Trump’s protection stumbles out of the gate with interruptions to opening commentary

Uh Trump's lawyer defense councel DOD Todd blanch was in the middle of his opening statements today when something unusual happened Todd blanch Trump defense Council quote Michael Cohen paying Stormy Daniels or Stephanie Clifford $130,000 in exchange for her agreeing to not publicly spread false false claims about President Trump is.

Not illegal I'm going to say that again entering into a non-disclosure agreement prosecutor objection judge sustained Mr blanch entering into a non-disclosure agreement is perfectly legal prosecution objection the judge overruled Mr blanch then continues on for a moment then it happens again pretty much right away Todd blanch When.

Miss Daniels threatened to go public with her false claim of a sexual encounter with President Trump back in 2008 that it was as the people just said very close to the election and it was almost an attempt by Ms Clifford Ms Daniels to extort president Trump prosecutor objection judge sustained blanch then tries to keep.

Going but then a moment later Mr blanch again entering into an agreement with another individual you'll hear this agreement was negotiated by lawyers prosecutor objection and now at this point judge Maran does not even rule on the objection he doesn't say sustained doesn't say overruled he instead calls lawyers from both sides up to the bench.

Please approach the lawyers and the judge then confer and then the judge rules judge judge the objection is sustained so then Mr blanch T lawyer moves on to another topic but he makes it just three further pages into the trans group when the whole thing starts all over again this time it's over a.

Mention of Michael Cohen Todd blanch Trump's defense Council quote separately from his obsession with President Trump and his obsession to get president Trump on multiple occasions Michael Cohen has testified under oath and lied prosecutor objection judge sustained blanch he walked he he's walked into a courtroom very near here.

Raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth and now he will tell you I expect that he was lying prosecutor objection judge sustained then for a second time the judge calls up the lawyers for both sides to the bench to the bench Council please approach and a second time he upholds the objection judge Maran the.

Objection is sustained now I was in the court when this string of objections happened in the middle of Trump's team's opening statements both sides getting repeatedly hauled up before the judge the reporter excuse me the lawyer having to restart what he was saying try to find his momentum again pick back up to me as a.

Lay person it seemed dramatic and strange but I want to ask our lawyers here how rare is it for objections to be made during opening statements how rare is it for the judge to interrupt opening statements with multiple directions to the lawyers including the one making the opening statement that they got to come up to the bench and talk to the judge.

Why were these objections made what does this tell us about the trial and about the defense that Trump's lawyer is trying to make luckily joining us now is Lisa Rubin who was at the courthouse today in the Overflow room Lisa um I understand that part of your sacrifice today was allowing me to be in the courtroom in a seat that you might.

Otherwise have had your butt in so I owe you and sacrifice I'm very grateful and I hereby bequeath back to you your teat thank you I think well you actually in some ways in the over overflow room might have had a slightly better view of this than I did sitting at the back of the courtroom watching it sort of down the aisle what was happening there and.

How weird was it so it was weird not just because there was one objection but because of how many there were relative to the brevity of Todd Ban's opening statement let's start with the fact that Todd blanch was an experienced prosecutor in the southern district of New York but what he's not is an experienced defense lawyer we learned.

Today from New York Magazine something that confirms something that I suspected which is that Todd blanch has tried exactly one trial as defense Council in the last decade and on a fairly narrow issue and if you were just in that courtroom you probably would have expected as much because his flow was interrupted so many times by these.

Frequent objections and the sidebars now that having been said Rachel I think a number of the things that he did today were perfectly intentional because while they were objected to and the objections were sustained he still planted the seeds of doubt in the juror's minds and in particular for example when he said that Stormy Daniels made Donald Trump a.

Victim of extortion that was immediately objected to and sustained because that among other things is legal conclusion there was no prosecution for example of Stormy Daniels for extorting Donald Trump and he would have known in advance that the judge was not going to allow him to get away with saying that I think that's probably right but there are.

Other objections where he definitely knew and I think the place where he definitely knew was when he talked about what I'll call the diet advice of council defense where he essentially said Trump believed that these non-disclosure agreements were totally kosher because he had attorneys negotiating them for him that's an issue.

That's already litigated as part of the party's motions in lemon which are the advanced arguments about which evidence can and can't come in Todd blanch knew when he walked in the courtroom this morning that that was not going to be an argument allowed because he was trying to use the attorney client privilege as a sword and a shield essentially saying.

My client relied on lawyer's advice but we're not going to tell you what that advice was and just like judge Kaplan did in the S bankman freed case in fact judge Maron cited that ruling in making his own I'm not going to let your client do that there is no ad of council light and yet that's where blanch still went um I'm going to give an instruction now.

That nobody knows is coming and I know it's going to make everybody move around but I'd like to talk to Katherine Christian if I could um she's on the other side of the room and lots of cameras have to move I realize in order to make this possible hi Katherine thank you um you have experience in the New York attor New York District Attorney's.

Office um the the what what Lisa is describing here about um about Mr blanche's relative and experience doing this kind of lawyering and this kind of case uh is one piece of perspective here another piece of perspective here is what's normal in a New York da uh criminal proceeding like this when these interruptions these objections happened.

During the opening uh statements here from the defense how did that strike you It's Not Unusual Andrew and I will probably have a different experience New York state court is not as dainty as federal court so it's not shocking and defense attorneys some of them Pride themselves on stepping on the line so you know I had object when I was a.

Prosecutor because they stepped on the line and as Lisa said oh oopsie the jury heard what he said so it's in their head so this I can't say it happens all the time but it's not shocking I rarely objected as a prosecutor because I didn't want the jury to think that I was trying to hide something from them or I was afraid here I would have objected.

Because he was clearly saying things he shouldn't have and the judge already ruled against but it's not Shock at least not in the world of 100 cent the street in New York County and C let me ask you about something Katie Fang said earlier where she said that you know in the minds of the jury uh Mr blanch might have not done himself favors with all of.

Those um those statements being objected to today and all those interruptions because the jury might have thought even if those seeds were planted in their minds by things he wasn't supposed to say that he nevertheless had them here they at least would think that he was doing something wrong by being essentially sort of minis sanctioned by.

The judge and in that way and and interrupted in his flow no and the judge instruct the jury about objections and not to take them against the the the defense attorney or the prosecutor I have heard acquitting juries talk about how they liked how that defense attorney really fought for their client so I don't think you could read into oh it's.

Sustained the jury's going to think very bad I think as as Lisa just said there was a tactic he knew that these were objectional things he were saying and they were objected to but it already you can't unring the Bell is what you usually say it came out to the jury and prosecutors cannot appeal and AC quiddle hey everyone MSNBC has a new and.

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