'The cover-up': Expert says Trump hush money case hangs on one person's testimony

Donald Trump will become next week the first former president to stand trial in a criminal court that could hang on the testimony of a former fixer with a criminal record who says he was following the boss' orders.

Legal analyst Neal Katyal spoke with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace Wednesday about the hush money case — in which Trump stands accused of falsifying business records to hide payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels — slated to head to court in New York City on Monday.

Much of that conversation focused on Michael Cohen

Wallace opened the conversation with a clip of Cohen's 2019 testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee during which he said, "I am going to jail, in part, because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment."

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Wallace admitted she'd garnered much of her legal knowledge from movies, then pulled from Cohen's comment what she felt were the key points.

"Cohen...was on the inside," Wallace said. "Cohen didn't have sex with a porn star, and he went to jail, and he wasn't running for president, and Donald Trump did."

Wallace asked Katyal to share his views on how testimony from Cohen would play out with a jury.

"[Cohen] was one of Trump's closest confidants, and he's saying Trump ordered him to do this," Katyal replied.

Katyal then predicted Trump's legal team will attack Cohen's credibility by noting he served time on felony charges

"But I think Michael Cohen is going to have the receipts," Katyal said. "I doubt it was, like, Michael Cohen's personal generosity on his own that got him to take out a home equity loan of $130,000 against his house in order to pay Stormy Daniels. I mean, there is no allegation that Cohen owed any money to Stormy Daniels or anything like that."

Katyal then urged those considering the case to look past the "lurid details" and consider the underlying accusation: that the hush money was paid in hopes it would win Trump the 2016 presidential election.

"The narrative so far has allowed the lurid sex stuff to overcome what the case is really about," Kaytal said. "The case is really about us having a set of campaign finance laws that are designed to ensure transparency. So the American public knows where money is coming from when it is flowing into an election."

Katyal predicted Cohen's testimony will go to the heart of the financial crimes Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg contends the former president committed, and Trump's lawyers will have a hard time countering it.

"Yes, the defense will try to take down his credibility, but I think it is just going to be tough," he said. "There isn't any obvious alternative explanation for what Cohen was doing, but following his boss' orders."

Wallace then noted Daniels is also expected to testify, along with a list of people whose lives will never be the same after contact with the former president.

"The criminal act is what Neal described," Wallace said. "It is the cover-up."

See the full comments from Wallace and Katyal below or at the link.

'The cover-up': Experts summarize Trump hush money case as jury selection begins www.youtube.com

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