9 #witnesses in the #criminal cases against #Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, & a grant of shares & cash from Trump’s media co.
White-collar defense #lawyers say the situation #Trump finds himself in—…defendant & boss of many of the …primary #witnesses to his alleged #crimes —is not uncommon. Their standard advice is not to provide any unusual benefits or penalties to such employees. Ideally, decisions about employees slated to give #evidence should be made by an independent body….
Each page yesterday took him just a little more than a minute, so this will take >30 mins.
Between that & the testimony readbacks, also expected to take >30 mins, there will likely be >1 hour this morning w/the jury in the courtroom, not actively deliberating.
Another witness —who had no connection to the falsification of business records— was #StormyDaniels, whose #HushMoney from Cohen is what was covered up. Susan Necheles, the defense lawyer w/the most trial experience on Trump's team, worked aggressively to sow doubts about Daniels’s story w/the jury.
Verdicts in Hong Kong’s biggest trial against democratic opposition come >3 yrs after police arrested 47 #democrats in raids at homes across the city. They were charged w/ #conspiracy to commit subversion under a #NationalSecurity law imposed by #China.
#Sentencing will come at a later date for those found #guilty, w/ #prison terms ranging from 3yrs to life for this offence. 31 defendants pleaded guilty, & 4 of them have become prosecution #witnesses.
The #US & some other countries have criticised the #trial as politically motivated, calling for the accused to be immediately released.
#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 again reads passages of obe of Trump’s books, in which he wrote that he can’t stomach disloyalty. Steinglass argues that #Trump disparages #witnesses who speak out against him in order to discourage other witnesses from coming forward.
Steinglass reads a Truth Social post of Trump’s from Aug 2023, in which he wrote in all capital letters: “if you go after me, I”m coming after you.”
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.
After #MichaelCohen is off the stand, the defense will have an opportunity to present its own case, calling witnesses & questioning them to try to seed reasonable doubt within the jury. Prosecutors can then put on additional #witnesses to rebut expert witness testimony.
Though from what #Trump’s attys have said, it sounds like they aren’t going to bother calling any witnesses or putting on a #defense — I guess they don’t have one.
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.
Prosecutor Chris Conroy is laying out the challenge facing the critics & opponents who have sought to hold #Trump accountable. He has the protections of a candidate, & a number of people who support him think his rights have been stripped. But if he isn't #gagged, the #witnesses face greater #harassment & #intimidation.
#Blanche is now arguing that #StormyDaniels's testimony about her sexual encounter w/Trump differed from when she told her story previously.
#Merchan says he is concerned, not only w/protecting #StormyDaniels & other #witnesses who have testified, but w/protecting those who have yet to testify & protecting the proceedings as a whole. The judge says that he himself wrote down a version of Conroy's argument "I can't take your word for it that, 'no no, this is going to be low key," Merchan says, referring to the comments #Trump would make if the #GagOrder was altered. "That's just not the track record."
Ok, it was a bacterial infection, but there appears to be a pattern emerging. Next thing, the Federal Aviation authorities declare Boeing ticket-y-boo and their QA/QC proceses fine, robust and functional. What's more the abandonment of engineering for financial manipulation a fine and outstanding US achievement.
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.
Conroy re #MichaelCohen,:
The judge, in ruling against #Trump after the first hearing, warned that #witnesses could not use the #GagOrder as a “sword,” attacking Trump while knowing that he would be fined for attacking them back. Conroy acknowledges that: “We understand the court's concern about Michael Cohen.” But he wants the violation recognized, as he says Trump is trying to “disrupt” the process & that his statements are “corrosive to this proceeding”
Justice #Merchan replies, “It was your client who went down to that holding area & stood in front of the press & started to speak. It wasn’t the press that went to him. He went to the press. He didn’t need to go in that direction.” He adds, “Nobody forced your client” to go talk to reporters in the courthouse hallway when he attacked #MichaelCohen.
Testimony started w/a bang last week as David #Pecker, the fmr publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, said that he had entered into a secret plot w/ #Trump & #MichaelCohen to #CatchAndKill negative stories about Trump as he ran for president in 2016. #GaryFarro, the 3rd to testify, started off w/dry details about banking transactions. But #Farro is leading us to the #HushMoney payment
The #TrumpCampaign has removed 2 posts from its campaign website that Justice Merchan determined were violations of a gag order preventing #Trump from attacking potential #witnesses. Both posts involved #MichaelCohen.
It appears that the 7 social media posts that were also found to be violations of the #GagOrder have been deleted as well. Justice #Merchan ordered the posts' removal by this afternoon.
#NY’s highest court on Thurs overturned Harvey #Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on #felony#SexCrime charges, a stunning reversal in the foundational case of the #MeToo era.
In a 4-3 decision, the #NY Court of Appeals found that the #trial#judge who presided over #HarveyWeinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as #witnesses a series of women who said Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the #charges against him.
