Yo! POOTWH! This trial is about Stormy Weather and falsifying business records to cover up the hush money payments. And they call Brandon the demented one?
Trump returned to address reporters and repeated his denial that he knew E. Jean Carroll, the writer who sued him saying he sexually abused and defamed her. A jury found him liable and awarded damages last year. A judge added additional penalties in January after finding that Trump defamed her again.
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Opening statements set for Monday in Trump's hush money case after judge rejects latest bid to delay
By JENNIFER PELTZ, MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
11 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — A full jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated Friday in Donald Trump’s hush money case, setting the stage for opening statements next week in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
Hours later, an appeals court judge rejected a last-minute attempt to halt the case from Trump's lawyers, who argued that jury selection was rushed and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee cannot get a fair trial in Manhattan.
The jury, which includes a software engineer, investment banker, English teacher and multiple lawyers, took final shape after lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of potential jurors on whether they can impartially judge Trump in the city where he built his real estate empire before being elected in 2016.
The trial thrusts Trump's legal problems into the heart of his hotly contested race against President Joe Biden, with Trump's opponent likely to seize on unflattering and salacious testimony to make the case that he's unfit to return as commander in chief.
Trump, meanwhile, is using the prosecution as a political rallying cry, casting himself as a victim while juggling his dual role as criminal defendant and presidential candidate.
Judge Juan Merchan said lawyers will present opening statements Monday morning before prosecutors begin laying out their case alleging a scheme to cover up negative stories Trump feared would hurt his 2016 presidential campaign.
Despite the failure of repeated previous attempts to delay the trial, a Trump attorney was in an appeals court hours after the jury was seated, arguing that Merchan made it impossible for Trump to get an impartial panel by speeding through the selection process.
“To think an impartial jury could be found in that period of time, I would respectfully submit, is untenable,” attorney Clifford Robert said.
Justice Marsha Michael denied the request just minutes after a brief hearing.
Back in the trial court, Merchan expressed frustration as Trump's lawyers pressed to revisit a litany of pretrial rulings.
“At some point, you need to accept the court's rulings,” Merchan said. "There’s nothing else to clarify. There’s nothing else to reargue. We’re going to have opening statements on Monday morning. This trial is starting.”
Just after the jury was seated, emergency crews responded to a park outside the courthouse, where a man had set himself on fire. The man took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories and spread them around the park before dousing himself in a flammable substance and setting himself aflame, officials said. He was in critical condition Friday afternoon.
Trump has spent the week sitting quietly in the courtroom as lawyers pressed potential jurors on their views about him in a search for any bias that would preclude them from hearing the case. During breaks in the proceedings, he has railed against the case on social media or to TV cameras in the hallway, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
"This Trial is a Long, Rigged, Endurance Contest, dealing with Nasty, Crooked People, who want to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” he wrote Friday on social media.
Over five days of jury selection, dozens of people were dismissed from the jury pool after saying they didn't believe they could be fair. Others expressed anxiety about having to decide such a consequential case with outsized media attention, even though the judge has ruled that jurors' names will be known only to prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.
One woman who had been chosen to serve on the jury was dismissed Thursday after she raised concerns over messages she said she got from friends and family when aspects of her identity became public. On Friday, another woman broke down in tears while being questioned by a prosecutor about her ability to decide the case based only on evidence presented in court.
“I feel so nervous and anxious right now,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want someone who feels like this to judge my case either. I don’t want to waste the court’s time.”
As more potential jurors were questioned Friday, Trump appeared to lean over at the defense table, scribbling on some papers and exchanging notes with one of his lawyers. He occasionally perked up and gazed at the jury box, including when one would-be juror said he had volunteered in a “get out the vote” effort for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Trump spoke to reporters before Friday's proceedings got underway, lambasting a gag order that prosecutors have accused him of violating. Merchan has scheduled arguments for next week on prosecutors' request to hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him for social media posts they say defy limits on what he can say about potential witnesses.
“The gag order has to come off. People are allowed to speak about me, and I have a gag order,” Trump said.
Merchan also heard arguments Friday on prosecutors' request to bring up Trump’s prior legal entanglements if he takes the witness stand in the hush money case. Trump has said he wants to testify, but he is not required to and can always change his mind.
Manhattan prosecutors have said they want to question Trump about his recent civil fraud trial that resulted in a $454 million judgment after a judge found Trump had lied about his wealth for years. He is appealing that verdict. Merchan said he would rule on the matter in the coming days.
The trial centers on a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the final days of the 2016 race.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He could get up to four years in prison if convicted, though it’s not clear that the judge would opt to put him behind bars. Trump would almost certainly appeal any conviction.
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Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Typical features of antisocial personality disorder are a failure to conform to lawful and ethical behavior, and an egocentric, callous lack of concern for others, accompanied by deceitfulness, irresponsibility, manipulativeness, and/or risk taking.
Typical features of narcissistic personality disorder are variable and vulnerable self-esteem, with attempts at regulation through attention and approval seeking, and either overt or covert grandiosity.
Typical features of schizotypal personality disorder are impairments in the capacity for social and close relationships, and eccentricities in cognition, perception, and behavior that are associated with distorted self-image and incoherent personal goals and accompanied by suspiciousness and restricted emotional expression.
