Yeah, no offense Mick, but I only Click a Twitter Link every once in a while.
Was it Twitter that has does this? or is it this Website?
if only there were a platform where people can post things resembling tweets that can be embedded on forums like this....
threads, anybody? can it be done with threads?
How about Truth Social?
Have we stopped tracking its stock price here? That’s literally how I knew it went up. Like it matters….
It's fascinating. You have retail MAGA investors buying in, trying to prop it up, and then lots of people and institutions shorting it.
I don’t give a shit about it honestly. I don’t invest in anything that doesn’t pay a dividend. I just think it’s petty to talk about it constantly only when it’s dropping and root for it to go down. I’ll never root against a stock because the only people who actually lose are retail investors.
I'm rooting against $TSLA.
I could never. Retailer investors lose money and it scares away people. We need retail investors and the world would be a better place if people understood investing and financing instead of being scared and feeling like it’s rigged for the rich. Just my opinion
Musk is a douche who is actively destroying his relationship with his core consumer base in America; wealthy professionals who care about the climate. His desire to be a right wing troll is superseding his desire to build his brand and manufacturing business. I'd like to see him fail.
But he won’t fail. That’s my point. It’s too late. He’ll be fine if Tesla bombs. My concern is for the investors. They’re the ones who would get hurt.
Him failing is him being ousted, in some way. And not having an obscene executive package. Tesla isn't going down to zero and bankrupt. But right now, it should be trading in the same place as Toyota, Honda, GM, etc., using their fundamentals as the guide. That's assuming a $1.40 EPS, which is about where they are trending. That equates to $14-$20 per share.
I have no idea if institutional or retail investors are the reason why it is trading where it is (way off it's high, but still to high I think), but I don't think it's a great product and he's a dick. I will not invest in TSLA for all of these reasons.
I agree with that entire first paragraph which is why I sold it for a nice profit years ago. Its price never seemed justified to me plus it was one of two holding I had that didn’t have a dividend. The other one being Amazon.
0
Options
mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,306
and people want this mind back in the white house....
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
Yeah, no offense Mick, but I only Click a Twitter Link every once in a while.
Was it Twitter that has does this? or is it this Website?
if only there were a platform where people can post things resembling tweets that can be embedded on forums like this....
threads, anybody? can it be done with threads?
How about Truth Social?
Have we stopped tracking its stock price here? That’s literally how I knew it went up. Like it matters….
It's fascinating. You have retail MAGA investors buying in, trying to prop it up, and then lots of people and institutions shorting it.
I don’t give a shit about it honestly. I don’t invest in anything that doesn’t pay a dividend. I just think it’s petty to talk about it constantly only when it’s dropping and root for it to go down. I’ll never root against a stock because the only people who actually lose are retail investors.
I'm rooting against $TSLA.
I could never. Retailer investors lose money and it scares away people. We need retail investors and the world would be a better place if people understood investing and financing instead of being scared and feeling like it’s rigged for the rich. Just my opinion
Musk is a douche who is actively destroying his relationship with his core consumer base in America; wealthy professionals who care about the climate. His desire to be a right wing troll is superseding his desire to build his brand and manufacturing business. I'd like to see him fail.
But he won’t fail. That’s my point. It’s too late. He’ll be fine if Tesla bombs. My concern is for the investors. They’re the ones who would get hurt.
Him failing is him being ousted, in some way. And not having an obscene executive package. Tesla isn't going down to zero and bankrupt. But right now, it should be trading in the same place as Toyota, Honda, GM, etc., using their fundamentals as the guide. That's assuming a $1.40 EPS, which is about where they are trending. That equates to $14-$20 per share.
I have no idea if institutional or retail investors are the reason why it is trading where it is (way off it's high, but still to high I think), but I don't think it's a great product and he's a dick. I will not invest in TSLA for all of these reasons.
I agree with that entire first paragraph which is why I sold it for a nice profit years ago. Its price never seemed justified to me plus it was one of two holding I had that didn’t have a dividend. The other one being Amazon.
Funny that I don't really look at that, but two of my biggest holdings are Chase and Google. Chase is a bank, so dividend. But Google just announced a 20 cent dividend. While that isn't a ton of money, it shot the stock up significantly, so that was great! I bought a ton of their stock over a decade ago.
