a New York grand jury continues weighing charges against former president Donald Trump in connection to a 2016 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels if indicted Trump will become the first president in history to be convicted for criminal conduct but no decisions or charges have been made by Manhattan's district attorney the grand jury is likely to continue their work on the case into next week for more insight I'm joined by John farmer director of the Eagleton Institute of politics at Rutgers University you know a lot about this remains unclear prosecutors have signaled that an indictment is likely but we still don't know yet what is clear at least to you while it's clear is that they're approaching the end of their of their presentation of the grand jury I think the appearance earlier earlier this week uh Michael Cohen's former lawyer and advisor uh who uh sought to cast out on his credibility um you know may have complicated the picture a little bit for the for the prosecutors and this is also it's a complicated case they're trying to bring um you know the most likely charge is falsifying business records but that's successively misdemeanor to convert that misdemeanor to a felony they have to have some other uh some other charge to bring and that's where it becomes complicated because the most obvious violations they could cite are violations of federal election law and the justice department actually could have brought those charges and decide and decided not to so then they so then they have to look at state law New York law which may be preempted by federal law so it's going to be a very complex case when it's brought and I think they're probably appropriately taking a little bit of time to make sure they have all their ducks in a row before they move forward because you know you don't want to indict former sitting president and haven't be acquitted are the mechanics of indicting a former sitting U.S president different than say any other defendant that the Manhattan D.A might charge the mechanics are no different um some of the logistics will be different what's going to happen next to the grand jury once the Witnesses are done the prosecutors will instruct the grand jurors on the law and present the potential charges and you know it's always possible that a grand jury will no bill a case which means that they won't return indictment so there are there are steps that still remain to be taken for this is a a completed indictment in charge the DA's office is deciding whether to call back Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen uh where does attorney-client privilege play in here it does that still stand in a case like this well attorney-client privilege is a very strong privilege unless there's a crime or fraud involved there's a and if there's a crime there's a crime fraud exception to the attorney fine privilege uh law which which is if if the communications were in the context of committing a crime there's no privilege that attaches do you expect uh the fact that the GOP is doing its own probe into the D.A to affect any of the work here we've heard D.A Bragg come out and say that it wouldn't um but this is a you know a majority here in the house who has the ability to investigate if they so do please um and they're obviously putting in a lot of questions and probes into what the DA's office is doing I don't think it's going to deter them or affect them one way or the other it will complicate their lives in the sense that they will have to respond in some manner too the questions they're getting from Congress but in terms of moving forward with this investigation um it shouldn't play any role at all is there any I guess I'm thinking about the fact that President Trump has signaled he'll run again for the office do we have any type of historical context as to whether or not this would preclude him from seeking the Oval Office again and I don't think a conviction on the state charges would would bar him from running uh for president one of the questions that are difficult on in in this context is what's taken so long I mean uh this conduct occurred in 2016.

Michael Collins been cooperating uh cooperating witness for several years now um if they had done this a year ago you know um former president Trump would not have been a declared candidate for president so um so why why the delay and why is it taking so long to to bring this to a head John farmer director of the Eagleton Institute for politics thank you so much thank you for having me [Music]