of them and he said something interesting having been quite close to it. he says it's not the strongest case in the world but he thinks trump will be convicted. take a listen. >> i think the case has a lot of problems. i don't mean to suggest that that means that trump will not be convicted because i think he will be convicted.

i think he will be convicted in the case but i don't think it's going to move the needle to the degree that some people believe that it will. >> maia? >> it's the case in which the prosecution has to be able to get beyond a reasonable doubt of intent. you already talked about that in your set up and explain why there's a lot of evidence. no matter what you think of donald, of mister cohen and what they are going-- going to do is impugn the ability to be truthful. but cohen never changed his story. there's lots of ways they will be able to rehabilitate any attacks on him. >> i will let you finish, he was part of the cover-up. so you mean he never changed his story after he recanted his version? >> my point is, his story about what happened with signing after he essentially did with people are supposed to do. remember we were all shocked

that he did it but he said i'm going to come clean. i'm not even going to ask for a deal. who goes to the southern district of new york and says just go ahead and hold me accountable. i'm going to fix this. i think there are ways to rehabilitate but the real point is, it's not whether it's a harder easy case. executors have to do the hard work of proving the case always especially when you are going to have a lot of witnesses like this. but i think you both said it, it is the corroborating evidence. it's the audiotape. the fact that you are going to have people who may take the stand from trump's own campaign and say yes, he was completely that state of mind about how he was feeling after access hollywood. there is a lot of evidence here, is the point, and going back to the point that this is a story that jurors can

understand particularly a manhattan jury, that you want to win an election. you know that it's a bad story, a doorman who says you have a baby and two other women who are going to talk about your affairs right after access hollywood paid something. some of these have been going on for 10 years. he was not concerned about melania trump finding out five years ago. he's concerned when he's about to run an election. there are facts there. of course they are going to have to fight hard for that case. that's what prosecutors do in every case. no prosecutors want to bring cases they think they are going to lose. they think they have sufficient evidence when they bring cases and this judge is agreeing that they are going to let some evidence in which also has the trump team worried about what they have to do. >> all really interesting, leadoff guests for this special. thank you. ahead we are going to answer a

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they say i have the most loyal people. did you ever see that? i could stand in the middle of

fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters. it's incredible. >> that was trump all the way back to 2016 talking the kind of loose talk that so many of his people try to dismiss as jokes or his certain style, but in fact, by this year we've learned his own lawyers argued that he should have the little power as president to assassinate people and no one can charge them for it. we are in an unprecedented time in american history and going towards the first criminal trial ever of a former president. we are joined now as we try to make sense of history by someone steeped in nbc news. thank you for being on our special. i do have questions but first i give you the floor as we think through this of what is coming next week as a country. >> well let's begin. you've said it extremely well. what is different about this moment? we have never in american history seen a president come close to being in a criminal trial. ulysses s grant fired a special

prosecutor, nixon is the closest we've come when he was forced to resign after secret tapes were opened in 1974, a majority of congress said if you do not resign we will impeach and convict you because we think you are guilty of obstruction of justice and a lot of other things. so nixon went back to california and then he began to have nightmares calling people up in the middle of the night and said to senators and other friends with influence, the new president, i think i'm going to prison. i have dreams about the cell door clinking shot. nixon's friends and families circulated false stories that got to gerald ford saying he was so depressed they thought he might even commit suicide and forward who was a merciful person for that and other reasons pardoned nixon so he never saw the criminal trial of richard nixon but otherwise would almost certainly have occurred in 1975. i will close with this, the

president is above the law. if you or i break the law i don't think we would get special treatment. in the case of the president of the united states it happened once before with nixon or are we going to see donald trump getting a better deal than any of the rest of us would? >> you remind us that this accurate but heavy term unprecedented is because of that one unitary decision, one man who was close to nixon and as he said was reasoning through it and otherwise we probably would have had a trial. with a high burden of proof who knows what would have happened. >> when the president does it that means it is not illegal. >> you have to give a president full and total immunity. >> if for example president

roosevelt had decided the assassination of hibler before world war ii would save five or 6 million , i'm not sure that would not be an awful tough call. >> take a look at harry truman. if you think hiroshima not exactly a nice act but it did end the second world war. >> michael, the question i have goes beyond the trial itself but to what we are experiencing as we live through this history . while so much is made of donald trump and his opponents talk a lot about his distinct, what they sometimes view as extreme or even unique negatives, it is not any defense of him to learn from history that we have many such threats and many people who talk about, for extreme reasons or for your safety they might have to

become a dictator or something close to it so i'm curious where that fits in for you that this is in some ways unique but another ways the fabric of our history from politics to law to how you govern war involves these tough debates about where the line is. >> if nixon were here what he would say in the spirit of what he said to david frost and that great clip that you just showed us would be lincoln during the civil war. abridged civil liberties. happiest corpus. franklin roosevelt did break-ins with the fbi and eavesdropped on people in a way that was probably illegal but they were doing it to win wars and so was i. nixon would say, because i was the president during vietnam. i think that is ridiculous and i wish that ford had not pardoned nixon because what that had done is basically given a president like donald trump the idea that if nixon

was not sent to jail, and he knew nixon very well and tried to get nixon to get an apartment in trump tower and trump actually leaked that he was coming there falsely, believe it or not. i know it sounds very out of character. i actually talked with ford in his retirement. i can understand you wanted to pardon nixon but why didn't you get in and sign a confession saying i did obstruct justice. i did terrible things and i am grateful that i've been pardoned. ford said nixon has suffered enough. he retired. i don't think he suffered enough and the result is the presidents of the future like donald trump and richard nixon think that they can break the law in the way that the rest of us cannot, and get away with it and retiring to your oceanside mentioned, we are going to be

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>> not loving 22. big hair. >> 22, dismissed. >> 23. see the comb-over? he's a self-loathing bald man. >> juror 23 dismissed. >> on curb your enthusiasm larry david trying to use that process to get people dismissed. well, that was the joke version although it was also a trial involving voting. they face questions that will narrow the pool to 12 jurors and six alternates. judge merchant has already shown us through this transparent process, no cameras in court but we know everything that's happening, but before it starts on monday, there are 42 baseline questions. heavy winter attended a rally or campaign event and do you consider yourself a supporter of q1 on, proud boys, as keepers and so on? the point is not to do any political discrimination but to try to find out which people

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> donald trump's first criminal trial begins monday. we'll be covering it all day, and then we have rachel leading one of our special coverage breakdowns. we'll start in the 6:00 p.m. eastern hour. the whole team breaking down the historic trial. i'll be with her along with joy, lawrence, nicole, and everyone. 6:00 p.m. eastern. mark your calendars for our special breakdown to really go through just like in the nixon and watergate era what was important that day and this day. you've been watching this msnbc schedule. tonight on ayman will israel retaliate against the