Trump's affect suggests he has issues with: identity, self--direction, empathy, and intimacy. Some of the pathologies evident in his statements and actions suggest extreme dysfunction and malpadaptation in all four domains.
Are we certain, absolutely certain Merchan can't send Trump for court-ordered psychiatric evaluation? I think we could wait 72 hours before proceeding.
There is a fundamental legal issue. Does Trump actually know the difference between right and wrong? Is he actually not guilty by reason of diminished capacity. It could be argued, possibly successfully, that his lifetime lack of consequences has taught him the he can do no wrong. He acts like he thinks he can do no wrong. He has never admitted a mistake or expressed remorse. Not for any of his business failures nor his prior bad acts, such as the Trump Foundation, Trump University, or his sexual assault and fraud judgements.
Much of the behavior Trump exhibits is aberrant. Is he a criminal or insane?
Without cameras inside the courtroom, Trump has also challenged the narratives that have emerged from those watching the proceedings. In a fundraising text to supporters, Trump claimed he stormed out of the courtroom during the first day of the trial – a statement not supported by those who witnessed him walk out. Trump posted on Truth Social that “I was PRAYING not sleeping!!” when multiple news outlets reported the former president appeared to doze off during the proceedings.
Without cameras inside the courtroom, Trump has also challenged the narratives that have emerged from those watching the proceedings. In a fundraising text to supporters, Trump claimed he stormed out of the courtroom during the first day of the trial – a statement not supported by those who witnessed him walk out. Trump posted on Truth Social that “I was PRAYING not sleeping!!” when multiple news outlets reported the former president appeared to doze off during the proceedings.
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Ranks right up there with, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Tell me about it. POOTWH has broken just about everything and those who have said that everything he touches, turns to shit, better be prepared for when he gets re-elected. Because the level of support he still has and those who continue to give him money, despite close to a third of it going to his legal defense shows, 'Murica is going to turn to shit, if it hasn't already done so.
Trump, hush money and the increasingly quaint notion of embarrassment
The first of the four criminal cases facing Donald Trump began in New York City with prospective jurors being grilled on their ability to put aside what they already know and believe to be true about the former president and fairly render a verdict about the issues at hand. Those issues have been exquisitely described by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as “falsifying New York business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” Among the information that Trump was allegedly attempting to hide was that he cheated on his wife with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels — something Trump denies. The prosecution has said Trump engaged in illegal subterfuge because he worried that revelations about his infidelity might offend the female electorate. The defense has said Trump simply wanted to keep a personal matter private lest it embarrass him and his family.
And so, here we are. A jury has been seated and opening arguments are expected to begin Monday in a trial for which the dominant talking points spring from Trump’s capacity to be mortified and the public’s ability to be shocked. How quaint.
Trump is accused of caring so deeply about what prospective voters thought of the way he treated women that he went to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about his brutish nature. We are having this conversation after Trump was found to have defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll when she accused him of raping her and he called her a liar. After the jury ordered him to pay Carroll a settlement of more than $83 million, he continued to publicly attack her. We are here after Trump stood before an audience of voters and referred to one woman as “crazy,” another as “nasty,” called a third a “whack job” and bragged about being instrumental to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away a right to bodily autonomy that women had had for generations.
The legal issues in the New York case are real and they are concerning. And bless the hearts of the lawyers who are litigating them. But it’s hard to look at the criminality being charged without considering just how far the country has come in the years since the alleged activities took place. It seems like such an innocent time back then, before norms and traditions had begun to disintegrate, before folks turned numb to incivility and civil disruption.
The New York charges, of which there are 34, have sometime been referred to as comprising the “runt” of the criminal cases against Trump because legal experts view them as the fuzziest and weakest. The road to Bragg’s accusation of election interference winds through a sordid field of tabloid stories, porn, payoffs and sex. Nonetheless, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant is serious business and having to do so as a former president speaks to both the power of this democracy and the fragility of it. There’s nothing small about this case, it’s just that the country’s fealty to decency, respectability and honesty has retreated further and further into the distance.
The elements of the New York case occurred back before Trump’s election lies helped to spark an insurrection, before Trump saw “good people” among the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville clutching tiki torches and spewing hate, before Trump aspired to use the American military to intimidate fellow citizens exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Those things shocked the consciousness until they no longer did. Until they became mere markers on the road to … where? As the completed jury was being settled, a man tossed pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories into the air and set himself ablaze across from the courthouse. Bystanders screamed, police and civilians attempted to douse the flames, and the man was rushed to a hospital. Law enforcement made statements. Security was discussed. The trial would press on. And then, within minutes, it seemed, the horror had faded. The surprise had dissipated. We are numb.
This case isn’t marked by dire references to top-secret documents or calls to halt the peaceful transfer of power or a shady plot to find votes. It’s more human scale than that. And so, it takes us back to a time when we still — occasionally — treated each other like humans instead of adversaries, mobs, monsters and heretics. Despite all the attendant security, scrutiny and Trump’s own bluster, this is the trial that reminds the public that the former president is merely a man — not a god, not an omnipotent leader, not the bearer of Everyman’s burden. His alleged crimes are those borne out of fear and shame. This is a trial that reminds us of the smallness of Trump even as the idea of him, the myth of him has become outsize.