I also buy a lot of Amazon stock. It has performed great too.
Yeah, no offense Mick, but I only Click a Twitter Link every once in a while.
Was it Twitter that has does this? or is it this Website?
if only there were a platform where people can post things resembling tweets that can be embedded on forums like this....
threads, anybody? can it be done with threads?
How about Truth Social?
Have we stopped tracking its stock price here? That’s literally how I knew it went up. Like it matters….
It's fascinating. You have retail MAGA investors buying in, trying to prop it up, and then lots of people and institutions shorting it.
I don’t give a shit about it honestly. I don’t invest in anything that doesn’t pay a dividend. I just think it’s petty to talk about it constantly only when it’s dropping and root for it to go down. I’ll never root against a stock because the only people who actually lose are retail investors.
I'm rooting against $TSLA.
I could never. Retailer investors lose money and it scares away people. We need retail investors and the world would be a better place if people understood investing and financing instead of being scared and feeling like it’s rigged for the rich. Just my opinion
Musk is a douche who is actively destroying his relationship with his core consumer base in America; wealthy professionals who care about the climate. His desire to be a right wing troll is superseding his desire to build his brand and manufacturing business. I'd like to see him fail.
But he won’t fail. That’s my point. It’s too late. He’ll be fine if Tesla bombs. My concern is for the investors. They’re the ones who would get hurt.
Him failing is him being ousted, in some way. And not having an obscene executive package. Tesla isn't going down to zero and bankrupt. But right now, it should be trading in the same place as Toyota, Honda, GM, etc., using their fundamentals as the guide. That's assuming a $1.40 EPS, which is about where they are trending. That equates to $14-$20 per share.
I have no idea if institutional or retail investors are the reason why it is trading where it is (way off it's high, but still to high I think), but I don't think it's a great product and he's a dick. I will not invest in TSLA for all of these reasons.
I agree with that entire first paragraph which is why I sold it for a nice profit years ago. Its price never seemed justified to me plus it was one of two holding I had that didn’t have a dividend. The other one being Amazon.
Funny that I don't really look at that, but two of my biggest holdings are Chase and Google. Chase is a bank, so dividend. But Google just announced a 20 cent dividend. While that isn't a ton of money, it shot the stock up significantly, so that was great! I bought a ton of their stock over a decade ago.
I also buy a lot of Amazon stock. It has performed great too.
That’s great news for shareholders. Getting a passive income while growth is happening is the best. 100% of my divs I reinvest myself so it just snowballs.
I started as a day trader. I was really good at it but it took over my life. I couldn’t switch my mind off. I read this incredible article one day about income investing on seeking alpha that changed my entire perspective. I have to see if I still have it saved.
Could I have kept making big money with day trading? Probably. But it wasn’t worth the mental cost.
Yeah, no offense Mick, but I only Click a Twitter Link every once in a while.
Was it Twitter that has does this? or is it this Website?
if only there were a platform where people can post things resembling tweets that can be embedded on forums like this....
threads, anybody? can it be done with threads?
How about Truth Social?
Have we stopped tracking its stock price here? That’s literally how I knew it went up. Like it matters….
It's fascinating. You have retail MAGA investors buying in, trying to prop it up, and then lots of people and institutions shorting it.
I don’t give a shit about it honestly. I don’t invest in anything that doesn’t pay a dividend. I just think it’s petty to talk about it constantly only when it’s dropping and root for it to go down. I’ll never root against a stock because the only people who actually lose are retail investors.
I'm rooting against $TSLA.
I could never. Retailer investors lose money and it scares away people. We need retail investors and the world would be a better place if people understood investing and financing instead of being scared and feeling like it’s rigged for the rich. Just my opinion
Musk is a douche who is actively destroying his relationship with his core consumer base in America; wealthy professionals who care about the climate. His desire to be a right wing troll is superseding his desire to build his brand and manufacturing business. I'd like to see him fail.
But he won’t fail. That’s my point. It’s too late. He’ll be fine if Tesla bombs. My concern is for the investors. They’re the ones who would get hurt.
