In an unprecedented legal case, former President Trump faced a Manhattan courtroom this past week, becoming the first former president to face criminal charges. Charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records connected to alleged hush money payments to two women, Trump pleaded not guilty. In this video, we dive into the legal complexities surrounding the case with our NBC 10 legal expert, Enrique Latoison. As a criminal defense attorney and the managing partner and founder of Latoison Law, Enrique discusses the potential consequences for the former president, what to expect in the upcoming months, and how the case intersects with Trump’s 2024 Republican nomination campaign.
NBC. Ten At Issue starts now. Good morning. I’m Lauren Mayk. Welcome to NBC 10 At Issue. This is a legal case unlike any other that could have implications for a former president and the country. Former President Trump found himself in a Manhattan courtroom this past week as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination became the first former president to face criminal charges. Former President Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The felony charges are connected to his alleged role in hush money payments to two women and how they were recorded. Prosecutors allege he falsified the records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election. The former president pleaded not guilty to the charges.
These are felony crimes in New York State no matter who you are. Where are the underlying charges? The indictment actually did not list what.
These underlying charges are for analysis and some takeaways from this past week’s arraignment. Let’s bring in our NBC 10 legal expert, Enrique L1 Latoison. He’s a criminal defense attorney and the managing partner and founder of Latoison Law. Thank you so much for joining us. Yes. So let’s talk about what happens now. We are not going to see another hearing until December. That’s when it’s scheduled for. But what happens between now and then?
Okay, well, I will tell you. The defense attorneys in this case, you heard them speaking to the news. They were talking about how the indictment and the information that came out kind of lacked a huge portion of information they were actually looking for. So Mr. Trump is indicted on what would be misdemeanors. So falsifying business record is the underlying charge here in New York. And that is basically falsifying business records. And basically what they were saying is that there was a scheme created to do some payoffs to at least two women to kind of hide some affairs there. And the way that mechanism was done and paying off those women, instead of Donald Trump saying, hey, here’s a check directly to the women, it kind of went towards the lawyer and the lawyer pretended it to be legal fees. Okay, so when you look at those underlying charges, in order for them to be elevated to a felony, what had to take place was there has to be in conjunction of those underlying charges with other charges or other things.
Yes. So they’re talking about that. The underlying charges that they’re talking about are things that weren’t charged that he hasn’t been charged with, though, regarding election crimes and regarding taxes as well. In order to play this out, will the prosecutors have to prove those crimes? Will that be a part of the trial? If assuming there is one, absolutely.
Because if not, you just have a basic charge of misdemeanors outside the statute of limitations. The case will be dismissed. So you can best believe between now and December, you can believe that the attorneys for Mr. Trump will be filing motions. There’ll be a heavy motion practice in this case. They’ll be filing motions to try to get the case dismissed. They’ll be filing motions to try to get additional discovery and things of that nature. As it stands now, the prosecution still has a couple of weeks to turn over some discovery now, but you can believe that Mr. Trump’s team will be asking for more information, more discovery, and more kind of concrete information to try to defend the case as a whole.
This is all playing out during a presidential campaign. The former president is a candidate for president again, which makes any type of gag order there would be a lot of issues surrounding that. But within hours of that arraignment, former President Trump was at Mar a Lago talking about this case, calling the DA a criminal, calling the judge a Trump hating judge with a Trump hating wife. If you are the judge, how do you handle language like that?
Well, as the judge, if you cannot be impartial and you cannot stay neutral, then you have to remove yourself from the case. So sometimes you think sometimes Mr. Trump might have been saying this to try to get underneath the skin of the judge, to try to get the judge to recuse himself from the case. But when you look sometimes Trump trips over his own two feet with some of the things he does. I mean, this is the judge that’s hearing your case, and it has to make rulings, and it has to be impartial. I don’t think it’s a great idea to call the judge a criminal and talk about the judge’s wife along with he was hoping you would tell your client not to do never at all. You say good morning. You say good morning. Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. And you’ll be respectful at all times. You have to imagine his attorneys told him to do the same when he was doing this press conference. But he’s Trump, he also wanted to possibly try to get a change of venue. Once again, I don’t think you go on TV and you say, I want the venue to be changed because the voters are different in Staten Island.
That doesn’t help you when your attorneys then try to put in that motion, because once again, you’re saying too much or opening your mouth or saying things that are detrimental to your case.
So what could you foresee the judge doing about something like that? How far would you expect that the judge would let things go before there would be some sort of order or just a warning that was given? Again?
Well, I think at this point, he’s on the campaign trail. Okay. And if you were running against Donald Trump, you’re not too happy right now. Okay. Because I think before yesterday, he was kind of fading around. He was kind of out there a little bit, and the other people that were running against him or attempted to run against him, they were getting probably a little more attention, new faces.
Now he’s getting all the attention.
He’s getting all the attention. I mean, the best thing that probably happened to him was getting charged yesterday. Now everyone’s talking about Donald Trump. He is 24 hours news cycle now. And I think that a judge listening to the things he’s saying is probably going to just tune this out, because he’s going to be on the campaign trail. He’s going to be talking about it every day. He’s going to be raising money. And you do not, when you have someone running for president, want to come off as somebody trying to hamper the democratic process by stopping him or gag ordering him from speaking. It’s better just to let the democratic process play out and allow him to talk. As long as he’s not threatening anybody or he’s crossing a line, that it’s got a clear line to cross. I think him being Donald Trump should be allowed because it’s an election process in America, and he should be allowed to do that.
Enrique, thank you so much for your legal expertise in your time today. Anytime.
Contact Enrique Latoison
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