The former president and his lawyers have worked mightily to delay the start of this case, but now that it has launched, it’s moved more briskly than many expected. It was both heartbreaking and heartening to follow along as the jury was assembled. New Yorkers’ anxieties and fears bubbled to the surface in the cold, dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan as they considered the pressure they would face and what it would mean if their identity were made public as members of the jury sitting in judgment of Trump. Some even wept. But as riddled with emotion as they were, they retained an earnest desire to do right by a fellow citizen even if it was one whose political beliefs they abhorred, whose personality they found savage and whose behavior they deemed foul.
The public knows little about the jurors as a matter of security. But the details that are known paint them as New Yorkers with varying political opinions and professions who are engaged with the daily news to widely different degrees. They are tasked with looking into our past and brushing the dust off old saws such as shame, shock and dignity.
They have promised to be fair, which is to say that they’ve agreed to treat the defendant with respect. That, too, is a quaint notion. Bless them for holding fast to it.
Trump’s super PAC has helped foot his legal bills. That might end soon.
Save America has now spent about $60 million on legal consulting since the beginning of 2023.
A PAC controlled by former President Donald Trump that has devoted tens of millions of dollars to his and his allies’ legal bills could be running out of cash after spending nearly $3.7 million on legal fees in March.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, has now spent $59.5 million on legal consulting since the start of 2023. It also incurred $886,000 in new legal debt in March, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission late Saturday. More than $1.1 million of its March spending went toward two firms representing Trump in his New York criminal hush money trial.
The total spent on legal expenses for Save America was almost as much as Trump’s campaign committee in the month of March, highlighting how legal troubles have sucked up the cash of his political operation. Trump’s official campaign committee spent just over $3.7 million in March, with travel expenses, followed by payroll, occupying its biggest expenditure categories.
That total is minuscule compared to the more than $29 million that President Joe Biden’s campaign spent in March, with the incumbent launching a major ad campaign.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, was able to stay in the black in March due to another $5 million refund in March from Make America Great Again Inc., the Trump-backing super PAC. The super PAC has transferred $5 million to the leadership PAC each month going back to last July, with less regular transfers before then.
The leadership PAC initially seeded the super PAC with $60 million before he announced his candidacy. Now, MAGA Inc. can only send $2.75 million more back to Save America, raising questions about whether Save America will continue to be the vehicle to fund legal bills in several cases linked to Trump.
The leadership PAC had just over $4 million cash on hand at the end of March. It can still raise funds from donors and has previously gotten money through one of Trump’s joint fundraising committees, though such transfers have been rare in recent months. That source may be further closed off going forward: Since the start of April, Trump has primarily been sending fundraising emails on behalf of a new joint fundraising committee, Trump National Committee, that fundraises only for his campaign and the Republican National Committee.
The RNC reported its best fundraising month so far in March, with $20 million raised, roughly half of which came through another Trump-linked joint fundraising committee. The party committee spent $10 million, however, leaving it with $21 million cash on hand, less than half of the $45 million that the Democratic National Committee reported having in the bank at the end of March.
Among the RNC’s March expenses was $118,000 paid to former Chair Ronna McDaniel on March 6, two days before she left the committee. Representatives for McDaniel and the RNC did not immediately return a request for comment on the payment.
MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC that has been bankrolling Save America, continued to rake in cash in March, with $14 million raised led by massive donations from familiar GOP donors. Linda McMahon, the former WWE CEO who led the Small Business Administration under Trump, gave $5 million to the super PAC, while Nevada real estate magnate Robert Bigelow gave more than $4 million. Most of those funds cannot go to Save America, as MAGA Inc. is limited in what it can transfer based on what Save America previously gave to the super PAC during the 2022 cycle.
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Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, filed an application in June 2022 for an H-1B visa for a worker at a $65,000 annual salary, the lowest wage category allowed under the program. Federal immigration data shows the company was approved for a visa a few months later. The company says it did not hire the worker.
Filing for the visa sets the image of Trump the candidate, who has proposed a protectionist agenda for companies to “hire American,” in conflict with Trump the businessman, who has said his companies will use every tool at their disposal. Records show the investment firm started by Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, also filed an application and was approved to hire a foreigner as an associate under the same visa program.
Trump Media & Technology Group said in a statement the application “was made under prior management," even though the current CEO, former House Intelligence Committee chairman and longtime Trump ally Devin Nunes, was already leading the company at the time the application was first filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.
“The company has never hired — and has no plans to hire — an H-1B visa program worker. When current management learned of this application, which was made under prior management, it swiftly terminated the process in November 2022," the company said in a statement.
An H-1B visa petition can cost companies about $5,000 per employee. Companies can withdraw petitions even after being approved. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services records data doesn't note when visas are revoked. But a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, which also tracks H-1B applications, said they had no records of Truth Social requesting a withdrawal.
A COMMON TOOL FOR TECH COMPANIES
Tech companies commonly hire employees using the H-1B program. Trump never hid the fact he used the visas before he became president, using them mostly to bring in foreign models and a few workers for his hotels and resorts, per a review of petitions filed since 2009.
But with exceptions to renew existing applications, his companies appeared to have no longer petitioned for H-1B visas until Truth Social was created.
