Porn stars, felons, and spin doctors: Who will jurors believe in Trump’s case?

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

News, Government, Politics

4.0 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lanny Davis long ago established himself as the go-to operative in Washington when you’re in the middle of a PR crisis. He was famously the public face defending Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998. But today, 25 years later, he’s on the other side of a presidential sex scandal representing Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and self-described “fixer,” who went to jail for a number of offenses, including his role in paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her not telling the media her account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump. Cohen is now a central witness in the Manhattan DA’s case against Trump, one that could send the former president to jail. It’s a case that has died and been resurrected so many times that prosecutors have nicknamed it the “zombie” case. And a major obstacle that prosecutors face is whether or not jurors will believe that Cohen, who lied for Trump for over a decade, is telling the truth. On this episode of Deep Dive, host and Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza catches up with Davis at his office in Washington, D.C., to hear the story of how the Trump “zombie” case came back from the dead and why he insists jurors should believe his client. Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Lanny Davis is the lawyer and spokesperson for former Trump fixer Michael Cohen.Afra Abdullah is an associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is a producer for POLITICO audio.Alex Keeney is a senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is the executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sorry. The FBI is here now. Yes, sir. Right over there.
0:05.0	In cop movies, the oldest Hollywood cliche is a beef between two jurisdictions, usually the FBI and local detectives.
0:15.0	Like this one, from the 1988 Bruce Willis Classic Die Hard.
0:18.0	I'm Agent Johnson. This is Special Agent Johnson.
0:21.0	How you doing? No relation.
0:24.0	I'm Dwayne Robinson, LAPD. I'm in charge here. Not anymore.
0:33.0	If you want to know why former President Donald Trump is on the cusp of being indicted,
0:39.0	the place to start is understanding how the Trump case did a kind of reverse die hard,
0:46.0	jumping from the feds in the southern district of New York to the local district attorney in Manhattan.
0:52.0	And that story begins with a phone call.
0:55.0	Cyrus Van Senior was the Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter.
0:58.0	When I was in my 20s when President Carter was elected, and I got to know Mr. Van.
1:05.0	That's Lanny Davis. He's one of the attorneys from Michael Cohen, the central witness in the Manhattan DA's case against Trump.
1:13.0	So his son being the DA of New York, I called after Michael was sent to prison.
1:19.0	And I thought to myself the evidence of financial fraud was on the record in the hearings,
1:26.0	and that the Vance's office should interview Michael.
1:34.0	I'm Ryan Liza, and this is Playbook Deep Dive.
1:42.0	When Lanny Davis called side Vance, the case against Trump was dead.
1:46.0	Federal prosecutors had put Davis's client Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime lawyer and self-described fixer in jail for a number of offenses,
1:57.0	including his role in paying Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her not telling the media her account of an alleged affair with Donald Trump.
2:07.0	When they sent Cohen to prison, Federal prosecutors pointedly noted that Trump directed Cohen to make the payments to Stormy Daniels,
2:15.0	which they said violated campaign finance laws.
	...

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