PHILLIP: Would you mind telling us — I mean, tell us why you think he didn’t get due process. I mean, the proceedings, we had reporters in there. I was there for a lot of it. There was a judge and he adjudicated a lot of these questions. Why do you think he wasn’t given a fair process?
MCGRAW: Well, I think it’s a number of things. I think there, from a jury standpoint, and, again, let me be clear, I’m not a lawyer, I look at it from, in terms of what the jury was given to solve this puzzle. And I think they heard some things that were very prejudicial that had nothing to do with solving the problem of the case at hand. I think there are some things that are considered black letter law or hornbook law, that’s just really not something that is controversial at all that was violated.
I think you don’t have someone that is considered to be an accomplice in a, in a crime that has pled out or made a non-prosecution agreement and allow that information in to the jury’s awareness because it’s very prejudicial and it’s not really probative of anything that they’re asked to be problem solving or consider.
PHILLIP: Who are you referring to there? Michael Cohen? I mean, well, Dr. Phil, I don’t want to get too deep into the law here, but it is not uncommon at all for people who are accomplices to crimes, people who have taken plea deals, non-prosecute — that is not uncommon at all for those people to then testify in subsequent trials for their alleged co-conspirators. That’s kind of how a lot of these prosecutions work.
MCGRAW: Well, really, give me examples of where that has been considered appropriate.
PHILLIP: I mean, it — look, prosecutors are prosecuting organized crime all the time. And in a lot of those cases, they are relying on co-conspirators to put people who are at the higher levels of the organization behind bars. I just — I don’t understand how you can say that because someone signed a not — or, you know, was not prosecuted, signed a non-prosecution agreement, that information or their testimony cannot be presented before the jury if they were a part of the alleged scheme.
MCGRAW: Well, you’ll have to give me an example to respond to, because I just simply don’t agree with that. I think it’s not typical for juries to do this. I’ve spent most of my career —
PHILLIP: It happens in mob cases all the time. I don’t — look, Dr. Phil, I mean, I don’t understand why you would think that Michael Cohen, who is a key person in a lot of the narrative here, should not have been allowed to testify in this case, is that what you’re saying?
MCGRAW: No, that’s not what I’m saying. I said what I said. I think the fact that he made an agreement to say that he is guilty of the crime that the defendant is being tried for prejudices the jury that, hey, here’s someone that’s supposedly an accomplice that has said I’m guilty of this. That prejudices a jury about the person that’s currently on trial for the same crime.
PHILLIP: I have some quibbles with what you’re describing as the same crime. Michael Cohen was not charged with falsifying business records, that he actually did not — was not prosecuted for that crime.
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