#Republicans — 3 who went on to work in the #Trump admin, while the 4th, #Comey, would eventually become one of Trump's chief adversaries. #Pecker, escorted by #Kushner, walked into that #shitshow & was then asked about #KarenMcDougal by the then president-elect.
Pecker testifies that in front of Comey [#WITNESSES!], the head of the #FBI, Trump thanked him for purchasing the stories - & likely committing AT LEAST 1 #CRIME in the process, as Pecker well knew.
Prosecutors in Trump’s #criminal trial say he has violated a #GagOrder barring him from attacking #witnesses, #jurors & others close to the case. Testimony is set to resume later Tuesday morning.
Prosecutor, Chris Conroy, details DA’s #GagOrder argument.
He says 10 #Trump posts violated the order.
8 were on TruthSocial.
2 were on his ofcl campaign website.
#Conroy argues these violations pose a very real#threat to proceedings, & have an "undertow" effect on #witnesses, making them afraid. He says witnesses, "rightly fear being subject to similar vitriol."
Conroy says Trump's attacks on #MichaelCohen in courtroom hallway yesterday again violated the order.
#Conroy says that #Trump “violates the order when he posts about known #witnesses or reasonably forseeable witnesses,” & “violates the order when he posts about a #juror or prospective juror.”
Throwing a "#MAGA" into a post doesn't make it #political, Conroy says, dismissing the idea that Trump's comments fall under the category of protected political speech. It may, in fact, make it more ominous, Conroy adds.
#Blanche is trying to get #Trump out of hot water by reframing Trump's statements about #MichaelCohen & #StormyDaniels as responses to "a barrage of political attacks."
#Merchan says he doesn't want to get into "interpreting & reading between the lines" of Trump's posts as Blanche continues to push the point that Trump's attacks are #political, & not specifically related to the case, despite being about #witnesses.
#Blanche says that a post from Michael #Avenatti, which caused #Trump to launch into an attack on StormyDaniels & MichaelCohen, was a political argument, about speech not in the case but on social media & in interviews.
I guess, Blanche is saying, Trump's response is not an attack on #witnesses but a continuation of a political discussion.
The #legal & #political strategies by the Trump #law team have always been intertwined.
A #juror was quickly dismissed at the start. She was among the 7 already selected, she said she was very worried that despite the fact the court ruled to keep jurors’ name secret, she would still be exposed & targeted.
#Trump will likely be pleased w/Necheles's #VoirDire. She questioned the #credibility of those who are expected to testify against Trump, & made a reference to #MichaelCohen, suggesting that some #witnesses might want to seek “revenge” (the title of a Cohen books) on Trump. Cohen’s book is specifically named on the questionnaire.
Trump gives the hairy eyeball to jurors when Necheles suggests that a witness may be lying if they change the details of their story.
NBC News has obtained a list of likely witnesses in the New York #criminal trial of Donald Trump. Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, Hope Hicks, David Pecker & Michael Cohen are among those who may testify.
In court papers made public on Wednesday, prosecutors argued the April 15 trial date should go ahead as planned, noting it was Trump’s 8th bid to postpone the schedule as part of his broader #legal strategy to delay all 4 of his criminal trials beyond the Nov #election.
DA Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote that the national attention surrounding the case isn’t likely to subside & #Trump “deliberately generates press attention himself.”
“Defendant simply cannot have it both ways: complaining about the prejudicial effect of pretrial #publicity, while seeking to pollute the #jury pool himself by making baseless & inflammatory accusations about this #trial, specific #witnesses, individual #prosecutors, & the Court itself,” Colangelo wrote.
#GagOrder Against #Trump Is Expanded to Stop Attacks on Judge’s Family
Donald Trump had in recent days targeted the daughter of Juan #Merchan, the judge overseeing his #criminal trial in Manhattan, in blistering social media posts.
The NY judge overseeing #Trump’s upcoming #criminal trial expanded an existing #GagOrder on Mon to bar him from attacking the judge’s family members, who in recent days have become the #target of Trump’s #abuse.
Justice Juan #Merchan last wk issued an order prohibiting Trump from attacking #witnesses, #prosecutors, #jurors & #court staff, as well as their relatives. That order, however, did not cover Justice Merchan himself or the Manhattan DA, #AlvinBragg, who brought the criminal case.
The NY judge presiding over one (bc there’s >1) of Trump’s #criminal trials imposed a gag order on Tues that prohibits him from attacking #witnesses, #prosecutors & #jurors, the latest effort to rein in Trump’s wrathful rhetoric.
Judge Juan #Merchan imposed the order at the request of the Manhattan DA, which brought the case. The DA, #AlvinBragg, has accused #Trump of covering up a sex scandal during & after his 2016 campaign [to keep it from the electorate].
…Under the judge’s #GagOrder, Trump cannot make, or direct others to make, statements about #witnesses concerning their roles in the case. Trump is also barred from commenting on prosecutors & court staff.