Him failing is him being ousted, in some way. And not having an obscene executive package. Tesla isn't going down to zero and bankrupt. But right now, it should be trading in the same place as Toyota, Honda, GM, etc., using their fundamentals as the guide. That's assuming a $1.40 EPS, which is about where they are trending. That equates to $14-$20 per share.
I have no idea if institutional or retail investors are the reason why it is trading where it is (way off it's high, but still to high I think), but I don't think it's a great product and he's a dick. I will not invest in TSLA for all of these reasons.
I agree with that entire first paragraph which is why I sold it for a nice profit years ago. Its price never seemed justified to me plus it was one of two holding I had that didn’t have a dividend. The other one being Amazon.
Funny that I don't really look at that, but two of my biggest holdings are Chase and Google. Chase is a bank, so dividend. But Google just announced a 20 cent dividend. While that isn't a ton of money, it shot the stock up significantly, so that was great! I bought a ton of their stock over a decade ago.
I also buy a lot of Amazon stock. It has performed great too.
That’s great news for shareholders. Getting a passive income while growth is happening is the best. 100% of my divs I reinvest myself so it just snowballs.
I started as a day trader. I was really good at it but it took over my life. I couldn’t switch my mind off. I read this incredible article one day about income investing on seeking alpha that changed my entire perspective. I have to see if I still have it saved.
Could I have kept making big money with day trading? Probably. But it wasn’t worth the mental cost.
I was workign at Cap One when that was big, and lots of people were hiding in their office day trading. And then they would leave to decide to do it full time. I don't have the gambler's stomach to do such a thing. I was addicted to consistent income. I have a stressful job, but day trading seems like a whole different level.
And I auto-reinvest the dividends into the same equity as well. It does add up.
Yeah, no offense Mick, but I only Click a Twitter Link every once in a while.
Was it Twitter that has does this? or is it this Website?
if only there were a platform where people can post things resembling tweets that can be embedded on forums like this....
threads, anybody? can it be done with threads?
How about Truth Social?
Have we stopped tracking its stock price here? That’s literally how I knew it went up. Like it matters….
It's fascinating. You have retail MAGA investors buying in, trying to prop it up, and then lots of people and institutions shorting it.
I don’t give a shit about it honestly. I don’t invest in anything that doesn’t pay a dividend. I just think it’s petty to talk about it constantly only when it’s dropping and root for it to go down. I’ll never root against a stock because the only people who actually lose are retail investors.
I'm rooting against $TSLA.
I could never. Retailer investors lose money and it scares away people. We need retail investors and the world would be a better place if people understood investing and financing instead of being scared and feeling like it’s rigged for the rich. Just my opinion
Musk is a douche who is actively destroying his relationship with his core consumer base in America; wealthy professionals who care about the climate. His desire to be a right wing troll is superseding his desire to build his brand and manufacturing business. I'd like to see him fail.
But he won’t fail. That’s my point. It’s too late. He’ll be fine if Tesla bombs. My concern is for the investors. They’re the ones who would get hurt.
Him failing is him being ousted, in some way. And not having an obscene executive package. Tesla isn't going down to zero and bankrupt. But right now, it should be trading in the same place as Toyota, Honda, GM, etc., using their fundamentals as the guide. That's assuming a $1.40 EPS, which is about where they are trending. That equates to $14-$20 per share.
I have no idea if institutional or retail investors are the reason why it is trading where it is (way off it's high, but still to high I think), but I don't think it's a great product and he's a dick. I will not invest in TSLA for all of these reasons.
I agree with that entire first paragraph which is why I sold it for a nice profit years ago. Its price never seemed justified to me plus it was one of two holding I had that didn’t have a dividend. The other one being Amazon.
Funny that I don't really look at that, but two of my biggest holdings are Chase and Google. Chase is a bank, so dividend. But Google just announced a 20 cent dividend. While that isn't a ton of money, it shot the stock up significantly, so that was great! I bought a ton of their stock over a decade ago.
I also buy a lot of Amazon stock. It has performed great too.
That’s great news for shareholders. Getting a passive income while growth is happening is the best. 100% of my divs I reinvest myself so it just snowballs.
I started as a day trader. I was really good at it but it took over my life. I couldn’t switch my mind off. I read this incredible article one day about income investing on seeking alpha that changed my entire perspective. I have to see if I still have it saved.
