Lawrence O’Donnell Analyzes ‘Really Unusual’ Day in Court as Trump’s Defense Rests Their Case | Video

Lawrence O’Donnell analyzed day 20 of Donald Trump’s hush money trial from the Manhattan courthouse as the former president’s defense team rested their case.

During his Tuesday live shot for MSNBC, the pundit detailed the abnormally large presence of court officers, witness Robert Costello’s seemingly combative exchange with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and much more.

“Well, this morning began in a really unusual way. Yesterday, of course, had that explosive situation where the judge ordered the courtroom cleared,” O’Donnell began. “‘Clear the courtroom,’ are words most people working in the courthouse have never heard in their lives. That’s how rare it is. I asked a retired judge who was actually in the courtroom yesterday observing, how many times he had to clear the courtroom in his career, and his answer was — as I expected — zero.”

Merchan removed everyone from the courtroom after butting heads with Costello on Monday. O’Donnell said he spoke to court officers who also said they’d never cleared a courtroom before.

The journalist then got into the nitty gritty of what went down inside the courtroom on Tuesday, starting from the very beginning.

“There was a massive presence of court officers in the room. There are usually five to seven court officers standing around the room as a protective measure for a former president of the United States,” O’Donnell explained. “You would not have that many in a normal trial that did not include a defendant like this. Today, that show of force by the court officers was at least doubled. Many of the high-ranking officers were there … it was a stunning sight.”

He went on to say that some of the officers left as the trial progressed, but noted that them being there might have confused jurors.

As far as testimonies go, O’Donnell — who sat two rows behind Donald Trump Jr. — said this was the prosecution’s moment to cross-examine Trump witness Costello “in a way that he clearly was not ready for.”

“Yesterday, one of [Costello’s] signature lines was, ‘The email speaks for itself,’ when he was asked about his emails,” he rehashed. “Today, the prosecutor would read a really bad email for Robert Costello and then just say, ‘The email speaks for itself, right?’ And in this instance, Robert Costello’s answer was, ‘Sometimes,’ and he would change it up. And one of those emails was Robert Costello writing about Michael Cohen, who he was claiming was his client as a lawyer. Michael Cohen said that he was never Robert Costello’s client.”

O’Donnell continued: “But Robert Costello, in that email writing, calls Michael Cohen an a—hole. And this was a very important point to reveal because Robert Costello’s testimony was, ‘My only interest was Michael Cohen, I was only working on behalf of Michael Cohen.’ When, in fact, he has an email, in which he says about Michael Cohen, ‘What should I say to this a—hole? He’s playing with the most powerful man on the planet.’ So the prosecution’s point was, Costello’s interest was in the most powerful man on the planet, and he was there in every moment with Michael Cohen trying to protect Donald Trump.”

Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged plot to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump maintains that he is not guilty, though he did not testify.

Final arguments are set for next week, followed by jury deliberations.

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