Hi, and welcome to another episode of prosecuting Donald Trump. It is Tuesday morning, March 5. I'm Andrew Weissman, and I'm here with Mary McCord. Good morning, Mary. How are you?

I'm well. How are you?

Well, I'm better this morning than yesterday, which was one crazy day. So what's on our agenda for this morning?

So, obviously, we'll spend a good bit of time talking about the opinion that the Supreme Court issued yesterday, a unanimous opinion by the end result, which is that Colorado does not have the power to prevent Donald Trump from being on the presidential ballot there, primary or general. But that 90 unanimity breaks down a little bit once we start to really talk about the substance of that decision. We'll also talk about developments that happened last week in the Mar a Lago case in terms of potentially getting a trial date on the calendar, which we don't have yet. And, of course, we'll talk about the very significant plea of Alan Weisselberg yesterday and what impact, if any, that will have on the upcoming trial in about 20 days brought by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, this will be the first criminal trial of Mr. Trump to actually go to trial. And that, of course, involves the election interference plan to pay off stormy Daniels and falsify records of those payments to keep her quiet during the 2016 election. So lots on our agenda.

Well, you left something out.

I did.

So, Mary, why don't you tell us what you and ICAP was one of the council, but a significant player. You had a big victory yesterday, and there's sort of real implications in terms of evidence that has now been made public. So why don't you first tell us what the case was, what happened yesterday?

Sure. So ICAP is my day job and my night job and my weekend job when I'm not doing it's, which is.

Your real day job.

That's all debatable, isn't it? So, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, or ICAP, at Georgetown law. You've heard about us a little bit before because our work, we do a lot of work in the protection of democracy space and the anti political violence space. And the litigation that Andrew is talking about is litigation that we brought at ICAP, along with cocouncil law forward in Wisconsin and the Stafford Rosenbaum law firm there in Wisconsin. And we brought this case back in 2022 on behalf of legitimate Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, presidential electors in Wisconsin, and a voter in Wisconsin against the ten fraudulent electors, in other words, the Trump Pence electors whose candidate had not been certified as the winner of Wisconsin, in fact, who had not won the election of Wisconsin. Those electors met and voted on December 14, the day that the electoral college is by statute required to vote, or was by statute that year required to vote and submitted their ballots as though they had actually represented the will of the Wisconsin voters. So our case was against those electors and two lawyers involved with the scheme, James Trupus, a Trump campaign attorney in Wisconsin, and Ken Chesbrough, whose name will be quite familiar to listeners because he's pleaded guilty in Fulton County, Georgia, already to false documents, charges there related to the fraudulent electorate scheme in Georgia.

He's also one of the unindicted co conspirators in the January 6 case brought by Jack Smith.

Mary, this was a civil case, obviously, that you brought, is that right?

So it was a civil case that was designed mostly to be about injunctive and declaratory relief, right? That's the kind of relief where you want a court to say what happened was unlawful. It was a civil conspiracy. It was a public nuisance because it had impacted the community in Wisconsin and their ability to actually have their votes count, and that it violated another law called quo Warranto, where these electors took the position of real electors, even though they weren't the real electors. So we used these civil causes of action. We were trying to get the court to say this is unlawful and to prevent them from ever doing it again. So back last December, listeners who follow us week by week will know we had already resolved our case against the ten fraudulent electors. They had settled it. That meant they had agreed never to be electors for Donald Trump again, never to submit fraudulent electoral votes when their candidate hadn't been certified the winner. And they also issued a public statement that their participation in meeting on December 14 and submitting their electoral ballots had been used as part of an effort to overturn the will of the people sort of nationally.

They also provided at that time a number of documents, text messages and emails that were very revealing about what the campaign had directed them to do in terms of meeting that day. And even though many of them, by the time they met, I think, were quite skeptical of. Why were they meeting? Because the pending litigation, the whole idea that they'd been told was that you need to meet and vote on December 14 because we've got pending litigation challenging the vote in Wisconsin, and that litigation was over trying to disqualify a lot of votes in Wisconsin, enough votes that would have changed the outcome. The argument was if that litigation prevails and Trump is declared the winner. We need you to have already met and voted on December 14 so that we have your electoral ballots accordance with the statute, and then that's what can be counted on January 6.

