Trump Won't Appear Before Grand Jury Because He Knows He's Screwed

Donald Trump has decided that he will NOT be complying with an invitation to appear before a Manhattan grand jury in the Stormy Daniels probe, a move that could signal the former President understands there's not much he can do about it. And while his tone about the investigation shifted over the weekend, his lawyers know that keeping him away from the jury is probably for the best for all parties involved. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

After lengthy discussions with his lawyers over this past weekend, on Monday, Donald Trump announced, well, his team announced, I guess, that he would not be accepting the invitation from the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, to appear and talk to his grand jury. So that's that, right? Donald Trump says, Nope, I'm not gonna come talk. But you know, who did talk on Monday? Two very important people came and spoke to that grand jury, and one of them actually spoke to the Daily Beast after her testimony, where she kind of gave up a lot of information that is gonna be real bad for Donald Trump. Here's what happened. Uh, first and foremost, obviously Michael Cohen Trump's former lawyer slash Fixer, the guy that went to jail for the Stormy Daniels payment that Trump is now really being, uh, uh, investigated for. He testified, so I'm sure he didn't have anything nice to say.

But the other one, kind of a surprise witness here was Alan Weisselberg, the Trump Organization CFO o his former daughter-in-law. Oh, and she talked, as I said, after she testified in front of the grand jury, she did speak to the Daily Beast. And according to those reports, they pointed out the fact that, uh, Alvin Bragg might be looking for more than just the Stormy Daniels payment. I mean, after all, you know, this is Weisberg's former daughter-in-law. He, she was his daughter-in-law at the time. So why would, why would a Weisselberg associate, you know, his daughter-in-law have any information about the Stormy Daniels thing? Well, according to the former daughter-in-law, it's because the questioning was more about the financial records with the Trump organization. Sure, it was the records pertaining to Stormy Daniels, but not only pertaining to Stormy Daniels. Now, the reason that is important, the reason I am talking about this is because a couple days ago when this news first came out, I did a segment right here.

I talked to you about the fact that in order to charge Donald Trump with anything more than a misdemeanor, they would have to prove that the Stormy Daniels coverup payment was somehow connected to a second crime under New York law. I know it's weird and stupid and complicated, but basically the Stormy Daniels thing would be a misdemeanor for Trump, unless they can tie it to the furtherance of a second crime, in which case Alvin Bragg can charge him with a felony. Based on the information that Weisberg's former daughter-in-law gave to the Daily Beast, it seems like they're looking at a lot more records than just the falsified ones, allegedly falsified ones with the Stormy Daniels payment. That's

Massive. Now, unfortunately, we don't have more than that to go on. Obviously, what happened with that grand jury, it's all closed doors. So we don't know any of the info. We can only go off what the witnesses are allowed to say. So, as much as Weisberg's daughter-in-law told us, there's a lot more that she's not allowed to tell us. But I would be willing to bet at this point that Weisselberg is not just trying to go after Trump for a misdemeanor. He knows how the law works. He knows what else he has to do to hit him with a felony charge. And based on what Weisberg's former daughter-in-law told us, it seems like that is what he is working towards. Now, as I said the other day, I'll believe it when I see it. I am not gonna hold my breath, but I'm a little bit more optimistic today than I was just a couple days ago.