Data from the Labor Department shows that an application was filed by Trump Media & Technology Group for an employee to earn $65,000. It lists as the employer Will Wilkerson, a company co-founder and former senior vice president of operations, and an Atlanta address as the job's location.
Wilkerson filed a whistleblower complaint in August 2022 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging securities violations by the company. He was fired, according to The Washington Post, and is cooperating with federal authorities. His lawyers said he would not comment.
‘I SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO USE IT'
Trump frequently talks about the arrivals of migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, but his policy proposals while in the White House also included curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.
In a 2016 primary debate, Trump spoke about the H-1B visa program and said it was “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers.
“First of all, I think and I know the H-1B very well. And it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it,” he said. “Second of all, I think it’s very important to say, well, I’m a businessman and I have to do what I have to do.”
Three months after taking office, Trump issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, which directed Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. He has previously said the program was used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.
During his administration, a study by the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy found the government was scrutinizing cases more by launching requests for more information from companies filing to hire foreign workers and denying more petitions.
The “Project 2025” handbook, compiled by allies preparing for Trump’s potential transition to power, says the H-1B program should be transformed “into an elite mechanism exclusively to bring in the ‘best and brightest’ at the highest wages while simultaneously ensuring that U.S. workers are not being disadvantaged by the program."
Companies in the professional, scientific and technical services fields account for more than 60% of the total visas granted, said Nicolas Morales, an economist at the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond who specializes in labor and migration. Morales said he has found the visa program has been beneficial for small companies to stay in business.
“Winning the H-1B lottery actually helps them. It increases their chances of survival,” he said. “In the next five years, they are more likely to stay active, particularly small companies that are very dependent on skilled labor.”
The applications require companies to attest they will provide the foreign workers the same benefits offered to U.S. workers and pay more than what they pay others with similar experience and qualifications or more than the typical wage for that type of occupation. Companies also have to provide a notice of the filing to the workers by posting a notice in two locations at the place of employment.
Much of the criticism regarding the H-1B program is about companies offering salaries in the lower wage categories to foreign workers. The application filed by Kushner’s investment firm to hire a foreign employee appears to satisfy that complaint.
The Labor Department certified a document where Kushner’s investment firm specified it would pay this employee a $200,000 salary, which falls under the highest wage level for the H-1B visas typically reserved for those who are experts in their field and have senior responsibilities. Recent data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows the company was approved for a visa.
Kushner has not joined the Trump campaign and has been pursuing his own business interests applying for tourism projects in the Balkans.
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'Catch-and-kill' to be described to jurors as testimony resumes in hush money trial of Donald Trump
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Today
NEW YORK (AP) — A longtime tabloid publisher was expected Tuesday to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign as testimony resumes in the historic hush money trial of the former president.
David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who prosecutors say worked with Trump and Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, on a so-called “catch-and-kill” strategy to buy up and then spike negative stories during the campaign, testified briefly Monday and will be back on the stand Tuesday in the Manhattan trial.
Also Tuesday, prosecutors are expected to tell a judge that Trump should be held in contempt over a series of posts on his Truth Social platform that they say violated an earlier gag order barring him from attacking witnesses in the case. Trump's lawyers deny that he broke the order.
Pecker's testimony followed opening statements in which prosecutors alleged that Trump had sought to illegally influence the 2016 race by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, including by approving hush money payments to a porn actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied that.
"This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
A defense lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who's now the government's star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should not have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury. Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to a porn actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign.
In his opening statement, Colangelo outlined a comprehensive effort by Trump and allies to prevent three separate stories — two from women alleging prior sexual encounters — from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign. That undertaking was especially urgent following the emergence late in the race of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard boasting about grabbing women sexually without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.'" So, he added, "they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Those alleged falsified records form the backbone of the 34-count indictment against Trump. Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.
Blanche, the defense lawyer, sought to preemptively undermine the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role in the hush money scheme, as someone with an “obsession” with Trump who cannot be trusted. He said Trump had done nothing illegal when his company recorded the checks to Cohen as legal expenses and said it was not against the law for a candidate to try to influence an election.
Blanche challenged the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his campaign, characterizing the transaction instead as an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass Trump and his loved ones.
“President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche told jurors.
The efforts to suppress the stories are what’s known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Besides the payment to Daniels, Colangelo also described arrangements to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
He said jurors would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they will hear Trump in his own voice saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Pecker is relevant to the case because prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
He described the tabloid's use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.
“I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a story without getting his approval, he said.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,855
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,855
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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Toss his fat, stinky, shit stained ass in Rikers all ready. Gen pop ought to cool his heels. Let’s watch the magat heads explode.
Prosecutor: Trump ‘seems to be angling’ for jail sentence in violating gag order
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy asked a judge to remind Donald Trump that “incarceration is an option” if he continues to violate the gag order in his trial.
“His disobedience of the order is willful, it’s intentional,” Conroy said. He said Trump’s claims that he is only responding to political attacks make no sense.
“He says whatever he needs to say to get the results that he wants,” Conroy said. “He’s doing everything he can to undermine this process. It has to stop.”
