Joining us now is
former White House
ethics lawyer
Richard Painter
and CNN law enforcement
analyst and former Secret Service agent
Jonathan Wackrow.
Richard, I just want to start with you,
counselor here,
because Paula was talking about this,
what we're seeing or not seeing,
but know about it, the grand jury today
feels unusual
because a grand jury investigation
by definition
is run
by the prosecutors and defense lawyers,
not even in the room.
So how will the questioning
of Robert Costello even go today?
Well,
we don't know what's going to happen
and what
he's going to say to the grand jury.
This investigation
has been going on for years.
I submitted a amicus brief to the U.S.
Supreme Court
to allow the subpoenas to go forward
from the Manhattan
district attorney's office.
And we don't know what's going to happen
with the grand jury,
but we should keep in mind
that Michael Cohen
was charged and convicted
and was guilty in connection
with the payoffs
to Stormy Daniels
on behalf of individual No.
One.
Well, that means that it's highly unusual
for individual No.
One, not also to be indicted.
So expect that to happen sometime soon.
I will play out.
I'm not sure
I didn't
stick with you for one more,
Richard, as we look at all of this
and everybody's trying to read
the tea leaves here, right.
Trying to figure out
what's going to happen.
Part of
that is because of what
the former president
put out over the weekend
saying that this was going to happen,
as Paula said, his own attorneys
refuting that
But the fact that
this narrative is now out there,
what does that do?
How does that weigh on prosecutors
at this point?
How does that inform any decisions
if at all, knowing what could be coming
in terms of a reaction?
The Donald Trump is
going to try to play this
to rev up his base and cause unrest.
But the prosecutors
should continue to do their job.
That's what prosecutors are there for.
The problem is that the much more serious
charges are in their hands,
that the Department of Justice,
the charges for sedition and insurrection
in connection with the events
after the 2020 election.
And unfortunately, we have a situation
where the
district attorneys,
both in New York
and in Fulton County,
Georgia, are far ahead
of the Department of Justice,
or at least appear to be far ahead
of the Department of Justice
in their investigations.
Empanel and grand jury
and moving toward indictments
without DOJ having taken action
on the most serious charges.
The sedition
and insurrection
charges would disqualify
Donald Trump from public office.
Under the 14th Amendment, Section three.
Those really should be
the first charges to be brought.
They should have been brought
a long time ago.
It's been over two years
since the insurrection on January six.
And unfortunately, without air
support from the
Department of Justice,
the district attorneys
are going to be subjected
to very vicious attacks from Donald Trump
and his supporters,
which I believe could feed into
more civil unrest.
It's a very,
very precarious situation right now.
Jonathan,
I want to bring you into this discussion,
because talk about unprecedented here,
the possibility and again,
we don't know if it's going to happen,
but the possibility of a former president
being arrested raises
all kinds of security concerns
and processes we just never seen before.
Yes.
You know,
Trump called for protests
over the weekend.
There's that
and I'm sure the security concerns there.
What should we be looking for
and how will this even work?
Which different agencies from the state,
from the city,
from the federal government
might be involved with this? Yeah,
John, great question.
And listen, there's a lot of uncertainty.
We don't have a line of sight
of exactly
what the prosecutors are doing right now.
But we do have a line of sight of what
law enforcement is doing.
And what they're doing
is, you know,
with the backdrop of actions
from January six,
they're being hyper coordinated
around their efforts
and those efforts are across
multiple law enforcement
entities, both at the state, local
and federal level.
But what's really interesting,
John, is that the roles
and responsibilities
around all of the different law
enforcement entities that are involved
are different.
They have a different remit
on how they're addressing this issue.
Let me just quickly walk you through
what we're what we're looking
at, the NYPD, right.
They are
in charge of maintaining civil order.
So what they're going to do
is they're going to be focused
on the area around the courthouse.
But also New York City at large. Right.
There are multiple areas
where protests could could spark
at a moment's notice.
