Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case is in jeopardy and even the people at CNN know it.
This week CNN anchor Erin Burnett was joined by the network’s chief legal analyst Paula Reid when the two were shocked by how “incredibly effective” the cross-examination by the attorneys for former President Donald Trump was against witness Keith Davidson.
Burnett was joined by fellow CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on Thursday when they expressed how stunned they were at how effective the attorneys were.
“We are tracking minute-by-minute updates as Trump’s defense attorney just finished cross-examining a key lawyer. Talking about Keith Davidson, he represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who were both paid to keep quiet about alleged affairs with Trump. Erin?” Blitzer said.
“And the prosecution requested a five-minute break here to decide whether they’re going to try to do re-direct examination. And Davidson’s testimony so far, some really crucial moments both on direct and in these recent moments in cross. He says these deals were crafted in the weeks before the 2016 election and he said that he never had any interaction with Trump directly,” Burnett said before being joined by CNN reporters Phil Mattingly and Paula Reid.
“So, Paula, as I said, they just asked for a five-minute break and you said this is a five-minute break where you sit down and go, OMG, we need to clean up on aisle five,” she said.
“Yes, they do. I mean, this was incredibly effective cross-examination largely because the prosecution did not themselves bring up a lot of Davidson’s other dealings. Deals that he brokered from clients – for clients who got money from, for example, Charlie Sheen or going to try to get money from Hulk Hogan in exchange for a sex tape, something where some of his interactions were monitored by the authorities,” Reid said.
“They did incredibly damaging things that raised questions about whether Davidson was indeed in the business of extortion,” she said.
“Interesting. Trump, so they’re back in, Keith Davidson’s back on the stand …,” Burnett said.
REID: This is big.
BURNETT: But Trump glanced at the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg as he walked in.
REID: So this …
BURNETT: He hasn’t been in yet, has he?
REID: This is …
BURNETT: He wasn’t there the other day when I was there.
REID: You’re exactly right. So this is fascinating, Alvin Bragg of it all. This is the district attorney who oversees this case, but he has taken a very low profile here. When we had the civil case just a few blocks away, the Attorney General of the state of New York, Letitia James, she talked to the microphones every single day, often responded to Trump on social media. Alvin Bragg is deliberately taking an extremely different approach. He is not often in the court. You never hear from him. Even in his few media appearances, he has not answered questions recently about this case.
So the fact that he’s in court today, that’s really interesting, especially because they just think they got killed on cross, so this is fascinating that he’s …
BURNETT: They got killed, so it means he’s not far away. Maybe he was in that room waiting and saying, I’m going to oversee the cleanup.