So I take it this is the whole debate of electors who may not have criminal exposure because they thought they were just contingent electors, meaning if the litigation worked out, they were there as a backup in case a court said, wait a second, the vote actually didn't go for Biden, it went for Trump. And so you have these electors waiting in the wings. That's something that you could imagine, but there would be no reason to do that in secret. It would be something that you could just be very publicly saying, we're just there as backup in case the litigation prevails.

And you could have also put on the electoral ballot, this is a contingent ballot only to be opened and counted if Donald Trump is declared the winner after. By a court of law, after litigation. And there was no such caveat on the Wisconsin ballots. That's right.

And one of the reasons in Pennsylvania that you're not seeing sort of criminal charges is because there, the electors were. Wait, we're not signing up for anything other than being a contingent group in case the courts say this is okay. The problem is that the criminal charges are because that's not what was going on with respect to whole variety of them. But anyway, Mary, so tell us about the two lawyers that ended up settling.

Let's snap the doodle. So the two who did not resolve.

I have to work that into every episode.

Now, what's significant about the resolution of the case yesterday, now, the case is finished because we've entered into settlements with both James Trupus and Kenneth Chesborough, is that as part of those settlements, not only have those men also agreed permanently that they won't be involved in the execution or transmission of electoral ballots without this kind of a contingency clause in any future election. But they have supplied an enormous trove of some 1400 emails and text messages that really tell a story about, first of all, how involved these two men are. And I think that's, number one, is significant because James Trupus basically has skated so far. I mean, people know Ken Jesper's name, they know John Eastman's name as being lawyers involved in this fraudulent elector scheme. But James Trupis, what these documents show is that really, this was driven by James Trupis, a Trump campaign lawyer in Wisconsin. And let me just take one little aside to say, why does all of this matter? Why are we talking about it today.

That'S what I was going to ask you. What is the big picture? Sort of like, how does this help educate us about what the scheme was?

Yeah. So the people need to remember that in the January 6 case against Trump, one of the key parts of the conspiracies alleged there is this fraudulent elector scheme, not only in Wisconsin, but in all of the swing states. Right? Because this was part of. If all of the swing states could send alternate. They called them alternate slates of electors, up to Mike Pence, that on January 6, Mike Pence could be pressured into either counting the fraudulent state slates of electors instead of the legitimate slates, thereby throwing the election to Trump, or saying, we have alternate slates, allowing for delay and debate even past January 6, which would give them time to pressure state legislatures in those states to say, we're going to do a redo and send you up our slates of electors for Trump, or even have the whole case end up, because there's no agreement over how to count these ballots. Then under the Twelveth Amendment, the decision about who the president is would go to the House of Representatives. But it's not for all 435 members to vote, it's for each state to get one vote. And if each state gets one vote, the way the states break down in terms of the republican Democrat majority, just based on the numbers of representatives in each state, that means Trump would have been declared the winner.

So this is a hugely. I mean, this aspect of what was charged by Jack Smith, it was just a huge way of disenfranchising everyone who voted for Biden. And obviously, it all remains to be proved, etc. One of the things, Mary, that happened as a result of this case that you won yesterday with resolving with respect to these two people, is a whole mass of emails were made public. And I was really struck by, let's just say, how disingenuous Kenneth Chesborough has been with respect to his representations. And I wonder if that was your reaction as well.

I think it's important, and I want to highlight a few of these, because what was important about what was released yesterday is we really get a window into how early, how close to the election this endgame scheme had been concocted. So we have emails from Chesboro to Trupus on November eigth, five days after the election. And in that email already, Chesbrough is suggesting to James Trupus. And Trupus had brought Chesboro in to help him in Wisconsin with recount litigation. Already on November eigth, he is suggesting that we should get alternate slates of electors, get state legislatures to send up alternate slates of electors, the pro Trump electors, and at a minimum, with this kind of cloud of confusion on January 6, no votes from Wisconsin, perhaps also Michigan and Pennsylvania, should be counted, perhaps enough to throw the election to the House. So we're at November eigth. He's already suggesting that the documents then show that Trupus asks Chesbroat, write up some memos about this. People may have recall one of those first significant memos is November 18 from Chesboro to Trupus. Trupus then, because Chesboro's got no political clout, he doesn't know the campaign officials.

