Former Federal Prosecutor Weighs in on Stormy Daniels Testimony

TMZ

Former federal prosecutor Michael Zeldin came on "TMZ Live" Tuesday to discuss why Stormy Daniels was being allowed to get into all these alleged details about her time with Donald Trump if it isn't exactly relevant to the crime that's been alleged ... and he had an answer for us.

Transcript

00:00 (dramatic music)

00:02 - Break it down for folks at home

00:03 because I have heard a lot of people just,

00:06 comments on social media today,

00:08 who are wondering why is this relevant

00:10 to how the check was written essentially.

00:14 - Right now, what she's basically doing is saying,

00:18 it is true that I had this relationship with Donald Trump

00:22 and all of his denials are understood to be lies

00:27 and that this is relevant to his veracity,

00:32 should he take the stand as he's threatened to do?

00:37 And it also says there is an imperative here

00:41 from Donald Trump to suppress the story,

00:43 which he knew was true,

00:45 which he knew would impact his campaign

00:47 and which he was desperate to suppress

00:50 in the aftermath of the Access Hollywood.

00:52 So she fills in a lot of the perimeter stuff,

00:56 but not necessarily the core business stuff.

00:58 - This is essentially about making sure the jury believes

01:02 that there was a relationship between them?

01:04 - In part, if you think about what is it that each side

01:07 is going to try to do in closing argument?

01:09 The prosecution is trying to say,

01:12 our witnesses are credible, this event happened,

01:15 there was a motive to suppress the story

01:18 and we have the documents, the receipts to prove it.

01:21 The defense is going to say, reasonable doubt,

01:24 no one is to be believed here,

01:26 they all have motives.

01:27 So the more you can lock down the facts,

01:30 the more you can say, look, ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

01:34 if this didn't happen,

01:35 how did she know what the inside of his room looked like?

01:38 How did she have in her telephone, his security number,

01:42 his secretary's number?

01:44 How did she have all of that?

01:46 So that she is a truth teller

01:48 and that supports the whole notion

01:50 that use your common sense, this occurred,

01:54 Trump was trying to suppress it

01:55 and there should be no basis

01:57 for anything other than a conviction.

01:59 (dramatic music)

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