Joy Reid missed a career as a litigator. Listen to how thoroughly she lays out the legal trap Trump walked into yesterday when she appeared with Lawrence O'Donnell last night.
"Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I'm not a lawyer, obviously," she said. "I certainly don't have the level of insight into this that Michael Avenatti has, although if I have a problem, I'll call. Let's apply the common sense test here to what the president and Michael Cohen want you to believe.
"They would have you believe that his attorney, by himself, took $130,000 of his own money, to pay off someone after the "Access Hollywood" tape that did not impact in any way donald trump's ability to be elected," she said.
"And right before the election, they give her money, although they believe her to be not credible. Someone they described as having zero credibility, someone you don't believe can implicate your client, that your client says he never had a relationship with. So you give this person, who had no relationship with, other than taking photos, $130,000 of your own money as the lawyer, you create an LLC to create a secret cooperation. You on your own as the lawyer create an alias for your client, you put that alias' name on the agreement. never telling your client you've done all of that, and you do it simply because you're afraid a woman will make a claim that you believe to be completely false and not provable so she can't even prove she had a relationship with him.
"What would stop any woman off the street then to walk up to Donald Trump and say, 'I too had a relationship with Donald Trump. Why weren't there hundreds of women lining up to get $130,000 in free money from Michael Cohen? The whole thing makes no sense. You don't have to have gone to law school to understand that is crazy. We as civilians pay lawyers, we hire someone like Michael Avenatti. They don't pay for our issues, we pay them. So Donald Trump didn't pay his lawyer. His lawyer paid a random woman, who all he did was take a picture with in California? This is crazy.
"So I think Donald Trump's problem is, to your point -- i think to both of your point, he never should have answered the question. because the answer to this, right, is, of course, 'I paid -- had my lawyer do this, and, of course, I meant to pay him back.' Which means they attempted to influence the election. There's no way out for Donald Trump here.
"The Mueller case on its own with the Russia stuff is tough. The Stormy Daniels case feels like an absolute vise for this president."