And remember, NYPD has a dual role here.
Protests are individuals.
Protesters are individuals
who are exercising
their First Amendment rights
and they need to be protected
in the execution of those rights.
But NYPD is also keenly aware
of any type of violent activity
that may stem from these protests.
So they have a dual remit there
on maintaining that civil order
and protecting protesters.
New York
state court officers,
they are the ones that are
going to be protecting the courthouse,
the physical building itself, again,
from any type of activity.
The FBI there involved. Why?
Because they're monitoring
for any types
of violations of federal law
by any of these protesters.
They're looking for acts
of potential domestic
violence by extremists.
So they're involved.
Now, you have the Secret Service,
the Secret Service
playing an interesting role.
Usually we see the Secret Service
as a coordinating entity.
They're the ones that usually
come up
with these security plans for rallies and
speeches in
any type of political events surrounding,
you know,
either a sitting or former president.
But in this case, they're not
they are in a protective mode.
They are viewing this
as really an administrative movement
where they have to protect Donald Trump
from point a to point B,
let him do his business
before the court and leave.
They are not playing that active role
that we typically see them in.
They're not providing the magnetometers
at the at the courthouse.
They're not providing
the perimeter security
that we typically see.
Now, are they
are they working
with law enforcement partners?
The answer is yes.
They're going to be informed.
But they are not the controlling entity,
which is something rare
that we typically don't see
the Secret Service engage with.
Jonathan, real quickly,
how much, if at all,
have the events of January six?
What we saw unfold there influenced
the preparations that are likely
underway at this point?
This is they're heavily weighted.
Right.
And I think that you've seen
from January six
across
a whole
variety of different types of events
Neal, both in New York, Washington, D.C.,
but across the nation,
law enforcement is is heavily
reliant upon information sharing,
intelligence and preparedness
they have to be
they have to plan
for every type of eventuality,
you know,
especially in a city
like New York, where, you know,
there are multiple locations
where in incidents could occur,
sparked by and fueled by,
you know,
social media posts from a whole variety
of of of entities.
So law enforcement has to be prepared
they have to be coordinated.
They have to have those
contingency plans in place.
Hopefully, they never have to use it.
Hopefully,
you know, the calls for peaceful
protest are adhered to
and all of that preparation
is is really going to be unnecessary.
But should it be necessary,
the NYPD, federal
law enforcement entities,
they are prepared to react
Jonathan Wackrow, Richard Painter,
really appreciate
both joining us this morning. Thank you.
Help me understand
what's going on today, because I,
I don't think
I've seen something
quite like this before
where you have a grand
jury investigation
and the person being investigated
is allowed to basically ask
for a witness at the end here.
How is this going to work?
Who's going to ask Costello questions?
What's going to happen?
John, thanks for having me back.
What's going to happen
today is the exercise of Donald Trump's
rights there.
Very broad under New York law,
unusually so.
That's why Donald Trump himself
was invited to the grand jury but instead
he's sending in a proxy
in the form of attorney Robert Costello.
Now, remember, Mr.
Costello represented Michael Cohen
and he was criticized
in the report of special counsel
Robert Mueller for what to me tiptoed up
to the line of witness
tampering at one point, telling
Michael Cohen
he has powerful friends,
obviously referring to the president,
and he should sleep well tonight
before he cooperated
Trump and Trump world
turned on Cohen, of course,
when he did cooperate.
Costello's lawyer
relationship ended with Cohen.
Now Costello is going to come in
and share information
from that attorney client relationship,
apparently saying that Cohen
was telling a different story
before he cooperated.
But John we know that already.
Cohen has admitted to that.
So they'll bring in
Cohen, possibly if Costello
needs to be rebutted.
To say yes, I wasn't candid before.
I've cooperated. I've been candid since.
I've analyzed
Cohen's statements
since he began cooperating
and they have been rock solid.
He's told the same account
about the president's hush money
to influence the 2016 election.