He doesn't know Donald Trump. Trupus is connected directly with the campaign at the national level. Trupus takes those Chesboro memos and he sends them up to Boris Epstein and other people associated with the national campaign, including ultimately this gets to Rudy Giuliani. In response to that, Epstein says, hey, question from the mayor. Can you guys do these alternate ballots for all of the swing states? Trupus takes that back to Chesboro. Chesboro's yes, I can. And these two men together then end up doing the paperwork for and being an integral part of the scheme for all of the swing states. Not only that, but as early as December the eigth, we have Chesboro giving a lengthy memo to Trupus saying court challenges pending on January 6 are really not necessary. Right. This is about gumming up the works, creating chaos, pressuring Mike Pence to either count the alternate slates of electors or send this all back to the state legislature. And we have a response from James Trupus that says, I spoke with Senator Johnson late last night about the Pence angle at the end. Just wanted to take his temperature. This is an excellent summary of the end game.

Thank you. This is what's going on within one month of the election, and of course, it comes to fruition. And on January 6 itself, January 5 and 6th, both men were still desperately trying to get that Wisconsin slate into the hands of the vice president because they'd heard that he actually didn't have it yet.

Mary, I love that you're completely loaded for bear. I couldn't agree with you more that what was struck me about the emails. Kenneth Chesborough, after the fact, tries to say, oh, this is just contingent. There is nothing to see here. It was only if there was actually a win in litigation. But that's not what's being said privately. So that's what's so great about these emails is that the sort of whitewashing of what was going on is you have shown the contemporariest documentation. As I said, this is like a perfect segue to the Supreme Court and what's going on because it's so important that these cases get to trial. Everything that you have seen and is now a bit out there, that's the whole point of a trial, is that this would all be played out and the actual facts of what was going on and the disingenuous nature of the sort of whitewashed spin would be presented in a court of law for everyone to see.

That's right. And I think the other critical thing is, remember this fraudulent electors narrative became the false narrative that really ended up ultimately driving the violence that day. Right? Because people who went there said, pence, you should be counting these votes, right? Hang Mike Pence. Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what needed to be done. And so there's a direct relationship. And the last thing I'll say about this is on January 6, Trupus texts to Chesboro. Enjoy the history you have made possible today. Chesbrough then sends a photo of himself with the crowd at 12:26 p.m. And Trupus responds with an emoji of hands clapping. There's no remorse for the chaos on that day or the days after for what happened in terms of the violent attack.

It's all about Chesboro's actually at the Capitol with, I believe, Alex with Alex.

Jones in a. Yep.

Okay, shall we take a break and then go to the Supreme Court and its ruling and get our sort of quick taste?

Absolutely. Let's do it.

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Hey, welcome back, Mary. Just quick overview on what the Supreme Court decided. And the big picture is that all nine justices decided that Colorado does not have the ability to remove someone running for president of the United States from the ballot, so that a state cannot do that unilaterally when you're running for a federal office such as the presidency. And all nine justices agreed on that. And they look at the history and sort of policy implications of that, and they look at some of the language of people who were promulgating the 14th Amendment. They talk about the purpose of it, which was to actually take power away from the state. So they talk about the irony of that. That's something that Katanji Brown Jackson and Chief Justice Roberts were both very vocal about during the oral argument. That is the big takeaway. And I think what we're now going to talk about is there are all sorts of contratomps, because I think that big picture is somewhat masking. What I'm going to take a first stab at is the fractured nature of what I think may be going on behind the scenes. I mean, the decision sort of hid, I think, a lot of discord to.

Your point, about what all the justices agreed to. I think this is something that all of us who listened to the argument were pretty sure they were going to do, that it was either going to be 90 or maybe eight, one that a state alone cannot take a presidential candidate off the ballot. And part of that, as you said, was historically, that's not about the 14th Amendment, was not about giving states more rights. It was to the contrary. But also, there was a lot of concern about what creating some chaotic state by state patchwork that would be at ODs with sort of like principles of federalism. So that could have been, and this is where you're going. I think that could have been said in one opinion, and that could have been the end. They did not need to go any further, but the majority did.

