Criminal defense attorney breaks down prosecution's major obstacle to win over jurors

Criminal defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh explained Friday that prosecutors face a difficult task of making the jury understand what the crime is former President Trump is accused of. 

Joining "America's Newsroom," Eiglarsh said most juries can wrap their heads around crimes like murder or rape. But in this case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office alleges Trump falsified business records in "furtherance of another crime" that until the trial was not made clear.

"In this particular case, you're looking at them to see whether they understand this at all. They come into this thinking, well, wait, what's the crime exactly? And why should we care? And I think that there's a problem right now with the prosecution being able to show that what was done was unlawful," Eiglarsh said. 

New York prosecutor Joshua Steinglass on Tuesday said the other crime was a violation of a New York law called "conspiracy to promote or prevent election." Prosecutors questioned former tabloid publisher David Pecker about a "catch and kill" scheme to have his publication purchase the rights to Karen McDougal's story about her alleged affair with Trump and then bury the story. 

But Pecker testified Thursday that his publication did the same thing for other celebrities including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rahm Emanuel. 

"You're getting Pecker as an expert defense witness to say, for over 17 years this was commonplace. Buying stories wasn't just because of an election, we did it all the time on behalf of Trump, but so did many celebrities. And it doesn't mean the stories were true," Eiglarsh said. "It's the cost of doing business when you're a celebrity, because people are constantly looking for cash grabs, or because you might have done something a little questionable and you got to buy that out because it'll hurt your brand or it'll affect your home life, or it might even affect an election."