Could I have kept making big money with day trading? Probably. But it wasn’t worth the mental cost.
I was workign at Cap One when that was big, and lots of people were hiding in their office day trading. And then they would leave to decide to do it full time. I don't have the gambler's stomach to do such a thing. I was addicted to consistent income. I have a stressful job, but day trading seems like a whole different level.
And I auto-reinvest the dividends into the same equity as well. It does add up.
Dude I’d have dreams of charts and candles. It was bad. Hahah. I’m definitely not a gambler but I was so confident in my ability to read charts that it almost felt guaranteed sometimes. Understanding the psychology of the market is everything when day trading. I couldn’t tell you anything about the companies I traded during those times , besides the chart.
And yes when every share you have gets you more dividends it adds up quickly ! Sorry for derailing the thread topic with all this stuff.
Post edited by nicknyr15 on
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,306
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
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Options
mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,306
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
I expect Hamborger to be Ken Layed by trial. And how is “Truth” Social valued at $9B again?
Yet new data shows its main product — the conservative-friendly social network Truth Social — remains a very tiny player in its industry, and it’s getting even smaller.
Truth Social’s average number of daily active US users on iOS and Android dropped by 19% year over year in April to about 113,000, according to data shared exclusively with CNN from Similarweb, a data intelligence company.
The Similarweb data, which captures the first 29 days of April, showed that the average number of users dipped 4% month over month. That drop comes despite the considerable attention received by the ongoing Trump criminal trial and the growing focus on the US presidential election.
Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts political firestorm in 2016 over 'Access Hollywood' tape
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, PHILIP MARCELO and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Today
NEW YORK (AP) — Former White House official and Donald Trump adviser Hope Hicks took the stand Friday at the former president's hush money trial and recounted how his 2016 campaign became embroiled in a political firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission.
Hicks, once one of Trump's closest confidants, was subpoenaed by prosecutors, who are trying to show that the uproar over the infamous leaked “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump's then-lawyer to pay off a porn actor to bury a negative story that could imperil his 2016 presidential bid.
Hicks' testimony provided jurors with a glimpse into the chaotic fallout in the Trump campaign over the tape's release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other Trump advisers after learning about the tape's existence from a Washington Post reporter.
“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."
She added: "This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
In the aftermath of the tape's release, she asked Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen to chase down a rumor of another potentially damaging tape. Hicks said she wanted to be proactive in seeking out the supposed tape because she didn't want anyone to be "blindsided.” There ended up not being one.
Four days before the 2016 election, Hicks said she received a request for comment from a Wall Street Journal reporter for a forthcoming story about American Media Inc. buying the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had an affair with Trump years earlier. Trump denies the allegations.
Hicks recalled reaching out to Jared Kushner in hopes he could use his connections to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Journal’s parent company, to help delay the story. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told her that he likely would not be able to reach Murdoch in time, Hicks testified.
Trump showed no emotion as he watched Hicks take the witness stand, where she acknowledged after stepping up to the microphone that she was “really nervous.” Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump,” she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022.
While no longer in Trump's inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background. Hicks complimented Trump multiple times in the first few minutes of her testimony, describing him as a “very good multitasker, a very hard worker.”
Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case accusing Trump of a scheme to illegally influence the election. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.
Trump's defense has worked to poke holes in the credibility of prosecution witnesses and to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by keeping the women quiet. The defense also suggested while questioning an attorney who represented two women in hush money negotiations that Trump was, in fact, the victim of extortion. Trump has denied the claims of extramarital sexual encounters.
Hicks’ proximity to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to congressional and criminal investigators alike, who have sought her testimony on multiple occasions on topics ranging from Russia election interference to Trump’s election loss and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Her testimony came a day after prosecutors played a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen shortly before the 2016 election in which they discussed a plan to pay off an ex-Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump.
Cohen is heard telling Trump about a plan to purchase the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
In the recording, Cohen revealed that he had spoken to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg about “how to set the whole thing up with funding.”
Trump can be heard responding: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Trump suggested the payment be made with cash, prompting Cohen to object by repeatedly saying “no." Trump then says “check” before the recording cuts off.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. The charges stem from paperwork such as invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organization records. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.
