‘Can’t fathom the fist bump’: Neal Katyal slams Trump’s ‘horrible’ hush money defense

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team recently mounted a “horrendous” defense in his hush-money criminal case in Manhattan, former acting attorney general Neal Katyal told MSNBC’s Ari Melber.

The day featured testimony from Jeff McConney, the Trump Organization’s corporate controller, who detailed his role in reimbursing Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for the alleged hush-hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which prosecutors say was fraudulently were hidden from regulators — and Trump seemed to think things were going well, making a “fist pump” gesture that was captured in the courtroom sketches, but Katyal made it very clear that he was not doing well at all.

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“According to the people in the room, Trump seemed to want some degree of solidarity, or whatever a fist pump means to him,” said Melber, himself a lawyer. “Again, I try to be fair in my reporting. Even when McConney said things that were incriminating.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand what that fist pump does,” Katyal said. “I mean, McConney was really bad for Trump.”

“He said Weisselberg ordered this gross payment, that Cohen spent $180,000, plus a $60,000 bonus for him,” Katyal continued. “And the prosecutor even asked, hey, have you ever heard of an egregious act like this anywhere else? And you know, of course he said no. And the defense by Trump’s lawyer was awful. He basically said, look, payments to lawyers by the Trump Organization are legal fees, right? And then of course he replied: That’s not the problem, Ari.

“If you pay a lawyer in general, obviously that’s a legal fee, but not if you’re doing it for other things that aren’t a legal fee,” he added. “I mean, if I pay a lawyer to give me some cocaine, I can’t say, oh, it’s a legal payment and therefore it’s all nonsense. Of course not.”

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