#nick ackerman

Matthew Chapman at AlterNet: 

On Tuesday, the search warrant documents used by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to investigate President Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen were released on a federal judge’s orders, albeit in highly redacted form.

But even though the specifics are unclear, former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman told Ari Melber on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” the documents are highly revealing — and they spell bad news for the president and his son.

[...]

“I think it’s happening, because those are the two people that are potential subjects of this investigation that are so obvious,” said Akerman. “I mean, when you look at what the evidence is now, there are two witnesses that could testify against Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr.” He specifically fingered Cohen, and National Enquirer owner David Pecker, who allegedly brokered a “catch and kill” deal with Cohen about Trump’s sexual misadventures.

From the 03.19.2019 edition of MSNBC’s The Beat With Ari Melber:

"The first big takeaway is that Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are under investigation" Watergate prosecutor @nickakerman on what he believes new redacted Cohen docs reveal pic.twitter.com/KWx3hp4Duv

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watergate-prosecutor-hits-trump-apos-050346074.html

From the article:

“There’s no question about it,” Nick Akerman said on MSNBC. “This makes the president of the United States an unindicted co-conspirator.”

From the 06.07.2018 edition of MSNBC’s The Beat With Ari Melber:

Transcript, via MMFA: 

NICK AKERMAN: I think the thinking in the White House is to tamper with witnesses. What Sean Hannity admitted to and actually was enticing people to do and asking them to do was to destroy evidence, which is a violation of the witness tampering statute. It’s not just people who destroy the evidence, but it’s also people who actually ask others to do it. If you just look at the language of the statute, “whoever knowingly persuades another person or attempts to do so with intent to cause or induce any person to alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding commits a 20-year felony.” He’s doing it on TV.

[…]

JOYCE VANCE: Hannity seems to be well versed in how to wipe out a phone so I guess if I were Bob Mueller I might have some questions for him about what he’s been doing to his own devices. But look, this is reprehensible conduct. No responsible person on television, no responsible so-called journalist should be advocating for people to destroy evidence in a serious federal investigation. It’s reprehensible, it is sadly more of what we’ve come to expect from the people that this president surrounds himself with. One would hope that Fox would perhaps impose some sanctions on Hannity for this conduct but I don't think that we'll see him prosecuted, federal prosecutors give people a very wide berth on First Amendment related conduct. And so unless there is something more specific to link it up, I think that this will be what we often categorize as awful but lawful conduct.

[…]

NATASHA BERTRAND: It’s really important to mention that Hannity is not a neutral player in all this. Sean Hannity has potential legal vulnerability especially because there is evidence that perhaps he was talking to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, during the – after the election when Julian Assange reached out to a Twitter account that he thought belonged to Sean Hannity and said “let’s communicate on another platform,” so that’s evidence that perhaps Sean Hannity did have prior communications with Julian Assange.

[…]

The word most often used regarding possible cooperation between members of the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia is collusion. But as a former Watergate prosecutor explained Saturday, the actual crime that may have been committed is conspiracy.

Nick Ackerman said on MSNBCthat Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be preparing a case for conspiracy against Trump himself, and he explained his…

The word most often used regarding possible cooperation between members of the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia is collusion. But as a former Watergate prosecutor explained Saturday, the actual crime that may have been committed is conspiracy.

Nick Ackerman said on MSNBCthat Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be preparing a case for conspiracy against Trump himself, and he explained his…