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
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Options
mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,306
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
0
Options
mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,306
Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts fear in 2016 campaign over impact of 'Access Hollywood' tape
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, PHILIP MARCELO and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was seized with worry about the potential political damage from a tape that showed Trump bragging about grabbing women sexually without their permission, longtime Trump adviser Hope Hicks testified Friday at his hush money trial.
Hicks, a former White House official, was compelled to testify by Manhattan prosecutors, who are hoping her remarks bolster their argument that the uproar over the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump’s then-lawyer to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury a negative story that could imperil his 2016 presidential bid.
Once one of Trump's closest confidants, Hicks provided a window into the chaotic fallout over the tape's release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. It was recorded in 2005 but was not seen by the public until Oct. 7, 2016, about a month before Election Day. Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other Trump advisers after learning about the tape's existence from the Washington Post reporter who broke the story. Hicks forwarded the reporter's request to campaign leadership with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny,” she said.
“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."
She added: "This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
Prosecutors called her to the witness stand to strengthen their case alleging Trump worked to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has sought to establish that link not just to secure a conviction but also to persuade the public of the significance of the case, which may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to reach trial this year.
Hicks told jurors that Trump claimed he did not know anything about his then-attorney Michael Cohen paying $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from going public with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. But, Hicks said, Trump eventually came to believe that burying Daniels' story was prudent, saying he thought “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”
At other points, Hicks' testimony appeared to help the defense's contention that the former president was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which he has slammed as an effort to derail his campaign to reclaim the White House in November.
Under questioning by Trump's attorney, Hicks told jurors that he was worried about the effect of the “Access Hollywood” tape on his family. And when the Wall Street Journal published a story revealing ex-Playboy Model Karen McDougal's affair allegations right before the election, Hicks said Trump was concerned about his wife seeing the story and asked Hicks to make sure newspapers weren't delivered to their residence that morning.
But when asked if Trump was also worried about the story’s impact on the campaign, Hicks responded that everything they spoke about during that time was viewed through the lens of the campaign. Trump would often asking her, “How is it playing?” as a way of gauging how his appearances, speeches and policies were landing with voters, she said.
Hicks’ proximity to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to congressional and criminal investigators alike, who have sought her testimony on multiple occasions on topics ranging from Russian election interference to Trump’s election loss and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
She appeared reluctant to be in the courtroom, taking a deep breath as she stepped up to the microphone and acknowledging she was “really nervous.” She later started crying on the witness stand, forcing the court to take a brief break, when Trump lawyer Emil Bove started to ask her to reflect on her time at the Trump Organization before he brought her onto his 2016 campaign.
Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump” and later “President Trump” when speaking about their time in the White House, she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022. While no longer in Trump’s inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background.
She recounted how the political firestorm that ensued after the release of the tape was so intense that it knocked an actual storm out of the headlines. Before the tape became public, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane that was charging toward the East Coast.
“I don’t think anybody remembers” where that hurricane hit, Hicks told jurors.
Hurricane Matthew, which hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm, made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public.
Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case charging Trump with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.
Testimony will resume Monday. The trial could last another month or more, with important witnesses who have yet to be called, including Cohen and Daniels.
One of the most pivotal pieces of evidence disclosed to jurors this week was a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen before the 2016 election in which they discussed a plan to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
At one point, Trump can be heard saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
In a victory for Trump just as court was ending for the week, Judge Juan M. Merchan denied a request by prosecutors to ask Trump, should he choose to testify, about being held in contempt of court for gag order violations in the case. Merchan said allowing it would be “so prejudicial it would be very, very difficult for the jury to look past that.”
Trump this week paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order that bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the case.
His attorney, Todd Blanche, told the judge Friday they are appealing the finding that Trump violated the gag order. Blanche said that they took particular issue with penalties for what are known as reposts — instances where Trump shared someone else’s post with his followers.
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Ruth Brown and Michelle Price in New York contributed to this report.
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
Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts fear in 2016 campaign over impact of 'Access Hollywood' tape
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JAKE OFFENHARTZ, PHILIP MARCELO and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Yesterday
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was seized with worry about the potential political damage from a tape that showed Trump bragging about grabbing women sexually without their permission, longtime Trump adviser Hope Hicks testified Friday at his hush money trial.
