Trump Loses First Major Legal Battle After Being Indicted

Donald Trump is already off to a horrible start with his forthcoming federal trial, and he lost his first major battle during his arraignment on Tuesday. The judge told Trump that he is NOT allowed to have communication with any potential witnesses, and when Trump's lawyers asked for exceptions, the judge emphatically told them absolutely not. This may seem like a small victory, but it will have a huge impact on the case and it told us a lot about who is working for the feds against Trump. Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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

Well, folks, as we all know, this was a big week for Donald Trump. It was his second official arraignment. So we now have a former president of the United States that's been indicted on 34 counts in Manhattan and 37 federal counts in this state of Florida. So a grand total of 71 counts. But hey, does that mean that Donald Trump is really not doing well in court? Yes, actually, because on Tuesday during Donald Trump's arraignment, his lawyers made a very specific request to the magistrate judge, uh, judge Jonathan Goodman, John Goodman, I guess, um, judge Goodman, they asked him specifically, can you kinda lighten the rules that you've laid out for Donald Trump because you specifically say he's not allowed to talk to any of the other witnesses in the case. But as you know, some of the witnesses still work for him. So it may be kinda hard for him to not talk about the case with these people.

That was the very first request that Donald Trump's lawyers made after he was officially arraigned and indicted. And Judge Goodman said, no, no, I'm not gonna lighten the rules. No, I'm not gonna give into your request. I don't care if they're working for him. He's not allowed to do it. But then things went a little further and Judge Goodman may have revealed something, but actually Donald Trump's lawyers may have revealed something. And Judge Goodman may have confirmed something that many of us have suspected, but had no hard evidence to back up because Trump's lawyer said, all right, judge, we'll listen to this. How about the fact that one of these witnesses, and this is from Trump lawyer Todd Blanch in court on Tuesday, one of these witnesses actually happens to be a lawyer who's still working for Donald Trump. He's still working on the case. You know, we, we gotta be able to talk to this guy cuz he is Trump's lawyer.

And judge said, no, no, you can't. So the judge by act of saying you can't talk about the case with this guy, pretty much confirmed that yes, that particular lawyer is in fact a witness against Donald Trump. And that is the part of the story that so many people reporting on it for some reason seemed to have missed. Like the fact that Trump's lawyers got smacked down in their first motion. Yes, it sets the tone for the whole thing, but the fact that they specifically said, listen, one of these witnesses we think is one of Trump's lawyers, he's gotta be able to talk to him and the judge by saying no confirmed that guy's a witness. And in case you're wondering that of course would be Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, the one who kept those very detailed notes that

A previous judge had ruled were not protected by attorney-client privilege because they believe those notes involved the commission of a crime. So they had to be turned over. The Justice Department had those notes, they did rely on that information as part of the indictments. So I think at this point it is safe to say that Trump's own lawyer is going to be testifying against him in this document's case. The man who was employed by Donald Trump to keep him out of this mess to begin with is now the guy that may be responsible for taking Donald Trump down in this mess. I mean, the irony is so amazing that you couldn't make this up if you tried. That's how crazy this is. And I'm loving every second of it. I love the fact that their motion failed. I love the fact that this magistrate judge, who unfortunately is not gonna be overseeing the whole thing, it will eventually go to Eileen Cannon, unfortunately. Um, but I love that that judge was able to initially smack this down, prevent the communication from Donald Trump in order that we know Trump, we know he's probably going to violate it, but that's just gonna result in more legal problems, especially if these witnesses do go to the court and say, listen, this guy won't stop trying to get information from me and then all hell's gonna break loose. This is going to be very interesting and very unpleasant for Donald Trump, and it's already off to a very bad start for him.