"America’s criminal justice system routinely coerces defendants to cooperate and incentivizes them to lie to please prosecutors."

"But most victims aren’t presidential confidants accused of bank fraud. The vast majority of people who confront the choice between cooperation and a longer sentence are poor and uneducated... Pleading guilty and implicating a co-defendant can be the only practical choice when your lawyer lacks the time and resources to mount an effective defense.... Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, isn’t atypical just because he’s privileged. He’s also unusual because he knows Trump well. Most defendants face cooperators who are not chummy fraternity brothers or corporate boardroom buddies, but jailhouse snitches notorious for fabricating overheard 'confessions.' The American Civil Liberties Union recently sued the district attorney and sheriff in Orange County, Calif., saying they ran a network of professional jailhouse snitches, meticulously tracked by law enforcement but concealed from defense attorneys. Criminal defendants routinely find themselves accused by alleged co-conspirators they don’t even recognize..... Only a civic culture of healthy skepticism of prosecutors’ claims — a genuine appreciation for the concept of reasonable doubt — can change that. But we won’t learn that skepticism from Trump, who routinely proclaims that the law protects criminals too much and that police should stop being gentle with them. His concern reaches only as far as his own skin and his own confederates...."

From "Witnesses ‘flipping’ does corrupt justice. But not because they’re ‘rats'" by (WaPo) by Ken White, a criminal defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. Here's his podcast, “All the President’s Lawyers” (which I have not yet listened to).