Yeah. So you end up with five men in sort of the majority. You end up with Amy Coney Barrett in a very short, separate concurrence, and then you end up with the three so called liberal justices. So essentially the four women on the court all saying, you've gone further than you need to, how the issue is, whether they needed to decide whether this decision applied just to people running for the president versus all federal offices. That's sort of one issue. Another is, okay, the states can't do it, but who can do it. In other words, how can the federal government act? Is it only Congress? Is it Congress plus some other forum, for instance, a federal lawsuit? What is the mechanism if it cannot be states? And that's where the four justices who said, you went too far basically said, that's not before us. And by going further, the three justices, Sodomayor Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson, said, you are actually serving. What you are doing in the majority here is you're trying to just make it easier for Donald Trump to not suffer the sort of discord and mayhem that would come. They just come right out and say that.

But I think we're kind of hiding the ball here. We haven't told them yet what the majority did, the step they took.

So the reason I'm sort of, is that there's a little bit of a back and forth as to what the three justices say they did is they said only Congress can act through legislation. So it's not totally clear. I mean, that's what the three justices say. There's no question that they have dicta, that sort of language that goes further than they need to, but it's not totally clear. That's what the majority is saying. They do have this one sentence saying that congressional action is critical.

They do.

And the word critical is not really spelled out. And in fact, that's what the three justice concurrence know. You say this word critical, but it's not really. What are you saying? Are you saying that only Congress can act through legislation?

But that's not what the three concurrings say. They actually say you are saying majority, that they can only act through legislation. That's contrary.

But they do attack the word critical, saying it's not clear what you even mean by that term in this context. So I agree, but it's very unclear whether the majority is saying what the three justices say they're saying. So that you're sort of left in a quandary as to whether congressional action is the sole way in which you can sort of implement the 14th Amendment. Because obviously, if it did say that, that kind of, as a de facto matter, that kind of kills this, because this Congress ain't going to do anything.

Yeah. So it's interesting because when I read the majority, I read them to be saying Congress has the power under section five of the 14th Amendment, which is a section of the amendment that says essentially Congress, you can enact implementing legislation for the 14th Amendment. I read them to be saying Congress has the power to do that. And it's critical that Congress be the body that makes decisions about how we're going to disqualify people who've formally held an office and taken an oath from future federal office. But I didn't originally read it to be saying Congress must enact legislation. Right.

Meaning having the power doesn't mean it's the sole one. They have to exercise it.

That's right. And then there's some other funny language where they say, one of the reasons to think that states couldn't enforce this is that it would allow states to do so in ways that even Congress couldn't through its own legislation. Because Congress, through its own legislation, has to sort of comport with principles of congruence and proportionality between the legislation that provides a remedy to address some sort of wrong. Right. This is just a typical concept of legislation, that it has to be tailored to meet the need when it's a remedy. So they had this weird language about if the states did it, they wouldn't even have to conform to that. But I still didn't read it to saying the only way that a president could be disqualified under 14th Amendment section three is if Congress legislates. But then I read, of course, Amy Comey Barrett and the three others who said, port, you didn't have to go so far. You didn't have to decide that legislation is required. And by doing so, to your point, Andrew, not only have you gone farther than you need to, but you're basically shutting the door on other potential means of federal enforcement.

And as you, you know, sort of ensuring they don't really use these words. Donald Trump, they call him an oath breaking insurrectionist, or at least refer objectively to oath breaking insurrectionists. I don't think at any point they make clear that they're talking about Trump. But, of course, we all know that's what it's about. They say by resolving these other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office. So then I went back and I reread the majority.

Me too.

Three more times.

Me, too. Exactly. That's exactly what I did. I was like, is that what they said?

I know. It's very strange.

From the same concurrences, quote, they, meaning the majority, decide novel constitutional questions. And this is the key part, quote, to insulate this court and petitioner. That's Donald Trump from future controversy.

Yeah. This court and petitioner. Right. This court, like, avoiding doing their jobs. Yeah.