Hicks, a former White House official, was compelled to testify by Manhattan prosecutors, who are hoping her remarks bolster their argument that the uproar over the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump’s then-lawyer to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury a negative story that could imperil his 2016 presidential bid.
Once one of Trump's closest confidants, Hicks provided a window into the chaotic fallout over the tape's release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. It was recorded in 2005 but was not seen by the public until Oct. 7, 2016, about a month before Election Day. Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other Trump advisers after learning about the tape's existence from the Washington Post reporter who broke the story. Hicks forwarded the reporter's request to campaign leadership with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny,” she said.
“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."
She added: "This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
Prosecutors called her to the witness stand to strengthen their case alleging Trump worked to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has sought to establish that link not just to secure a conviction but also to persuade the public of the significance of the case, which may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to reach trial this year.
Hicks told jurors that Trump claimed he did not know anything about his then-attorney Michael Cohen paying $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from going public with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. But, Hicks said, Trump eventually came to believe that burying Daniels' story was prudent, saying he thought “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”
At other points, Hicks' testimony appeared to help the defense's contention that the former president was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which he has slammed as an effort to derail his campaign to reclaim the White House in November.
Under questioning by Trump's attorney, Hicks told jurors that he was worried about the effect of the “Access Hollywood” tape on his family. And when the Wall Street Journal published a story revealing ex-Playboy Model Karen McDougal's affair allegations right before the election, Hicks said Trump was concerned about his wife seeing the story and asked Hicks to make sure newspapers weren't delivered to their residence that morning.
But when asked if Trump was also worried about the story’s impact on the campaign, Hicks responded that everything they spoke about during that time was viewed through the lens of the campaign. Trump would often asking her, “How is it playing?” as a way of gauging how his appearances, speeches and policies were landing with voters, she said.
Hicks’ proximity to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to congressional and criminal investigators alike, who have sought her testimony on multiple occasions on topics ranging from Russian election interference to Trump’s election loss and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
She appeared reluctant to be in the courtroom, taking a deep breath as she stepped up to the microphone and acknowledging she was “really nervous.” She later started crying on the witness stand, forcing the court to take a brief break, when Trump lawyer Emil Bove started to ask her to reflect on her time at the Trump Organization before he brought her onto his 2016 campaign.
Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump” and later “President Trump” when speaking about their time in the White House, she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022. While no longer in Trump’s inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background.
She recounted how the political firestorm that ensued after the release of the tape was so intense that it knocked an actual storm out of the headlines. Before the tape became public, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane that was charging toward the East Coast.
“I don’t think anybody remembers” where that hurricane hit, Hicks told jurors.
Hurricane Matthew, which hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm, made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public.
Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case charging Trump with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.
Testimony will resume Monday. The trial could last another month or more, with important witnesses who have yet to be called, including Cohen and Daniels.
One of the most pivotal pieces of evidence disclosed to jurors this week was a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen before the 2016 election in which they discussed a plan to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
At one point, Trump can be heard saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
In a victory for Trump just as court was ending for the week, Judge Juan M. Merchan denied a request by prosecutors to ask Trump, should he choose to testify, about being held in contempt of court for gag order violations in the case. Merchan said allowing it would be “so prejudicial it would be very, very difficult for the jury to look past that.”
Trump this week paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order that bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the case.
His attorney, Todd Blanche, told the judge Friday they are appealing the finding that Trump violated the gag order. Blanche said that they took particular issue with penalties for what are known as reposts — instances where Trump shared someone else’s post with his followers.
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Ruth Brown and Michelle Price in New York contributed to this report.
A POOTWH supporter might shoot that guy then claim they didn’t realize they weren’t on 5th avenue where POOTWH said they could get away with it.
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Here is what Stormy Daniels testified happened between her and Donald Trump
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MICHELLE L. PRICE
1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Porn actor Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday in the hush money case against Donald Trump, who looked on as she detailed their alleged sexual encounter and the payment she got to keep it quiet.
Prosecutors allege Trump paid Daniels to keep quiet about the claims as he ran for president in 2016. Her testimony aired them very publicly as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seeks to win the White House again.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels, and his lawyers unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial midway through her testimony.
The case centers on a $130,000 payment to Daniels from Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Prosecutors say it was part of a scheme to illegally influence the campaign by burying negative stories about him.
