With less than three weeks until trial for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's hush money case against Donald Trump, the former president's attorneys are inching to disqualify Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen from testimony.
Bragg charged the MAGA hopeful with 34 counts of falsified business records reimbursements made to Cohen, who distributed hush money payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump. If the ex-president is found guilty on any of Bragg's charges against him, he would not be able to pardon himself if elected in November.
According to CNN, Trump lawyers in a Wednesday, March 6 filing "claimed that the Democratic district attorney has crafted 'a fanciful and elaborate narrative that does not exist,' by connecting the charges against Trump for falsified business records with an attempt to influence the 2016 election."
READ MORE: Trump lawyer threatens Alvin Bragg with 'serious' consequences if Michael Cohen testifies
During the latest episode of MSNBC's Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace spoke with legal correspondent Lisa Rubin about Team Trump's filing.
"Nicolle, this reflects utter nervousness in the former president's camp about Michael Cohen," Rubin said.
"They should be," Wallace emphasized.
"Yes. And they accuse him of being a biased witness with political animus animus," Rubin continued. That's all, as [former FBI general counsel and legal analyst] Andrew [Weissmann] can tell you better than anyone, something that they can explore on cross-examination. Their efforts to get him out of the case entirely and also to prevent any testimony or evidence about Cohen's guilty plea to federal election crimes belies how deeply afraid they are of Cohen as the central witness in this case. They tried to characterize him as a central witness in the New York attorney general's civil fraud case. He actually really wasn't. That was a documents case, and Cohen was a minor player. In this one? He's the big kahuna."
READ MORE: Trump lawyers raise hell to try to stop gag order in hush money case
"And while I think there is going to be more documentary evidence, more backup testimony from people like [Chief Executive Officer] David Pecker at American Media — the folks who own the National Enquirer, about the whole scheme, Cohen is undoubtedly a central player here, and they are freaking out."
Watch the video below or at this link.
Trump team’s 'utter nervousness' over Michael Cohen apparent after latest filings: legal expert www.youtube.com