The Manhattan criminal hush money trial is wrapping up, and many legal experts think the prosecution is on solid footing — but there's one single word in the law that they potentially have to worry about, former prosecutor Charles Coleman told MSNBC's Alex Wagner. Trump is charged with felony falsification of business records, upgraded from a misdemeanor, for his alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors argue this was effectively interference with the 2016 election, by using illegal means to keep this information hidden from voters.
"Let me just start first with the strength of the case as it stands right now," said Wagner. "I mean, the misdemeanor charge, falsification of business records, seems pretty provable based on what's been presented. I feel like there's a lot of concern about the felony charge and how tight you think the prosecution's case is.
" ALSO READ: What Trump's weird WWE Hall of Fame speech tells us about his presidential debate strategy "So there is one very key element to the misdemeanor charge that I think prosecutors should be slightly concerned about, and that is the word 'cause,'" said Coleman. "When you are talking about — to cause someone to falsify business records, we know that Donald Trump himself was not going to the computer and making the records that ultimately appeared, that were falsified," Coleman explained. "The notion is, where the question becomes, did he instruct? Did he direct? Did he advise someone to do.