Conroy said he is not asking at this time for Trump to be sent to jail for contempt, though he noted that is an option under the law and urged New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to warn Trump that he could be incarcerated if he keeps violating the order.
“We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty,” Conroy said. “Defendant seems to be angling for that.”
Trump briefly folded his arms in front of his chest when witness David Pecker began to discuss Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who alleged that she had an affair with Trump. His most visible reaction to testimony came when Pecker discussed the Trump Tower doorman who falsely claimed Trump had fathered a child outside his marriage. (Trump frowned.)
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,855
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I thought there was something happening about the gag order today. Read a prediction of a fine on the first offense, and then locked in a holding cell for the day for the second.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,855
I thought there was something happening about the gag order today. Read a prediction of a fine on the first offense, and then locked in a holding cell for the day for the second.
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I thought there was something happening about the gag order today. Read a prediction of a fine on the first offense, and then locked in a holding cell for the day for the second.
POOTWH ought to STFU and get on with defending himself with the best legal representation other people’s money can buy so he can walk out of the courthouse as a proven innocent POOTWH and say, “I told you so, WITCH HUNT!”
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Trump returned to address reporters and repeated his denial that he knew E. Jean Carroll, the writer who sued him saying he sexually abused and defamed her. A jury found him liable and awarded damages last year. A judge added additional penalties in January after finding that Trump defamed her again.
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NEW YORK (AP) — A full jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated Friday in Donald Trump’s hush money case, setting the stage for opening statements next week in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.
Hours later, an appeals court judge rejected a last-minute attempt to halt the case from Trump's lawyers, who argued that jury selection was rushed and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee cannot get a fair trial in Manhattan.
The jury, which includes a software engineer, investment banker, English teacher and multiple lawyers, took final shape after lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of potential jurors on whether they can impartially judge Trump in the city where he built his real estate empire before being elected in 2016.
The trial thrusts Trump's legal problems into the heart of his hotly contested race against President Joe Biden, with Trump's opponent likely to seize on unflattering and salacious testimony to make the case that he's unfit to return as commander in chief.
DONALD TRUMP
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Trump, meanwhile, is using the prosecution as a political rallying cry, casting himself as a victim while juggling his dual role as criminal defendant and presidential candidate.
Judge Juan Merchan said lawyers will present opening statements Monday morning before prosecutors begin laying out their case alleging a scheme to cover up negative stories Trump feared would hurt his 2016 presidential campaign.
Despite the failure of repeated previous attempts to delay the trial, a Trump attorney was in an appeals court hours after the jury was seated, arguing that Merchan made it impossible for Trump to get an impartial panel by speeding through the selection process.
“To think an impartial jury could be found in that period of time, I would respectfully submit, is untenable,” attorney Clifford Robert said.
Justice Marsha Michael denied the request just minutes after a brief hearing.
Back in the trial court, Merchan expressed frustration as Trump's lawyers pressed to revisit a litany of pretrial rulings.
“At some point, you need to accept the court's rulings,” Merchan said. "There’s nothing else to clarify. There’s nothing else to reargue. We’re going to have opening statements on Monday morning. This trial is starting.”
Just after the jury was seated, emergency crews responded to a park outside the courthouse, where a man had set himself on fire. The man took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories and spread them around the park before dousing himself in a flammable substance and setting himself aflame, officials said. He was in critical condition Friday afternoon.
Trump has spent the week sitting quietly in the courtroom as lawyers pressed potential jurors on their views about him in a search for any bias that would preclude them from hearing the case. During breaks in the proceedings, he has railed against the case on social media or to TV cameras in the hallway, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
"This Trial is a Long, Rigged, Endurance Contest, dealing with Nasty, Crooked People, who want to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” he wrote Friday on social media.
Over five days of jury selection, dozens of people were dismissed from the jury pool after saying they didn't believe they could be fair. Others expressed anxiety about having to decide such a consequential case with outsized media attention, even though the judge has ruled that jurors' names will be known only to prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.
One woman who had been chosen to serve on the jury was dismissed Thursday after she raised concerns over messages she said she got from friends and family when aspects of her identity became public. On Friday, another woman broke down in tears while being questioned by a prosecutor about her ability to decide the case based only on evidence presented in court.
“I feel so nervous and anxious right now,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want someone who feels like this to judge my case either. I don’t want to waste the court’s time.”
As more potential jurors were questioned Friday, Trump appeared to lean over at the defense table, scribbling on some papers and exchanging notes with one of his lawyers. He occasionally perked up and gazed at the jury box, including when one would-be juror said he had volunteered in a “get out the vote” effort for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Trump spoke to reporters before Friday's proceedings got underway, lambasting a gag order that prosecutors have accused him of violating. Merchan has scheduled arguments for next week on prosecutors' request to hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him for social media posts they say defy limits on what he can say about potential witnesses.
“The gag order has to come off. People are allowed to speak about me, and I have a gag order,” Trump said.
Merchan also heard arguments Friday on prosecutors' request to bring up Trump’s prior legal entanglements if he takes the witness stand in the hush money case. Trump has said he wants to testify, but he is not required to and can always change his mind.
Manhattan prosecutors have said they want to question Trump about his recent civil fraud trial that resulted in a $454 million judgment after a judge found Trump had lied about his wealth for years. He is appealing that verdict. Merchan said he would rule on the matter in the coming days.
