Tues 29 May 2024 🧵
Good morning! It’s the last day of the #TrumpTrial before jury #deliberations.
Today Justice #Merchan will give #JuryInstructions. Then they will discuss the case among themselves for the first time; they have not been allowed to even discuss it w/each other as yet.
Closing arguments took place yesterday, & the lawyers will have no further opportunity to address the jurors before they determine whether #Trump is #guilty or not guilty of 34 felonies.
Prosecutors believe the readback should include the part of Pecker’s #testimony about directing #DylanHoward to notify other employees of The #NationalEnquirer they should bring any stories about #Trump to him. #Pecker also testified that he told Howard that the Enquirer employees would have to speak to #MichaelCohen about the arrangement.
Justice Merchan notes that in the same section Pecker testified he told Howard to keep it secret — goes to #intent to #defraud.
Judge #Merchan says jury has a note w/ 4 requests. They just rang the courtroom.
3 of the requests relate to testimony from David #Pecker, the former publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, who prosecutors say was part of the #conspiracy to suppress negative news on #Trump’s behalf during the 2016 election. The other request relates to #MichaelCohen’s testimony.
#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.
#Steinglass:
“And then, on Nov 8, the defendant was elected president.”
He notes that some of the conspiracy’s characters were aware of their roles in #Trump's election. “What have we done?” #StormyDaniels’s atty texted the #NationalEnquirer editor.
Steinglass: “we’ll never know if this effort to hoodwink the American voter” made the difference in 2016. But prosecutors don’t have to prove that it did — they just have to show that Trump was a part of a #conspiracy to aid his victory.
#Blanche says that despite the prosecution arguing that David #Pecker agreed to suppress negative stories on #Trump’s behalf in 2015 — a practice known as #CatchAndKill — the phrase "catch & kill" was not used at that meeting. “Make no mistake about it,” Blanche says.
Blanche argues there was “nothing unusual” about catching & killing, & that Pecker testified that The #NationalEnquirer only published ~½ of the stories it purchased.
#Steinglass now talks# about the 2nd of 3 hush-money deals, which involved #KarenMcDougal & was arranged by The #NationalEnquirer. He says that #Pecker & #DylanHoward of The Enquirer & #KeithDavidson, McDougal's lawyer, spoke in code. But you don’t have to be a codebreaker, he says, to understand what they were talking about
Steinglass also notes that the trio was communicating w/ #MichaelCohen, who testified that he had been charged w/keeping #Trump apprised of their progress
While it’s true that circulation for The #NationalEnquirer wasn’t huge, #Trump had a hugely popular Twitter feed & giant rallies, & during the 2016 campaign, he & his allies would post & he would talk about this stuff to amplify them.
The Enquirer has broken several stories over the yrs involving politicians & celebrities having affairs, incl’g fmr Senator John Edwards, who was a presidential candidate, & Tiger Woods.
Steinglass says while the phrase may not have been used much during the trial, the practice was exactly what had been agreed to, & argues that suppressing those stories amounted to committing a #fraud on American voters, pulling the wool over their eyes “in a coordinated fashion.”
#Blanche is trying to suggest that the meeting that Trump & #MichaelCohen had in 2015 w/ #Pecker, of The #NationalEnquirer, when prosecutors say they hatched a plan to suppress damaging stories about #Trump & promote negative ones about his rivals, was SOP between a presidential #candidate & the #press. It was not.
Blanche suggests that bc Pecker’s relationship w/Trump, & their #CatchAndKill agreement, was not an #election#conspiracy bc it predated the campaign.
#Blanche, draws on a 2018 recording in which #StormyDaniels's lawyer at the time said that his client had “settler’s remorse” for having agreed not to tell her story. Blanche claims that Daniels changed not because she decided to tell the #truth, but because she wanted to make #money.
Blanche introduces what he calls a “separate conspiracy” between Daniels, #GinaRodriguez, her manager at the time, & #DylanHoward, who was the editor of The #NationalEnquirer.
Blanche alternate theory re #StormyDaniels's motive is that Dylan Howard, editor of The #NationalEnquirer, & Gina Rodriguez, Daniels’s manager, seized an opportunity in Oct 2016 to make $ from Daniels’s story.
Problematically, his alt version doesn’t address the falsified documents on which there were weeks of testimony from Pecker, #MichaelCohen & others.
#Steinglass outlines their theory of the Aug 2015 meeting between #Trump, #MichaelCohen, & David #Pecker, of #NationalEnquirer, in which they agreed to a plot to suppress negative stories about Trump & promote negative stories about his opponents.
Steinglass punctures one of #Blanche’s go-to arguments —that The Enquirer is like all publications & Pecker's arrangement w/Trump wasn’t unusual. There is nothing normal or standard about what the tabloid was doing w/Trump.
Steinglass reminds jurors that #HopeHicks sent over a statement for the story on behalf of Trump, & that Trump lied in the statement, saying he didn’t know anything about the Karen McDougal deal. Steinglass says Trump did know about it because he was on tape 2 months earlier talking about it.
