Well, now for a moment, steps
out of Donald Trump's shadow
and into a blistering legal spotlight.
Trump's personal aide and now codefendant
pleaded not guilty to helping his boss,
the former president, hide
classified documents.
But here's a twist.
The arraignment comes
after a judge unsealed more of the Mar
a Lago search warrant affidavit,
which reveals prosecutors
have surveillance video
showing someone moved dozens of boxes
before that FBI search.
I want to bring in both CNN's
Caitlin Poland
and CNN legal
analyst Norm Eisen,
who's a former counsel
to the House Democrats
during Trump's first impeachment.
Caitlin. First to you.
Tell us what we learned
in the courtroom today.
Well, not a lot
because it was really
a very short hearing,
but it's an important hearing.
It's the hearing where, well,
not finally after a month
from the indictment
of both him and Donald Trump,
he gets to enter his not guilty plea.
He himself showed up in court
and now they're off toward a trial
where he
and Donald
Trump are both linked as co-defendants.
They both want trials.
We also know
from our reporting
that Trump's defense team
is pretty clued in
to what
Walt not as defense
team is, is doing as well.
And so now they're on this path of
when will the trial be?
Will Donald Trump, as he loves to do
in court, be able to drag this out
and at any point in time
does, while not as interests
diverge right. From Donald Trump?
That's so to that point.
Norm Eisen,
Could those interests
diverge there, thereby
putting pressure on now
to to
turn state's evidence
perhaps against it,
against the former president?
Well, Jim, having defended individuals
for more than three decades,
I would argue
their interests already are divergent.
Now to is looking potentially at decades
if convicted.
The normal thing
to do with a lower down person
in this kind of
an alleged criminal scheme is to
I would always tell my client, look,
cut a deal,
cut a deal
as early
as you can
to save yourself from that risk.
Now, that hasn't done that.
So, yes,
that pressure will continue and he,
of course, doesn't have the,
you know, the conflict,
if you want to call it that, of currently
running for president.
Now, that is not only the other
defendant does in the midst of this.
Caitlin,
we learn about surveillance video
from Mar
a Lago
showing boxes being moved
prior to the FBI search.
They don't identify who that person is,
but we have some indicators
as to who it likely is.
It's pretty clear it's
not a
because these details
arise again
in the indictment against him.
And we know that
this is the sort of thing
prosecutors are going to be showing
at trial,
the video that they would have
of not a moving
these boxes,
what prosecutors say was done
at the direction of Donald Trump.
But we get this new document
yesterday or more redacted
redactions are lifted from the document
as the documents
submitted to court before the FBI
search last August.
And actually the surveillance footage
was quite extensive.
There were four different angles
around the storage room
so they could see
who was coming and going.
They were watching this room.
You could see
they described people being seen
moving
behind a refrigerator,
which indicated they were going in
and out of the storage room.
And they see this witness.
Now, we know while not a moving 50
or so boxes out on one day
and then taking more out
and not all of those boxes come back in.
That's the reason they say to the judge,
we need to go
and search the property sooner.
And from a legal perspective,
and I don't want to minimize
the difficulties in this case
and you got to prove it and so on and
and to a jury.
But if you have video of them
moving documents,
you knew that they'd been informed
they needed to hand this stuff back.
This is taking place
before the search, etc..
I mean,
it sounds like they have
a lot of pieces of the case
together here.
This may be the single strongest
of all of the cases
that have been brought or that are
potentially on the horizon.
You just have such damning evidence
that's laid out
in the indictment as Caitlin points out.
Now we have even more
because of the
lifting of the additional redactions
out of the materials supporting
the search warrant.
You know, to
to the narrower question,
it makes you wonder
why deals never get better over time.
Jim why wouldn't
he want
to leave
the Trump train
earlier to cut a better deal?
Perhaps he's gambling
and perhaps
Donald Trump himself
gambling on a return to the White House
where the pardon power
or simply Trump
ordering the Department of Justice
stand down on this prosecution.
Is available.
It is puzzling the lock loyalty
that now, too, has shown, particularly
since it seems overwhelmingly likely
they have video evidence.
Well, it's also possible
the Justice Department
isn't interested in
offering him a plea deal
or while not a thinks
that he could take this to trial and win.
I have never known in 30 years
where they would not want
to make an offer of some kind.
It's not always a sweetheart deal.
Maybe now
to ask to serve some jail time,
but even a moderate amount of jail time
is better than the high risk of decades
in jail.
And he can testify to have an insider say
yes if this
if the government proves its case.
Donald Trump ordered me to do that.
That would be devastating.
Well, that would be remarkable.
And listen.
Decades in prison.
It's quite a penalty to face normalizing.
Kelly Wallace, thanks so much.
It's going to be an interesting next few.