#Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection w/a #HushMoney payment made to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. The case could be in the jury’s hands as early as Wed.
#Blanche argues that if #StormyDaniels's allegations were so scary to the #Trump campaign, why didn’t it swing into action in April 2016, when a woman working w/ Daniels got in touch w/The #NationalEnquirer's parent company?
#Blanche argues the #AccessHollywood tape, in which #Trump boasted about grabbing women by the genitals, is being portrayed by prosecutors as something it wasn’t: a “doomsday event” for his presidential campaign. Anyone who covered that election can tell you that the people around Trump & the broader #GOP thought it was catastrophic for his chances. So much so that there were talks of dropping Trump from the ticket.
#Blanche says that #Trump’s reaction to the #AccessHollywood tape was not what is being depicted by prosecutors — “He was concerned about his wife, he was concerned about his family,” he says — though he adds, moments later: “I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t a big deal for the campaign. Of course not. It was.”
Steinglass describes the #Trump campaign’s reaction to the #AccessHollywood tape, & notes that the Trump campaign responded publicly that his words on the tape were “locker-room talk,” while they were quietly scrubbing the internet for anything that might be damaging to him. He shows that #HopeHicks relied on #MichaelCohen to use his media contacts to fight back against the negative press.
#Steinglass shows the jurors video clips of #Trump himself acknowledging that the “#AccessHollywood” tape & its aftermath could swing a very tight election. “If 5% of the people think it’s true, & maybe 10%,” Trump says in one clip, “we don’t win.”
Steinglass takes jurors through testimony from #HopeHicks describing what a disaster Trump understood the “Access Hollywood” tape to be, because she was “in the room where it happened.”
“During the exact same month that the defendant was desperately trying to sell the distinction between words & actions, he was negotiating to muzzle a porn star who was preparing to go public,” Steinglass says.
“#StormyDaniels was a walking, talking reminder that Trump was not just words" at a time when Trump was trying to distinguish between his words & both Clintons’ actions, #Steinglass said.
Yesterday, Costello behaved so atrociously on the witness stand that Juan Merchan cleared the courtroom to admonish him & the defense attorneys. Costello is due back on the stand
#MichaelCohen testifies about being in London when the #AccessHollywood tape came out shortly before the #election. He says he got an email from #SteveBannon, who was the CEO of the #Trump campaign at the time.
Prosecution displays an email exchange about the tape that was forwarded to him by Bannon. Top campaign ofcls including the press sec #HopeHicks, the campaign manager #KellyanneConway & the deputy campaign manager #DavidBossie were also on the email.
The texts show the #AccessHollywood tape was seen as a big deal to #Trump's electoral viability.
Prosecutors say this is the heart of the Trump campaign's motive to pay off #StormyDaniels. The tape had put the campaign on its heels, which is why Cohen personally purchased Daniels’s story for $130k.
#MichaelCohen testifies he believed the AccessHollywood tape was "was going to be significantly impactful, especially w/women voters."
"Catastrophic" is Cohen's description of the impact Daniels's story could have had on #Trump's 2016 campaign.
Cohen says he spoke directly to Trump about Daniels early on, after learning she was shopping her story. "Boss, can I speak to you," he says he asked him, before telling him what he'd found out.
#MichaelCohen says he spoke w/ #Trump after this request from his wife. He says he called Trump using his #TrumpOrganization landline. That evening, Cohen says, he made an appearance on Wolf Blitzer’s show, in order to “respond to a series of topics that affected Mr. Trump & the campaign.” He says he told Trump he was going on CNN as a “surrogate” of the campaign to discuss Trump’s priorities. This was just a couple of days after the #AccessHollywood tape came out.
The jury sees a text from Howard to Cohen on 25 Oct, 2016, in which Howard says they need to get the deal done w/ #StormyDaniels or it would look “awfully bad" for everyone. #MichaelCohen testifies that they all understood the effect her story would have on #Trump's campaign if it came out so close to the election & on top of the #AccessHollywood tape. This is important contextual #evidence. The defense is arguing that Trump's motivation was to protect his family.
A fmr White House aide who worked closely w/ #Trump returned to the stand to testify about a significant meeting between Trump & #MichaelCohen his personal lawyer that is at the center of Trump’s #criminal trial.
#Mangold, the prosecutor, questions #Westerhout again during re-direct, & suggests that her actual knowledge about the reaction to the #AccessHollywood tape was nonexistent because she wasn't working for #Trump at the time.
👀🚨 Westerhout admits that she spoke to the defense lawyer #Necheles 2 nights ago. Another indication that she is trying to be a helpful witness to the defense.
