Watch The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights: March 31

Millions of Americans have been waiting for this day for years and there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who have been waiting for this day for decades. In the case of that smaller group of New Yorkers, they have been waiting for this day for decades because of the way Donald Trump and his father treated them in business or as tenants renting apartments from the Trump family when the Trump family was guilty of racial discrimination according to the department of justice in the 1970s in New York City, what those people have been waiting for. It is the day that Donald Trump's name would appear as a criminal defendant and as of today that name appears as a criminal defendant in exactly a piece of paper that has been made public, it is an order from the judge in the Juan Marcam case that allowed the district Attorney Alvin Bragg made the public announcement yesterday that a grand jury had indicted Donald Trump that one tears ads, including ones that do not include any specificity about the charges, that a page order from the judge bears the title of the case against the people of the state from New York.

Donald J Trump accused let's leave that image on the screen a few more seconds for the people who have been waiting for years to see those

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s in a criminal case Donald J Trump accused Donald Trump of course has been accused in court many times in civil cases and he is still a defendant in some very important civil cases, but this is the first time anyone has come to see Donald J. Trump's name as a criminal defendant thanks to his unprofessionalism and reckless disregard for the Constitution and utter stupidity from Jim Jordan, today we learned a little more about Trump's criminal case because Jim Jordan, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, continues to have his staff write letters to District Attorney Alvin Bragg, desperately pestering the DA to obtain information about what is now the prosecution of Donald Trump information that would be illegal for the district attorney to reveal we have learned official information about the charges facing Donald Trump the Manhattan district attorney's office is so large with 500 lawyers working there that the district attorney has a lawyer, that is, the chief lawyer of the district attorney's office has a lawyer Leslie B Dubeck is the general counsel of the district attorney's office, which means she is not involved in the district attorney's office. cases and has time without taking energy away from Trump's prosecutor's office. respond and in the process completely humiliate Jim Jordan and the incredibly incompetent Republican staff who write Jim Jordan's letters to him in the second sentence of her second letter to Jim Jordan written today Leslie dubeck puts in writing something important that would otherwise not be we would officially know and the important thing is a letter telling Jim Jordan that the charges filed yesterday were brought by citizens of New York who were doing their civic duty as members of a grand jury that found probable cause to indict Mr.

Trump for having committed crimes in New York when I Read that sentence today I underlined the s in crimes because it is the first time the District Attorney's office has written the

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crimes plural crimes yes, there have been multiple reports from anonymous sources that the prosecution will involve multiple charges up to 30 .but this is not an anonymous source this is not a leak of any kind this is the prosecutor's office putting in writing citing probable cause to charge Mr. Trump with having committed crimes with an s in New York how many crimes that's the next thing we're going to do waiting to find out what those crimes are, how many, we may not know the answer to how many crimes until Tuesday afternoon, when Donald Trump will be arraigned in Manhattan, where the crimes he's accused of by the grand jury will be publicly revealed even Although the official legal records in the criminal case against Donald Trump in Manhattan publicly consist of only one page, so far we have several pages written about the case and its surroundings due to deeply misguided correspondence with the Office of the District Attorney initiated by the three.

The stupa chairman in the history of the House of Representatives who once headed the committees they now chair, the leader of these three is the fascinatingly ignorant and cartoonishly fast-talking but slow-thinking Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House, James, call me Jim Jordan, the greatest. The town in Jim Jordan's Ohio district appears to be Mansfield with a population of 47,000. Jim Jordan has no idea what he's dealing with in the Manhattan district attorney's office, which has jurisdiction over only one-fifth of New York City, but that represents more than a million people. It was Leslie Dubeck who wrote the first letter in response to Jim Jordan's request that District Attorney Alvin Bragg testify before the House Judiciary Committee and she dismissed it as a ridiculous, inappropriate and unconstitutional request.

Jim Jordan's staff then wrote a seven-page response to Leslie Dubeck's letter in which they dared not renew their request that Alvin Bragg testify before their committee and would not dare ask that again, meaning Big Jim Jordan has already made his cowardly retreat from demanding to hear Alvin Bragg's testimony, which Jim Jordan knows he will never hear. So, like I said, when Jim Jordan wrote that first letter, there was nothing really threatening in it, nothing at all, it was like kids playing in a sandbox, it was a group of clowns sending a letter to some very serious people in the Manhattan District Attorney's office in His second letter to Jim Jordan and his tragically outmatched staff, Leslie Dubeck, noted that less than one percent of the District Attorney's $126 million budget is derived in any way from federal funds that Jim Jordan has been pretending that he might try to retain the government.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office, it's the city of New York, Jim, they won't miss their federal funding, but you will never have the power to take away a dime of their federal funding and you know it, but the victims of the Jim Jordan's propaganda do not know that the The victims that Jim Jordan and Donald Trump raise funds from do not know that everything they raise is a lie. Republicans are already raising money because of how hard they are on Alvin Bragg when Alvin Breg ignores every word they say. Leslie Dubeck is bashing Republicans. In her bowling letters, Leslie Dubeck noted that the Manhattan District Attorney's Office subpoena has helped the federal government secure more than $1 billion in asset forfeiture funds.

Jim Jordan on the Judiciary Committee has ensured absolutely zero zero revenue for the United States Treasury in Manhattan. District Attorney's Office One billion dollars contributed to the federal treasury by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office alone, never mind Manhattan taxpayers who pay more in revenue to the federal treasury than most red states. There are republican states that live off the wealth contributed to the federal treasury. Manhattan Taxpayers Treasury Leslie Dubeck once again renewed his invitation to meet with Jim Jordan and his staff and said we respectfully request that you provide us with a list of questions you would like to ask Attorney Bragg and describe the type of documents you believe that we could present something that was relevant to their investigation without violating New York grand jury secrecy rules or interfering with the criminal case currently before a court, as was the case with Leslie Dubeck's first offer of such a meeting at his first letter.