The trial centers on a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the final days of the 2016 race.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He could get up to four years in prison if convicted, though it’s not clear that the judge would opt to put him behind bars. Trump would almost certainly appeal any conviction.
Trump is involved in four criminal cases, but it’s not clear that any others will reach trial before the November election. Appeals and legal wrangling have caused delays in the other three cases charging Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election results and with illegally hoarding classified documents.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.
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Typical features of antisocial personality disorder are a failure to conform to lawful and ethical behavior, and an egocentric, callous lack of concern for others, accompanied by deceitfulness, irresponsibility, manipulativeness, and/or risk taking.
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Without cameras inside the courtroom, Trump has also challenged the narratives that have emerged from those watching the proceedings. In a fundraising text to supporters, Trump claimed he stormed out of the courtroom during the first day of the trial – a statement not supported by those who witnessed him walk out. Trump posted on Truth Social that “I was PRAYING not sleeping!!” when multiple news outlets reported the former president appeared to doze off during the proceedings.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/19/politics/north-carolina-trump-rally/index.html
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Trump, hush money and the increasingly quaint notion of embarrassment
The first of the four criminal cases facing Donald Trump began in New York City with prospective jurors being grilled on their ability to put aside what they already know and believe to be true about the former president and fairly render a verdict about the issues at hand. Those issues have been exquisitely described by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as “falsifying New York business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” Among the information that Trump was allegedly attempting to hide was that he cheated on his wife with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels — something Trump denies. The prosecution has said Trump engaged in illegal subterfuge because he worried that revelations about his infidelity might offend the female electorate. The defense has said Trump simply wanted to keep a personal matter private lest it embarrass him and his family.
And so, here we are. A jury has been seated and opening arguments are expected to begin Monday in a trial for which the dominant talking points spring from Trump’s capacity to be mortified and the public’s ability to be shocked. How quaint.
Trump is accused of caring so deeply about what prospective voters thought of the way he treated women that he went to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about his brutish nature. We are having this conversation after Trump was found to have defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll when she accused him of raping her and he called her a liar. After the jury ordered him to pay Carroll a settlement of more than $83 million, he continued to publicly attack her. We are here after Trump stood before an audience of voters and referred to one woman as “crazy,” another as “nasty,” called a third a “whack job” and bragged about being instrumental to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away a right to bodily autonomy that women had had for generations.
The legal issues in the New York case are real and they are concerning. And bless the hearts of the lawyers who are litigating them. But it’s hard to look at the criminality being charged without considering just how far the country has come in the years since the alleged activities took place. It seems like such an innocent time back then, before norms and traditions had begun to disintegrate, before folks turned numb to incivility and civil disruption.
The New York charges, of which there are 34, have sometime been referred to as comprising the “runt” of the criminal cases against Trump because legal experts view them as the fuzziest and weakest. The road to Bragg’s accusation of election interference winds through a sordid field of tabloid stories, porn, payoffs and sex. Nonetheless, sitting in a courtroom as a criminal defendant is serious business and having to do so as a former president speaks to both the power of this democracy and the fragility of it. There’s nothing small about this case, it’s just that the country’s fealty to decency, respectability and honesty has retreated further and further into the distance.
The elements of the New York case occurred back before Trump’s election lies helped to spark an insurrection, before Trump saw “good people” among the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville clutching tiki torches and spewing hate, before Trump aspired to use the American military to intimidate fellow citizens exercising their right to free speech and assembly. Those things shocked the consciousness until they no longer did. Until they became mere markers on the road to … where? As the completed jury was being settled, a man tossed pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories into the air and set himself ablaze across from the courthouse. Bystanders screamed, police and civilians attempted to douse the flames, and the man was rushed to a hospital. Law enforcement made statements. Security was discussed. The trial would press on. And then, within minutes, it seemed, the horror had faded. The surprise had dissipated. We are numb.
The former president and his lawyers have worked mightily to delay the start of this case, but now that it has launched, it’s moved more briskly than many expected. It was both heartbreaking and heartening to follow along as the jury was assembled. New Yorkers’ anxieties and fears bubbled to the surface in the cold, dingy courtroom in Lower Manhattan as they considered the pressure they would face and what it would mean if their identity were made public as members of the jury sitting in judgment of Trump. Some even wept. But as riddled with emotion as they were, they retained an earnest desire to do right by a fellow citizen even if it was one whose political beliefs they abhorred, whose personality they found savage and whose behavior they deemed foul.
The public knows little about the jurors as a matter of security. But the details that are known paint them as New Yorkers with varying political opinions and professions who are engaged with the daily news to widely different degrees. They are tasked with looking into our past and brushing the dust off old saws such as shame, shock and dignity.
They have promised to be fair, which is to say that they’ve agreed to treat the defendant with respect. That, too, is a quaint notion. Bless them for holding fast to it.
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Trump’s super PAC has helped foot his legal bills. That might end soon.
Save America has now spent about $60 million on legal consulting since the beginning of 2023.