The prosecution asks that the defense be precluded from asking #StormyDaniels whether she was arrested. Justice #Merchan agrees w/the prosecutors, saying that “anybody can be arrested” & that it “doesn’t prove anything.”
The people call Stormy Daniels back to the stand
#Trump atty #Necheles begins questioning by saying that in 2011, Daniels denied having had sex w/Trump.
#Necheles continues to be derisive of #StormyDaniels's sex work. As she asks about the golf tournament where Daniels met #Trump, she refers to "you & the other porn stars who were there." Public perceptions around adult film & sex work have changed, & it's unclear how the jury will perceive her tack.
Necheles is making these arguments in defense of a man whose image as a sexual aggressor has come into this same trial thru things like the #AccessHollywood tape.
Madeleine #Westerhout is asked about the #AccessHollywood tape on which Trump said that women would let him grope them bc of his celebrity. She testifies that while at the #RNC, she was privy to conversations about whether to replace #Trump as the presidential nominee after the tape’s release.
Trump, who has never trusted the RNC & has always been suspicious of the old-guard #Republican establishment, watched Westerhout intensely as she described the org's internal conversations.
#Necheles describes the release of the #AccessHollywood tape as one of a number of events that rattled the #Trump campaign, & through which he stayed calm while others were "freaking out." She is trying to normalize his reaction to the tape.
Necheles is also using Westerhout’s testimony to present Trump as a nice boss & a family man. She’s also portraying Westerhout as young, out of her depth & unfamiliar w/the details of the materials she was handling on Trump's behalf.
#StormyDaniels said that after the resurfacing of the "#AccessHollywood" tape in Oct 2016, she was focused on selling her story & that more people were calling & expressing interest in it.
“Did you have any intention of approaching either Mr. #Trump or #MichaelCohen, his attorney, to have them pay for your story?” prosecutor Susan #Hoffinger asked.
Daniels said no, her motivation wasn't money. She just wanted to get her story out publicly.
charges are falsifying business records to hide #HushMoney payments in lead up to 2016 election to #influence electorate
just one Trump supporter at the courthouse draped in a Trump flag.
#StormyDaniels's lawyer, #KeithDavidson, to return to stand. He negotiated the hush-money payment at the center of the case, & is expected to lay out details of the deal.
Prosecutors play a video #Trump put out right after the #AccessHollywood tape was made public. He acknowledged in the video that he made the comments on the tape. The video statement was recorded after he had earlier refused to apologize, though his aides told him to.
“I’ve said some foolish things, but there’s a big difference between the words & actions of other people,” Trump says in the video, then he attacks Hillary & Bill Clinton.
Asked to describe the #NationalEnquirer article attack on #TedCruz’s father, #HopeHicks looks like she is going to laugh: “His father may have been involved with Lee Harvey Oswald” — the man who shot John F. Kennedy — “or something like that.”
Hope Hicks is now being questioned about the “#AccessHollywood” tape & her expression is no longer jovial. She swallows hard & says that yes, she was familiar.
#HopeHicks is shown an email that reporter David Fahrenthold sent her on 7 Oct, 2016, seeking comment on the #AccessHollywood tape. The email contained a transcript of what was said on it.
“I was concerned. Very concerned.…I was concerned about the contents of the email, I was concerned about the lack of time to respond, I was concerned that we had a transcript but not a tape. There was a lot at play.”
#HopeHicks says that when she shared the email from The Washington Post w/ #Trump, one of his initial reactions was to say that his comments about assaulting women “didn’t sound like something he would say.” [he later admits it was him, so = liar]
Hicks says she went to conference room to discuss #AccessHollywood tape & Trump came to see what was happening:
The prosecution played the video #Trump recorded on 7 Oct, 2016, when he acknowledged that he’d said the words on the #AccessHollywood tape & apologized.
Months after being elected, Trump was telling people the tape was a fake.
If a tape came out today, there’s no doubt that Trump would claim it was AI & his voters would believe him. It’s impossible to imagine him apologizing now.
#HopeHicks testified that the media response to the #AccessHollywood tape was “intense” & that it “dominated coverage.” She recalled that a Category 4 hurricane was anticipated to make landfall at that time but she doesn’t think anyone remembers where or when the hurricane landed. “It was all #Trump all the time for the next 36 hours,” she said.
#HopeHicks testified that she thought that the #AccessHollywood tape was going to be a massive story that would dominate the news cycle for at least the next several days.
She said it was a “damaging development” for the campaign, w/lots of layers that “complicated where we were trying to go in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
“There was consensus among us all that the tape was damaging & that this was going to be a crisis," she said.