#Pecker came off as a genteel & soft-spoken person who still loves #Trump. And he offered some of the most damaging testimony of the trial.
FYI: criminalizing what Pecker & parent co AMI were doing is not part of the charges.
Steinglass shows how their actions & practices went far beyond what reporters actually do. The details of Pecker’s testimony demonstrate that the aim was to help Trump’s candidacy.
#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 addresses the 3 specific #CatchAndKill deals prosecutors allege #Pecker was involved in, all of which they say were designed to protect #Trump. Defense argues all 3 stories are false.
He characterizes the 1st, involving a doorman at a #TrumpOrganization bldg, as “literally a made up story designed to harm President Trump.”
Blanche talks about Playboy model #KarenMcDougal who sold the rights to her story of an affair w/Trump to The #NationalEnquirer's parent co, #AMI.
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
Prosecution & defense argue whether the evidence at trial supported the idea that #Trump did enter a conspiracy w/ #Pecker & #MichaelCohen in 2015 to suppress negative stories during his presidential campaign.
(isn’t that for the jury to decide?)
Defense suggests that there was nothing #criminal about “participating” in that meeting, & that meeting w/ The #NationalEnquirer was simply “standard operating procedure” for campaigning. (Um, no)
#Colangelo argues the instruction proposed about fmr #NationalEnquirer publisher #Pecker’s legal consult w/his attorney is irrelevant, because Pecker testified that he didn’t reveal all of the facts to AMI’s general counsel when he consulted them & therefore his attys couldn’t provide proper legal advice.
Bove argues that what matters is Pecker told Trump that he had been told the McDougal agreement was “bulletproof,” & Trump relied it.
Cross-examination of #MichaelCohen resumes, an opportunity for the defense to poke holes in his testimony & perhaps trip up or provoke the state’s key witness. The questioning of Cohen, #Trump’s fmr fixer, is the beginning of the end of Trump’s #criminal trial, which began April 15 & might conclude before Memorial Day weekend at this pace.
#MichaelCohen previously testified that in June 2016, he was negotiating w/ The #NationalEnquirer & #KarenMcDougal over her story about having had an affair w/ #Trump. On the stand now, as #Blanche digs in about whether he can remember a specific call from that year, Cohen says that seeing prosecutors’ other evidence has jogged his memory about calls he had back then. (That’s memory for ya)
#Trump has his posse again. Today it’s more #Republican elected officials. Today, Trump will be joined by the #House speaker, #MikeJohnson, as well as #NorthDakota’s governor, #DougBurgum, a contender to be Trump's running mate. Also present will be Representatives #ByronDonalds & #CoryMills of Florida, & #VivekRamaswamy, who was one of Trump's primary rivals this year. Both Donalds & Ramaswamy are longshot hopefuls to be Trump's running mate.
Cohen testifies he continued to deal w/ #StormyDaniels in early 2018 w/Trump’s backing & blessing. He says that the president asked him to get a temporary restraining order against Daniels.
#Blanche asks #MichaelCohen if he’s been following the trial. Cohen says yes, to some extent. Blanche asks if he knows details about the jury selection process.
Objection from prosecution, & it's sustained.
Blanche asks Cohen if he recalls saying on TikTok, while David #Pecker, the fmr publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, was on the stand, that Pecker was corroborating everything he'd been saying for 6 yrs.
That’s the crux of the #conspiracy that prosecutors say #MichaelCohen, #Trump, & The #NationalEnquirer entered into during the election: suppressing negative stories about Trump to aid his chances as a candidate.
Prosecution asks about Cohen’s work negotiating on Trump’s behalf in the #TrumpUniversity case— in which Trump was sued for defrauding thousands of students & paid a $25M settlement — an example of regular people suffering as a result of a Trump business.
#MichaelCohen says he spoke to #Trump before the LLC creation. “Everything required Mr. Trump's signoff" &, "I wanted the money back."
Cohen testifies about using a home equity line of credit to pay #StormyDaniels.
Cohen discusses a call between him & 2 reps of The #NationalEnquirer, David #Pecker & #DylanHoward. They discussed Daniels's plans to go to The Daily Mail w/her story, & Cohen says that it would be "catastrophic" for the campaign, further turning women against the candidate.
#Trump currently has senior #elected officials, including a possible future VP nominee, sitting in the courtroom listening to a recording of him, as a candidate, talking w/his lawyer about paying for material from The #NationalEnquirer. Trump has completely got the party under his boot.
2 #Republican senators, a congresswoman & 2 state AGs are listening to a now-disbarred lawyer advising Trump on a #HushMoney payment.
#MichaelCohen has now testified that he, #Trump & David #Pecker, the publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, entered into a plot to suppress negative stories about Trump. He says Pecker "would be able to help us to know in advance what was coming out" & try to stop it from doing so.
This is the #conspiracy prosecutors allege Trump participated in - 1 of the potential #crimes that transforms the charges Trump is facing into #felonies.