So let me make two quick points. One has to do with one thing that appears to be congressional legislation that would count as Congress. Taking the necessary steps would be the criminal statute, 18 USC 23 80, which is the crime of engaging in an insurrection that is not charged.

Right.

But it was referred by the January 6 Committee to the Department of Justice. There might be a variety of reasons as to why it was not charged. For one thing, that charge of insurrection carries in it. The statute itself carries upon conviction that you are disqualified. So it sort of tracks the idea of the 14th amendment that was not charged by Jack Smith. But it's clear it would appear to satisfy the majority test here of complying with federal congressional action upon a conviction. It does put a lot of pressure on why Jack Smith did not charge it. It also would put a lot of pressure on the next opinion that we're waiting for from the Supreme Court, which is immunity, because it's a little rich to say, you know what, you could be criminally charged and that's the enforcement mechanism. But by the way, because you're a former president, you're immune from that.

That's right.

Which the irony is, like, it's such a shell game. One other quick point. A lot of people pointed out that there was a little bit of a metadata issue, and that is something I learned, which is there's a way to avoid metadata becoming public because you can scan something and then take a photo of it and that's what becomes public. But they didn't do that. And so you could actually cut and paste and see sort of the original text and what was originally thought. And it helps sort of explain some of the disjuncture that we've been talking about. Because initially it appears from the metadata that the three justices opinion was actually a dissent in part, not a concurrence. And it was initially written just by Justice Sotomayor. That changed. And so there's tons of speculation out there, which I'm not going to engage in as to what happened. But you then also have this very, very od short concurrence by Amy Coney Barrett that can be boiled down to, can't we all get along? And this is political season, and we should be trying to lower the volume, not raise it. And that to me though, was saying the quiet part out loud, which was, I mean, that is an odd thing to write about because that's basically saying, you, majority are goading these people, they have no choice.

And then also somewhat chastising the three justice concurrence. Know, there's a lot of inflammatory rhetoric. So it's sort of disparaging kind of on both sides and sort of like, can't we all get along? I have to say they'd be snarky. It's a little bit like, hey, listen, while we decide DOBBS and retract all of your rights and a woman's control over a body, while we reinvent the second amendment, while we get rid of the regulatory state, can't we just all get along?

No, it is, it's a little rich.

Do you really have to engage in this kind of rhetoric? Justices, like any human beings, are entitled to have strong views, but it's clear that the 90 part is masking enormous tension on the court. That's right, was my take.

That's right. And before we break, there's just one other thing, and maybe we can spend more time talking about this in another episode. But why does this matter to us that the court seems to be saying legislation is required? Well, one reason is because, first of all, I think legally that's not sound. Other aspects of the 14th amendment are enforceable without legislation and get enforced all the time. Section one, right, equal protection clause.

Equal protection.

And section five is about Congress has the power to enact implementing legislation for all of the sections, including section one. They didn't. And the Supreme Court hasn't said, oh, you can't do anything because Congress didn't act so legally. I think it's not sound.

By the way, Mary, how much did the majority deal with the argument that you are making?

It did not.

Zero.

It did not.

I was like, how are they dealing with it? Your point is so excellent, which is like, how do you carve this one out for separate treatment?

It's just not a well done opinion. But at any rate, legally, I think it's not sound. And we could talk way more about that. But it also, Congress, there are other ways it can enforce the 14th Amendment, section three, other than litigation. Now, this could be controversial, but remember January 6, what we've been talking about this whole episode is the day when the houses of Congress come together and they count the electoral ballots. And they could say, if Donald Trump won the electoral College, we're not going to count the ballots for him because he is disqualified under the 14th Amendment section three. In fact, Donald Trump's own attorney in arguing this case said this only applies to holding office, not running for office, so he can't be taken off the ballot. The proper remedy, if there is to be one, would be at the time of holding office. So even his own attorney seemed to recognize that Congress has the power when it meets to count the votes, to say these votes that are for someone who's disqualified under the 14th amendment, section three, and in fact, who we've already found in the impeachment in 2021, had engaged in insurrection, and even the Senate, a majority, concluded he had engaged in insurrection, they could refuse to count those votes.

