Trump’s arrest is ‘part of the puzzle’ of other looming prosecutions: Former U.S. attorney

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney SDNY John Flannery breaks down the felony charges former President Donald Trump is facing, while highlighting the circumstances surrounding past investigations.

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DAVE BRIGGS: All right, former president Donald Trump pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts. Here to help us break down what's next is John Flannery, a former assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York. It's great to see you, sir. As you watch these historic moments unfold, just first, before we get into the legal aspects, your reaction.

JOHN FLANNERY: My reaction is we finally pivoted to reform our Republic. The trouble about Trump has been that no one has brought him to account for what he's done. So I think this is a day of celebration in the sense of, the law is being respected he so long has disrespected. Even by the arrest, even though the presumption of innocence runs at this point, someone has finally, a good old boy from the Bronx-- I'm originally from the Bronx-- has brought a case against him. And I think it's a strong case. I hear what some people say, but the statute is pretty straightforward.

And I don't know if the picture you had earlier on the screen was today, but he looks pretty downtrodden there. He has two speeds. One is, "I'm king, get out of my way," and the other is, "I'm a victim." And I got the feeling that he's going to play the victim until he can get to his people at 8 o'clock tonight and then maybe say the things that may or may not have set the court, depending on how bombastic and implicitly or expressly threatening he is.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, John, the pictures that we are showing are from today. You mentioned the fact that you do think they have a strong case. Is it going to be hard at all to prove? What does that roadmap look like?

JOHN FLANNERY: Well, I don't think so. Let me-- bear with me as a lawyer for a moment who relies on the language of statutes taught in legal method in first year at Columbia Law, that we always read the statute. And it's very simple. It says a persons guilty of falsifying business records in the second degree when, with intent to defraud, he makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise. That's the false statements of what the money was for that Trump channeled to Cohen for what money Cohen had advanced in the Stormy Daniels matter. OK, so that's part one.

What makes it a felony? What makes it a felony is if, in addition, his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof. So that's pretty straightforward English. Now, when people do bribes, not everybody does what Jefferson did. I don't even remember-- I'm talking about Congressman Jefferson from Louisiana. He hid his money, $90,000, in a freezer, so they're talking about cold cash. But he also had people pay him with false names, that he was of counsel, this was for consulting, things like that.

So it goes back to time immemorial that the way people conceal bribes and monies they don't want is they label them as something legitimate, but they have no corresponding reality to what they're labeled for. And in this case, the sequence, the timeline of Cohen doing what he did, and finally getting, when Trump was president, those payments in that large handwriting that Trump refers. So that's the case.

Now, I've said it in a pretty short period of time. And they're going to prove it in several ways. And it helps that they have Cohen. But I've heard now reported that there's also a conspiracy charge. There's a conspiracy charge so they can take the statements of Cohen, say it's not hearsay because it's in pursuit of a conspiracy, this effort to defraud, and then, what Cohen says, even when Trump is not present, is described to him. The same is true of Pecker, what he says and other people, I'm sure.

So the combination of the conspiracy, the scheme to defraud, and this structure that I've just described in the statutes. I think that's how you do this case. And--

DAVE BRIGGS: John--

JOHN FLANNERY: Yeah, go ahead.

DAVE BRIGGS: --the American public is going to have-- it's a tall burden for Alvin Bragg because the American public is going to say what is possibly new here? You've had this case for years now. Why now?

JOHN FLANNERY: I think that's a good question, Dave, and I hear it. And I think there's been a lot of misrepresentations to the people about how we got to here. That is, how Bragg is doing this. And the answer to that is when the Manhattan DA was thinking of going forward with the case of Cohen, no less than the Justice Department and the Southern District said no, no, don't do that. We don't want you to do that.

But there's another factor. Barr, when Attorney General, sat on the head of the US Attorney Berman and didn't want him to mention Trump at all, including in the Cohen indictment that did mention a person who is involved in it. And when Berman appeared to be prepared to push forward, he was thrown out the door and fired. And Berman has written about it in his book. So this was the charge that was not permitted by the Trump Barr Justice-- so-called Justice Department. And now we have Bragg taking a legitimate case and saying, OK, now let's see what happened.

And there are three parts of this case. One is the sex problem. Two is the kind of fraud that Trump is familiar with. And the third is to mess up an election, to conceal the fact that when he had that scene, gotcha scene, well, that this is part of that puzzle. So it makes sense.

DAVE BRIGGS: But on that, as per the election, John, in terms of its importance, this against what potentially may have happened in Georgia, what may have happened in inciting an insurrection on January 6 at our nation's Capitol, their level of importance to you in comparison. And again, this might play out a year from now at a trial against the backdrop of GOP primaries.

JOHN FLANNERY: I hear you. And it's a fair public policy question. But consider the fact how long do we wait for these other people to wake up and prosecute? Garland is-- he just sits up there inert. And I'm hoping that Jack Smith changes that, but Garland still has the last word on what he does. We have the prosecutor down in Georgia. She's headed to a grand jury that couldn't indict a whole year past. She said that prosecution was imminent, and there's still not a prosecution.

So this is the problem that we have. We have to take the cases as we find them. And I pictured and criticism those members of the prosecution team up and down the East Coast in this way. I say that it's sort of like a whole bunch of us youngsters standing by the side of a pool, and no one jumps in. Well, Bragg has jumped in, and I think that's important because I think that can make a difference for the others to find the courage to do what they should have done months and years ago.

SEANA SMITH: John Flannery, great to get your perspective. And we, of course, will continue covering this story over the next couple of hours and days and months to come. Great to hear from you. Thanks so much.