Meet CNN’s Legal Eagles with an inside look at Trump’s trial

Trump’s hush money cover-up trial will certainly end by then, but according to CNN’s chief legal correspondent, talking about prison time greatly exaggerates the level of danger. “It is very unlikely that he will go to prison. This is the first time I have committed a crime.” Paula Reid explained in the latest episode of Vanity fair audio file Inside the beehive. “Yes, this is a felony charge, but it is falsifying business records. It is highly unlikely that he will be sentenced to prison, and even if he is, he will be subject to litigation and appeals for quite some time. So whoever says that, it’s just an exaggeration.”

Reid calls himself a “rehabilitation lawyer” and specializes in fact-checking the legal world, so here’s another problem: Trump’s conviction is far from certain. “This case depends a lot on the testimony of Mr Michael Cohen, It was a flawed witness, to put it mildly,” she said. “And it’s still unclear how the jury will view him.”

“If a jury, even just one jury, [have] reasonable doubt about Michael Cohen,” Reid added, “this is not a conviction, and I think there’s a chance you could leave a hung jury here.”

Reid is based in Washington but moved to New York during the trial. She was present almost 24/7 on CNN as the trial took place. “It takes a village,” she said, describing the challenges of covering a trial without cameras in the courtroom. CNN’s newsroom received a “stream of text messages” from reporters present in court and summarized the testimony, she explained. Then Reid and her online colleagues will have to put it into context.

That’s where her legal background helps. Reid passed the bar exam twice and worked in the prosecutor’s office in Chester County, Pennsylvania, before turning to journalism. Legal expertise helps, she said, when “talking to lawyers, talking to sources, asking good questions.”

Reid has covered Trump’s legal controversies for more than a decade, so she’s intimately familiar with the infighting and power struggles among Trump’s former lawyers. “I think the hardest thing with Trump’s legal team is there’s so much turnover,” Reid explains, but Trump’s current team in the New York hush money trial “is probably the most solid ” that he once had.

Reid has clear roots in Trump’s legal orbit. She said his defense attorney, Todd Blanche And Susan Necheles, confident about his chances, in part because “it was a strange case,” with charges of falsifying business records. “A paperwork case for a man who leaves no paper trail is a challenge,” she notes. The prosecution’s success therefore largely depends on Cohen, who underwent cross-examination on Thursday.

The parade of witnesses has progressed largely as expected over the past few weeks. Given the atmosphere of intimidation Trump is known for, Reid said, “the biggest surprise to me is that we didn’t lose more jurors.” “Being caught in his sights is extremely stressful…So I was surprised. Maybe it just speaks to the toughness of Manhattanites.”

After watching the jurors remain absorbed in the “deadly boring” accountant’s testimony, Reid concluded that they “took the risk” and “understood the gravity of what they were being given.” deliver”. She added, “I’m pretty sure you could stop any subway car in Manhattan, arrest the first 18 people — because there are 12 jurors and then you have the alternates — this would it’s them. It’s very diverse and really looks like it represents about a dozen people on the streets of Manhattan.”