Jim Jordan would be absolutely right if he suspects she's inviting him into a trap. She is a trap of stupid people made by smart people. She's inviting Jim Jordan into a room full of Manhattan district attorneys taking notes on what Jim Jordan wants and exactly how he wants them to break the trap. law for him Jim Jordan and his staff will never be stupid enough to walk into a room with those people, but they may be stupid enough to continue writing their letters to Alvin Bragg and receive responses from Leslie Dubeck, who once again told him to Jim Jordan that we urge him.

To refrain from these inflammatory accusations, withdraw your demand for information and allow the criminal justice process to move forward without illegal political interference. Leslie Dubeck noted that Jim Jordan had nothing to say about Donald Trump's threat of death and destruction because Donald Trump is now impeached, she wrote. As chairman of the committee, you could use the stature of your position to denounce these attacks and urge respect for the impartiality of our justice system and the work of the impartial grand jury, but that, of course, is useless because there is now no a single Republican Speaker in the House of Representatives who has demonstrated the slightest understanding or fidelity also the oath of Congress to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and Lanny.

I've been

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ing your interviews and I've seen people wasting a lot of time. Asking you questions that I know you can't answer. I respect the limitations of what you can say, so I want to start by simply giving you this opportunity with the viewer, given what you know is the public state of knowledge about the case at this point and without a question from me because I don't think go find the secret that unlocks the things that you're suddenly going to say, you just turned Lawrence, uh, you of all people, but what I'd like you to do.

What I would like you to do is take a minute to tell the viewer what you think they should know starting Friday night before Tuesday, when they will find out all the details of these charges, but given this, the public State of the Matter right now, what you think viewers should know and what they should pay attention to. Three facts. The first fact is that prosecutors in the Southern District of New York charged Michael Cohen and made him plead guilty and sent him to jail. said this in a public presentation in December 2018. I quote an individual immediately identified as President Donald Trump ordered Michael Cohen to pay illegal hush money to him.

Cohen went to prison and served time for the man who directed him according to federal prosecutors and the Trump administration has not served time, so this case is about whether ordering someone to commit the crime makes him guilty and I think that In this case, New York law will apply, but that depends on the judge. Fact Two Michael Cohen's credibility has been attacked, I just assume that Michael Cohen has credibility problems because he pleaded guilty to several crimes, some of which involved lying, but there is an additional part of the sentence that all the experts who If you don't know anything about the facts of this case, you are speculating, don't do it.

It appears that he finished the sentence, yes, he pleaded guilty, but for crimes that federal prosecutors say were directed by Donald Trump and for the exclusive benefit of Donald Trump, and that is a fact that federal prosecutors found and the third fact It is reimbursement for that illegal hush money scheme. that Donald Trump directed was made in the Oval Office from a personal checking account of the current President of the United States Donald Trump, let me repeat that 12 or rather 11,35,000 checks were issued from a personal bank account two of the company's trust and the rest personally from Donald Trump to return the hush money that Michael Cohen illegally paid, so those are the three things that federal prosecutors have discovered, you don't have to believe me, you don't have to believe Michael Cohen. and I guess the

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thing I would say as well is that this is not about Michael Cohen's testimony, Lawrence, there are many, many documents, many, many, many, many, many, many, witnesses, emails, text messages, days , hours, months, we sit down with prosecutors and review documents that corroborate the evidence that corroborates that Donald Trump is being accused of the crime of paying illegal money to keep quiet that, as I said, Michael Cohen served time, for now we will let a jury decide if it was politically motivated or if it was about protecting this information for Melania because if you don't prove that it is that and that there is some political motivation, a jury can find you guilty.

Sorry, I took that more than once, that's correct, so in terms of evidence, are you aware of evidence beyond Michael Cohen's testimony that would indicate Donald Trump's intent in the payment to Stormy Daniels yes, evidence documentary, that is, what happens in writing? what about others? What about other testimonial evidence? Do other Witnesses corroborate yes without specifically saying that this is their answer? I will remind you of a story from the Wall Street Journal about someone named David Pecker who with Donald Trump according to the Wall Street Journal they reached an agreement to kill negative stories to help Donald Trump in the presidential campaign and on one occasion in August 2016 that was close of the elections David Pecker and Donald Trump agreed to pay one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to someone named Karen McDougallto keep her news or news value of an affair with Donald Trump that he has never denied by the way, um secret, so that story was removed thanks to Page's money, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The National Enquirer, now David Pecker, is a grand jury witness twice and the second time had nothing to do with this Costello character who did nothing, neither added nor subtracted, he just made a lot of noise, but he had nothing to do with the case that I What I am saying is that there is another witness who had conversations and exchanges with Donald Trump and according to the Wall Street Journal I am not going to reveal anything other than the Wall Street Journal report on this. David Pecker has testimony about his conversations with Donald Trump and by the way Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to that crime.

Karen McDougall accused him of the crime of illegal concealment. People forget this. Lawrence pleaded guilty to that. It was an illegal campaign donation because Karen McDougall was kept silent in August and September 2016 for the purpose of not having adverse information in the public domain about Donald Trump having an affair with Lenny Davis. He is guilty of that and did not pay the money Kelly What he did was draft the document to close the agreement between Donald Trump and David Pecker that The Wall Street Journal reports abroad.