This opinion seems to want to bar them from doing that by saying, you need implementing legislation. But I do think Congress could say, no, we disagree with that and tell with you.

Tell with you. It's dicta.

It's dicta. You didn't have five justices agreeing to that. And you also said in your opening paragraph, the constitution makes Congress responsible. And if we're the body responsible, this is how we're going to do it. So the reason I say that can be controversial, there's a lot of people who would worry about Congress doing that on January 6. But in terms of legally and constitutionally what I think they're authorized to do, I absolutely think the Constitution gives them that power.

So this is when the court is made up of Justice McCord and Justice Weissman. The world's just going to be such a better place.

We'll do everything right. We'll never make a mistake. Okay.

So let's take a break and we'll come back and we're going to talk about some developments in Mar a Lago and the Alan Weisselberg plea yesterday in New York.

Sounds good.

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So before we left, we told folks that we would come back and talk briefly about Mar a Lago and about also the upcoming trial in Manhattan. So Mar a Lago, bottom line really is we still don't have a date for trial. Right? Andrew.

So, yeah, the two federal cases are really on hold. So we know that there's a stay with respect to the DC case. There was argument before Judge Cannon. The government had asked for July, and Judge Cannon from the bench said that she was very skeptical of that timeline, pushed back a lot. And I think one thing to note is that Donald Trump's position wasn't August. The dispute wasn't July versus August because.

The judge told them, give me a date. Right. Their real date is, no, he can't go before the election. Can't happen.

Exactly. So they said that in their papers, and they certainly took that position in court, and then the judge took that under advisement. There are lots of pending motions that we're not going to get into now.

Some of which we have talked about in other episodes. And all of those still are pending.

Yep, exactly. So this is one where there is no date. So Jack Smith is in this position where he is treading water because you have either the Supreme Court holding up the DC case or Judge Cannon continuing to slow walk that case. I have to say one thing I have been speculating about, just so you know what the detritus that's in my brain, Mary, and it came to me when I was looking at your Chesbo documents that we talked about at the start of this episode, is we know that there were unindicted co conspirators in the DC January 6 case that Jack Smith had not indicted. But it seemed pretty clear to me that he has the proof to do it. And I was just wondering whether he might, this is just speculation, whether if he's really just going to be spinning his wheels, waiting now for a trial date, whether he's going to say, you know what?

Indict some of those people.

Right. He certainly thinks he has a good case, and we know from the Georgia case that there's an indictable case. And so whether that might be something that he does if he's really just sitting there forced to wait around. So that's sort of the big picture in Mar a Lago is like, we're continuing to wait.

Yeah. Last thing I'd say about that before we move on is it matters not. Just know what's the trial date going to be. It also is because there's all kinds of things that have to happen before trial. So every date is still sort of on hold now. Right? Dates to finish up the classified Information, procedures Act proceedings, dates for motions, dates for pretrial orders, dates for getting out jury questionnaires, all that stuff. Can't go forward until you have that trial date. So I suspect she'll issue something any day now. But it hasn't happened yet.

Yeah. One way to think about that is it's like moving a giant oil tanker. Know, if you want to go left, it's like four weeks ahead of time. You're like, okay.

Oh, I love that analogy. That's so good.

It's an unwieldy thing. Okay. Alan Weisselberg, the chief financial officer for the Trump Organization. Let me just make sure people understand something. He, about 15 months ago, pleaded guilty to a tax conspiracy as part of the Trump Organization. On behalf of the Trump Organization, he pled to his role in this multi year tax conspiracy. He then testified at that trial, sort of reluctantly, and the Trump organizations were both convicted criminally. People keep on forgetting this.

Yes, I know.

At trial by a jury in New York, maybe it's because it was, the.

Penalty was like 1.6 million, which is like peanuts these days, right, when we have.

Yeah, but it's still a criminal conviction for tax fraud. Let's just get real. And guess who's the head of the Trump Organization that was criminally convicted. Yeah. So maybe the eponymous name of the organization is a little bit of a tip off.

Yes.

