comfortable over the
extraordinary things we've seen
government do to shore up
confidence in the system.
>> Gina, thank you.
>>> And a new development in the
stormy Daniels hush money case
in Manhattan.
A witness has been asked to be
called.
Robert Costello confirmed to me
he will testify behind the
Manhattan grand jury tomorrow.
Cohen is the chief witness for
the prosecution having admitted
he made hush money payments to
Daniels and another former
playboy model in the days before
the election.
Trump denies any affair with
Daniels.
Cohen was disbarred after
pleading guilty to campaign
finance violations and other
crimes.
All right, we have tomorrow
another witness potentially
coming before the grand jury,
and this witness is supposed to
speak to Michael Cohen's
credibility or lack thereof.
How unusual is this?
>> Well, it is very odd for a
number of reasons.
It sounds like he's going to be
a surrogate for trump
testifying.
In New York they invite someone
who is possibly or likely to be
indicted to have a chance to
make a pitch to the grand jury.
Trump apparently is not going to
do that, which is wise.
I guess this is the substitute.
What's particularly odd about it
is he had at one point spoken
with Cohen and he said he was
not formally retained by him.
He also told "The New York
Times" that Cohen had waived
attorney/client privilege.
It's a very dicey ethical
situation, if he gave Cohen any
confidential legal advice, and
as a lawyer you can't use
confidential information to do
something adverse for your
client.
He is going into to try to be
adverse to him.
>> The prosecutor is running the
show.
How unusual is it to grant a
request to bring somebody in?
>> That's not necessarily
unusual.
If you're a prosecutor, if I
thought something was way out in
left field, not very relevant, I
wouldn't want to muddy up the
grand jury's analysis here.
Here, however, it actually works
to their advantage because
Costello is undercutting his
utility later.
He's going to be locked in now.
They're going to know the best
he has to offer to help trump.
It's really a poor move by
trump's team.
The chances of him derailing an
indictment right now are very
low.
I wouldn't even put him in.
>> I was told the D.A. Didn't
want to resist this request for
optic reasons.
If they refused to put a defense
witness on, that would become
the whole thing.
Ultimately it's up to the grand
jury whether they want to hear
from this person.
Do you think they'll want to
hear from Costello?
>> I think they will.
The prosecutor could tell them
we think this will be valuable
and I I don't think they'll Jove
ride that.
>> And Michael Cohen said he's
and his attorney Lanny Davis
will be in court and potential
rebuttal witnesses.
So he that's odd, too.
I don't think the prosecutors
should put him in by a rebuttal
witness.
Second of all, unless they pr
trump will have to listen to
that to try to rebut it.
And there's a question whether
they can do that, having him
hear another witness.
It's not the normal practice
that you would have in the grand
jury, this kind of witness
versus witness scenario.
It's not really a good strategic
thing for them do, which brings
me to my concern, it might be a
little too quick in terms of
Bragg having decided to move
from zero to 60.
With his office now trying to
suddenly push it forward, haste
can make waste.
>> Yeah, there are a lot of
questions right now that we
really haven't answered in our
reporting about why we're seeing
this uptick now.
If there is an indictment and
that's still an if, what kind of
charges do you expect would be
brought?
>> Most likely they're going to
start with this falsifying of
business records for booking
this as a legal retainer that
all by itself, just falsifying,
is a misdemeanor unthe New York
laws.
If they can tie it to concealing
another felony, a New York state
election crime or perhaps trying
to piggyback it on to the
federal violation, that bumps up
the falsifying to a felony
charge.
Then the unknown here is if
Bragg is actually revisiting the
many financial crimes that are
worked up which he charged the
organization with, it's
theoretically possible to open
that at this point.
It would be related to this.
It's a business record.
That would be bad news for trump
because then he'd be looking at
tax fraud, banking fraud, a lot
more charges.
Unlike live only because it
seems we haven't gotten wind of
that.
But it's possible.
>> That is.
>> And just compared to all the
other legal investigations that
the former president is facing,
how does this one stack up?
>> This one is probably the
least threatening in terms of
the jail time.
It's also a little bit
challenging because it's older
and Cohen is a cooperating
witness, he could have some
baggage.
I don't think it's so much
baggage that he wouldn't have
been affected by the baggage, he
will be.
It would have been low on the
radar.
The January 6th classified