Evidence 'Too Explosive' for the Stormy Daniels Trial—Legal Analyst

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin said the judge in Trump's hush money trial excluded texts that are "too explosive" to be heard by the jury.

Speaking during an appearance on "Inside With Jen Psaki" on Sunday, Rubin said that National Enquirer Editor Dylan Howard texted a family member on election night in 2016 to say that if Trump was elected, he would pardon Howard for election fraud.

Rubin said there is "a lot more where that is coming from" but said that Howard's texts were excluded from evidence, adding that the editor was texting someone who was not part of the alleged conspiracy at the center of the Trump case.

Rubin said that, in his evidence, National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker, has told the court that Howard is in Australia and can't appear in the trial due to health concerns.

Newsweek sought email comment from Trump and Howard on Monday.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the first former president in United States history to stand trial in a criminal case. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has continually said that this case and other criminal and civil matters involving him are politically motivated.

The prosecution seeks to prove that before the 2016 presidential election, Trump paid, or discussed paying, two women—adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal—to not disclose his alleged affairs with them. He denies affairs with either woman.

Rubin said Howard's texts were "too explosive to expose to the jury."

"If you read the transcript [of the texts] and the sidebar between the lawyers where they are talking about the texts from Howard to that first degree relative, there is more where that is coming from, a lot of other statements that indicate that Howard fully believed that Karen McDougal was telling the truth," Rubin said.

"If those statements had come into evidence, I think it would have been one more notch in the DA's belt in terms of proving up the existence of the conspiracy and the understanding on The National Enquirer's part that this was not only wrong but unlawful."

Rubin, however, said it's important to point out that the case is not about the hush money payments but about falsifying records in furtherance of election fraud.

She said that the fact that the payments to Daniels and McDougal were hidden show that Pecker knew what they were doing was possibly illegal.

Prosecutors claim that Trump made the payments to hide his affairs from voters, and was therefore hiding important information from the electorate during the 2016 White House race.