So he has pleaded guilty to that. The Trump organization was found guilty. He then was sentenced to five months in jail. And he gets out of jail. He is civilly charged in the same attorney general fraud case as Donald Trump, Donald Trump's two sons and the Trump organizations. That is the case where there's this huge 400 plus million dollar judgment where Donald Trump, Alan Weiselberg, the sons, the Trump organizations, were all found civilly liable for fraud. So that's shoe number two to drop. There's going to be a lot of shoes dropping.

He doesn't even have enough legs for all of the shoes that are dropping.

Exactly. So we're dealing with, okay, we've gone through the first criminal part, now we're dealing with the civil fraud. Because remember, Alan Weisberg is a defendant there. So he's found libel, as is Trump. So Alan Weissberg has now pleaded guilty to lying under oath. And remember that what he has admitted to is that he gave depositions in the course of that civil case and he testified. And what he is saying in his guilty plea, from his own words, is that what I was saying is not true.

Right.

And I knew it at the time. So that is crime number two. And the point I wanted to make about the relationship of this to Donald Trump is that during this whole time, during the tax scheme that was to benefit the Trump Organization, during the civil fraud trial, during this new perjury, during that whole time, he is getting money and still on the payroll of the Trump Organization. That is not normal. I spent my career doing white collar cases involving organizations and how they deal with employees who are committing crimes on their watch. This is what you don't do. Oh, let's just continue paying you because we want to essentially give you hush money. So it's going to say, right.

Why do we think he keeps falling on his sword for Donald Trump? It shouldn't be too surprising, right? Because most recently, these lies were about the valuation of the triplex. Right. That was one of the major properties that featured in the most recent civil fraud trial that was overvalued by three times.

And if I were summing up in a case like this, I would say, well, I can give you 2 million reasons why he lied. Because his severance package from the Trump Organization was $2 million. And part of that agreement was that he had to continue cooperating with the Trump Organization, but not cooperate with the government. I mean, that's unheard. Yeah, that is to do that. And there was still a million dollars outstanding on that. So he was not going to jeopardize that. So he hopped on the stand, he hopped into a deposition, and has now admitted that he committed perjury. So what does this mean for the upcoming trial, though? What it means is that to the extent, I don't know, that the state really needed him and was going to call him, I doubt it. Yeah, I do, too.

You don't usually call somebody that's admitted to lying, but sometimes you do.

Well, Michael Cohen.

Exactly.

He will be. But, yeah, with Alan Weisberg, who's not professing to cooperate, I think the state probably was not thinking he's a potential witness. But it makes it really hard for Donald Trump if it was possible to call him before now. It really isn't. I do think, however, that one thing, and we'll talk a lot more about the strategy and the ins and outs of the upcoming New York case, is that the defense will point out the discrepancy in terms of how Alan Weisselberg has been treated versus Michael Cohen, because they both have a lot of baggage. They both have now admitted in different circumstances to committing perjury. And so that issue will come up. And so that will be sort of one of the many things that we're going to flag for you as we go forward. Mary, I know you and I want to sort of delve into that because it's the first upcoming trial, and that's where in some know what's great is that's going to bring us back to sort of our roots as trial lawyers and criminal trial lawyers before we went into national security and our current podcast experience.

So it'll take us back to something we're at home with.

That's right. Lots more to come on that and so many other things. And we'll see what other new things happen even before that trial starts in 20 days.

See you soon.

Bye.

If you've got questions, you can leave us a voicemail at 917-342-2934 maybe we'll play it on the pod. Or you can email us at prosecuting Trump questions@nbcuni.com thank you so much for listening. We'll be back next week with much more. This show is produced by Vicky Vergelina and Jessica Schrecker. Paul, Robert Mountie and Bob Mallory are our audio engineers. Our head of audio production is Bryson Barnes, Aisha Turner is the executive producer for MSNBC audio, and Rebecca Cutler is the senior vice president for content strategy at MSNBC. Search for prosecuting Donald Trump wherever you get your podcasts and follow the series. Hey, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why is this happening? Author and philosopher Judith Butler on their new book, who's Afraid of Gender?

The question of gender is fundamentally linked with the future of our democratic world. And we would be, I think, making a mistake by imagining that it's simply identity politics or that it's fragmenting the left or that it's an artificial notion. It is not.

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