Former United States Attorney Brett Tolman said that prosecutors in the Stormy Daniels case were “overplaying their hand” with the porn star Thursday.
Daniels, a porn star who also goes by Stephanie Clifford, returned to the witness stand Thursday for additional cross-examination after she testified about her alleged relationship with former President Donald Trump Tuesday in the case. Tolman said that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors did need Daniels, but that they were “overplaying their hand” by hoping Daniels would create discomfort for Trump with her testimony. (RELATED: Gregg Jarrett Lays Out How Trump Classified Docs Case Could Be ‘Dismissed’ Over Jack Smith Staging Evidence)
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“You need to prove that this payment, you know… that was wrongly, you know, fixed in the books was a payment that was supposed to be hush payments that would be utilized in order to assist in the election,” Tolman told “America’s Newsroom co-host Bill Hemmer. “You know, yes, there is that connection. But the bottom line, the prosecutors may be overplaying their hand, believed they would put Stormy Daniels in there, that it would really make Donald Trump uncomfortable, it would make him look bad and they were banking on and counting on the jury to look at that. There is no other reason why you would want to put your case at jeopardy on appeal by bringing out so much unfairly prejudicial facts to the case you are trying to prosecute other than dirty the defendant in front of the jury.”
The New York Court of Appeals ruled in a 4-3 decision that “erroneously admitted” testimony about unrelated incidents and other actions by the Harvey Weinstein trial court’s judge were “egregious errors” that required a new trial for the disgraced Hollywood mogul ten days after Trump’s trial started.
“When you put your political agenda above facts and a careful analysis of the law before pursuing a criminal case, you put yourself into a potential box,” Tolman added. “There is very limited wiggle room when it comes to what you have to prove.”
Tolman also highlighted that other cases involving Trump were facing serious issues, including cases surrounding alleged mishandling of classified documents and athe Fulton County RICO case surrounding Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election in that state.
“I used to say this: If my case got stronger the further I pursued it, then I knew I was on to something,” Tolman said. “If it began to weaken and crumble and I started to have issues and problems and here these issues are substantial. The appeal in Fulton County is directly indicating that they are concerned about the compromise, potential compromise of the DA, which is a big deal when you already have allegations of a political case at hand.” (RELATED: ‘Damn Big Deal’: CNN’s Elie Honig Says Stormy Daniels’ Responses Were ‘Disastrous’ For Alvin Bragg’s Case)
“The Mar-a-Lago case, this is a lot bigger than people realize. This is allegations of evidence tampering, of Brady violations, of other potential abuse by the prosecution so significant that the judge said I’m not going to set another trial date, we are going to get to the bottom of all of these allegations of abuse,” Tolman continued.
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