A PAC controlled by former President Donald Trump that has devoted tens of millions of dollars to his and his allies’ legal bills could be running out of cash after spending nearly $3.7 million on legal fees in March.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, has now spent $59.5 million on legal consulting since the start of 2023. It also incurred $886,000 in new legal debt in March, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission late Saturday. More than $1.1 million of its March spending went toward two firms representing Trump in his New York criminal hush money trial.
The total spent on legal expenses for Save America was almost as much as Trump’s campaign committee in the month of March, highlighting how legal troubles have sucked up the cash of his political operation. Trump’s official campaign committee spent just over $3.7 million in March, with travel expenses, followed by payroll, occupying its biggest expenditure categories.
That total is minuscule compared to the more than $29 million that President Joe Biden’s campaign spent in March, with the incumbent launching a major ad campaign.
Save America, Trump’s leadership PAC, was able to stay in the black in March due to another $5 million refund in March from Make America Great Again Inc., the Trump-backing super PAC. The super PAC has transferred $5 million to the leadership PAC each month going back to last July, with less regular transfers before then.
The leadership PAC initially seeded the super PAC with $60 million before he announced his candidacy. Now, MAGA Inc. can only send $2.75 million more back to Save America, raising questions about whether Save America will continue to be the vehicle to fund legal bills in several cases linked to Trump.
The leadership PAC had just over $4 million cash on hand at the end of March. It can still raise funds from donors and has previously gotten money through one of Trump’s joint fundraising committees, though such transfers have been rare in recent months. That source may be further closed off going forward: Since the start of April, Trump has primarily been sending fundraising emails on behalf of a new joint fundraising committee, Trump National Committee, that fundraises only for his campaign and the Republican National Committee.
The RNC reported its best fundraising month so far in March, with $20 million raised, roughly half of which came through another Trump-linked joint fundraising committee. The party committee spent $10 million, however, leaving it with $21 million cash on hand, less than half of the $45 million that the Democratic National Committee reported having in the bank at the end of March.
Among the RNC’s March expenses was $118,000 paid to former Chair Ronna McDaniel on March 6, two days before she left the committee. Representatives for McDaniel and the RNC did not immediately return a request for comment on the payment.
MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump super PAC that has been bankrolling Save America, continued to rake in cash in March, with $14 million raised led by massive donations from familiar GOP donors. Linda McMahon, the former WWE CEO who led the Small Business Administration under Trump, gave $5 million to the super PAC, while Nevada real estate magnate Robert Bigelow gave more than $4 million. Most of those funds cannot go to Save America, as MAGA Inc. is limited in what it can transfer based on what Save America previously gave to the super PAC during the 2022 cycle.
Trump’s super PAC has helped foot his legal bills. That might end soon. - POLITICO
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MIAMI (AP) — The social media company founded by former President Donald Trump applied for a business visa program that he sought to restrict during his administration and which many of his allies want him to curtail in a potential second term.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, filed an application in June 2022 for an H-1B visa for a worker at a $65,000 annual salary, the lowest wage category allowed under the program. Federal immigration data shows the company was approved for a visa a few months later. The company says it did not hire the worker.
Filing for the visa sets the image of Trump the candidate, who has proposed a protectionist agenda for companies to “hire American,” in conflict with Trump the businessman, who has said his companies will use every tool at their disposal. Records show the investment firm started by Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, also filed an application and was approved to hire a foreigner as an associate under the same visa program.
DONALD TRUMP
What to know about the Supreme Court case about immunity for former President Trump
Trump could avoid trial this year on 2020 election charges. Is the hush money case a worthy proxy?
'Catch-and-kill' to be described to jurors as testimony resumes in hush money trial of Donald Trump
Trump tried to 'corrupt' the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway
Trump Media & Technology Group said in a statement the application “was made under prior management," even though the current CEO, former House Intelligence Committee chairman and longtime Trump ally Devin Nunes, was already leading the company at the time the application was first filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.
“The company has never hired — and has no plans to hire — an H-1B visa program worker. When current management learned of this application, which was made under prior management, it swiftly terminated the process in November 2022," the company said in a statement.
An H-1B visa petition can cost companies about $5,000 per employee. Companies can withdraw petitions even after being approved. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services records data doesn't note when visas are revoked. But a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, which also tracks H-1B applications, said they had no records of Truth Social requesting a withdrawal.
A COMMON TOOL FOR TECH COMPANIES
Tech companies commonly hire employees using the H-1B program. Trump never hid the fact he used the visas before he became president, using them mostly to bring in foreign models and a few workers for his hotels and resorts, per a review of petitions filed since 2009.
But with exceptions to renew existing applications, his companies appeared to have no longer petitioned for H-1B visas until Truth Social was created.
Data from the Labor Department shows that an application was filed by Trump Media & Technology Group for an employee to earn $65,000. It lists as the employer Will Wilkerson, a company co-founder and former senior vice president of operations, and an Atlanta address as the job's location.
Wilkerson filed a whistleblower complaint in August 2022 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging securities violations by the company. He was fired, according to The Washington Post, and is cooperating with federal authorities. His lawyers said he would not comment.
‘I SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO USE IT'
Trump frequently talks about the arrivals of migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, but his policy proposals while in the White House also included curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.
In a 2016 primary debate, Trump spoke about the H-1B visa program and said it was “very bad” and “unfair” for U.S. workers.
