Trial reminding voters Trump is 'someone who is truly corrupt': Democratic lawmaker
Donald Trump's hush money trial should have reminded voters by now that he "simply doesn't care about the law," according to a Democratic lawmaker who served as lead counsel in the ex-president's first impeachment.
Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's testimony linked the former president directly to a scheme to pay off adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent voters in the 2016 election from learning about their alleged sexual relationship – which prosecutors say was part of a conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.
"He has testified inconsistently on the stand, so he is either lying one time or the other," Goldman said, referring to Cohen's past false statements in his congressional testimony. "He will be really skewered on cross-examination. In order to use him effectively, they'll rely heavily on the recording where he is corroborated about what he says about [Playboy model] Karen McDougal, and they're going to rely very much on the consistent statements that he made with all of the other witnesses."
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"It remains to be seen today on cross-examination whether he can hold up and accept responsibility for lying on the stand before or lying to Congress," Goldman continued. "He will say, of course, 'Yes, I lied, and I did that for Donald Trump, your client,' and that'll be effective. The technical defenses or the technical aspects of the case do remain to be seen, but I think the critical thing here that they are really showing over and over and over, both for this trial and just generally, is that Donald Trump just doesn't care about election law. He doesn't care about campaign finance law. He welcomed Russian interference in 2016. He tried to hide the Stormy Daniels stuff because it came right on the heels of the 'Access Hollywood' [tape], and he thought he was done, everyone thought he was done."
"They're doing a very effective job of showing that this man just simply doesn't care about the law," Goldman added.
Trump's corruption is continuing into his 2024 re-election campaign, Goldman said, pointing to recent reports that he solicited $1 billion in campaign donations at a gathering of oil executives whom he promised to give anything they requested in exchange.
"This is somebody who is clearly just flouting the law," Goldman said. "I mean, look what happened last week with the report about how he is offering, effectively, to use his official power as president to help oil companies if they donate $1 billion to his campaign. I mean, that is just outright corruption that he is promising on the campaign trail. It kind of gets back-page news. This is someone who is truly corrupt."
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