“First of all, I think and I know the H-1B very well. And it’s something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have it,” he said. “Second of all, I think it’s very important to say, well, I’m a businessman and I have to do what I have to do.”
Three months after taking office, Trump issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, which directed Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that H-1B visas were awarded to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers. He has previously said the program was used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.
During his administration, a study by the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy found the government was scrutinizing cases more by launching requests for more information from companies filing to hire foreign workers and denying more petitions.
The “Project 2025” handbook, compiled by allies preparing for Trump’s potential transition to power, says the H-1B program should be transformed “into an elite mechanism exclusively to bring in the ‘best and brightest’ at the highest wages while simultaneously ensuring that U.S. workers are not being disadvantaged by the program."
Companies in the professional, scientific and technical services fields account for more than 60% of the total visas granted, said Nicolas Morales, an economist at the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond who specializes in labor and migration. Morales said he has found the visa program has been beneficial for small companies to stay in business.
“Winning the H-1B lottery actually helps them. It increases their chances of survival,” he said. “In the next five years, they are more likely to stay active, particularly small companies that are very dependent on skilled labor.”
The applications require companies to attest they will provide the foreign workers the same benefits offered to U.S. workers and pay more than what they pay others with similar experience and qualifications or more than the typical wage for that type of occupation. Companies also have to provide a notice of the filing to the workers by posting a notice in two locations at the place of employment.
Much of the criticism regarding the H-1B program is about companies offering salaries in the lower wage categories to foreign workers. The application filed by Kushner’s investment firm to hire a foreign employee appears to satisfy that complaint.
The Labor Department certified a document where Kushner’s investment firm specified it would pay this employee a $200,000 salary, which falls under the highest wage level for the H-1B visas typically reserved for those who are experts in their field and have senior responsibilities. Recent data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shows the company was approved for a visa.
Kushner has not joined the Trump campaign and has been pursuing his own business interests applying for tourism projects in the Balkans.
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NEW YORK (AP) — A longtime tabloid publisher was expected Tuesday to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign as testimony resumes in the historic hush money trial of the former president.
David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who prosecutors say worked with Trump and Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, on a so-called “catch-and-kill” strategy to buy up and then spike negative stories during the campaign, testified briefly Monday and will be back on the stand Tuesday in the Manhattan trial.
Also Tuesday, prosecutors are expected to tell a judge that Trump should be held in contempt over a series of posts on his Truth Social platform that they say violated an earlier gag order barring him from attacking witnesses in the case. Trump's lawyers deny that he broke the order.
Pecker's testimony followed opening statements in which prosecutors alleged that Trump had sought to illegally influence the 2016 race by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, including by approving hush money payments to a porn actor who alleged an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied that.
DONALD TRUMP
What to know about the Supreme Court case about immunity for former President Trump
Trump could avoid trial this year on 2020 election charges. Is the hush money case a worthy proxy?
Trump called this visa 'very bad' for Americans. Truth Social applied for one
Trump tried to 'corrupt' the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway
"This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
A defense lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who's now the government's star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should not have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury. Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to a porn actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign.
The opening statements served as an introduction to the colorful cast of characters that feature prominently in that tawdry saga, including Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who says she received the hush money; Cohen, the lawyer who prosecutors say paid her; and Pecker, who prosecutors say agreed to function as the campaign’s “eyes and ears."
In his opening statement, Colangelo outlined a comprehensive effort by Trump and allies to prevent three separate stories — two from women alleging prior sexual encounters — from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign. That undertaking was especially urgent following the emergence late in the race of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard boasting about grabbing women sexually without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.'" So, he added, "they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Those alleged falsified records form the backbone of the 34-count indictment against Trump. Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.
Blanche, the defense lawyer, sought to preemptively undermine the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role in the hush money scheme, as someone with an “obsession” with Trump who cannot be trusted. He said Trump had done nothing illegal when his company recorded the checks to Cohen as legal expenses and said it was not against the law for a candidate to try to influence an election.
Blanche challenged the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his campaign, characterizing the transaction instead as an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass Trump and his loved ones.
“President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche told jurors.
The efforts to suppress the stories are what’s known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Besides the payment to Daniels, Colangelo also described arrangements to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
He said jurors would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they will hear Trump in his own voice saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Pecker is relevant to the case because prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
He described the tabloid's use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.
“I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a story without getting his approval, he said.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
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Follow the AP's coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy asked a judge to remind Donald Trump that “incarceration is an option” if he continues to violate the gag order in his trial.
“His disobedience of the order is willful, it’s intentional,” Conroy said. He said Trump’s claims that he is only responding to political attacks make no sense.
Trump has previously declared he would be willing to go to jail over the issue of the gag order.
“He says whatever he needs to say to get the results that he wants,” Conroy said. “He’s doing everything he can to undermine this process. It has to stop.”
Conroy said he is not asking at this time for Trump to be sent to jail for contempt, though he noted that is an option under the law and urged New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to warn Trump that he could be incarcerated if he keeps violating the order.
“We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty,” Conroy said. “Defendant seems to be angling for that.”
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
i can't believe people actually want to go back to that.
https://x.com/harrisonjaime/status/1782858086803247220
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
wait, is that a twitter link?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14