His lawyers have sought to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told jurors that she started exotic dancing in high school and appearing in adult films at age 23, eventually moving on to direct more than 150 films and winning a roster of porn industry awards.
MEETING TRUMP
Daniels testified she first met and chatted with Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe celebrity golf outing where her studio was a sponsor.
He referred to her as “the smart one” and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner, she said. Daniels testified that she accepted Trump’s invitation because she wanted to avoid dinner with her co-workers and thought it might help her career. Trump had his bodyguard get her number, she said.
When they met up later in his penthouse, she appreciated that he seemed interested in the business aspects of the industry rather than the “sexy stuff." He also suggested putting her on his TV show, “The Apprentice,” a possibility she hoped could help establish her as a writer and director.
She left to use the bathroom and was startled to find Trump in his underwear when she returned, she said. She didn’t feel physically or verbally threatened but realized that he was “bigger and blocking the way,” she testified.
“The next thing I know was: I was on the bed,” and they were having sex, Daniels recalled. The encounter was brief but left her “shaking,” she said. “I just wanted to leave,” she testified.
PAYMENTS FOR SILENCE
Daniels was asked if Trump ever told her to keep things between them confidential and said, “Absolutely not.” She said she learned in 2011 that a magazine had learned the story of their encounter and she agreed to do an interview for $15,000 to make money and “control the narrative.” The story never ran.
In 2016, when Trump was running for president, Daniels said she authorized her manager to shop the story around but did not initially receive interest from news outlets. She said that changed in October with the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about grabbing women sexually without asking permission. She said she learned that Cohen wanted to buy her silence.
MISTRIAL PUSH
Midway through her testimony, Trump's lawyers moved for a mistrial.
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued that Daniels' testimony about the alleged encounter and other meetings with him had “nothing to do with this case,” and would unfairly prejudice the jury.
The judge rejected it, and he faulted defense attorneys for not raising more of their objections while she was testifying.
Before Daniels took the stand, Trump’s lawyers had tried to stop her from testifying about the encounter's details, saying it was irrelevant in “a case about books and records.”
Prosecutors countered that Daniels’ testimony gets at what Trump was trying to hide and they were “very mindful” not to draw too much graphic detail. Before Daniels took the stand, they told the judge the testimony would be “really basic,” and would not “involve any details of genitalia.”
While the judge didn’t side with Trump’s lawyers, he acknowledged that some details were excessive. The objections could potentially be used by Trump’s lawyers if he is convicted and they file an appeal.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Trump's lawyers tried to attack Daniels' credibility, suggesting she was motivated by money and that her account has shifted over the years.
“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” Defense lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels at one point. Daniels acknowledged she did.
“And you want him to go to jail?” the lawyer asked.
“I want him to be held accountable,” Daniels said. Pressed again whether that meant going to jail, she said, “If he’s convicted.”
The defense pressed Daniels on the fact that she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees stemming from an unsuccessful defamation lawsuit and on a 2022 tweet in which she said she “will go to jail before I pay a penny.” Daniels dug in at times in the face of pointed questions, forcefully denying the idea that she had tried to extort Trump.
TRUMP IN COURT
Trump whispered frequently to his attorney during Daniels’ testimony, and his expression seemed to be pained at one point as she recounted details about the dinner she says they shared. He shook his head and appeared to say something under his breath as Daniels testified that Trump told her he didn’t sleep in the same room as his wife.
At one point, the judge told defense lawyers during a sidebar conversation — out of earshot of the jury and the public — that he could hear Trump “cursing audibly" and see him shaking his head, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
“I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Judge Juan Merchan told Blanche, Trump's lawyer. Blanche assured the judge he would talk to his client.
“You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that,” the judge said.
On the way out of the courthouse, Trump called it “a very revealing day." He didn't address Daniels' testimony explicitly but claimed the prosecutors' case was “totally falling apart.”
A JARRING SPLIT SCREEN
Trump’s appearance in court Tuesday, like all other days he’s stuck in the courtroom, means he can’t be out on the campaign trail as he runs for president a third time. It’s a frequent source of his complaints, but Daniels' testimony in particular might underscore how much of a distraction the trial is from the business of running for president.
While Trump was stuck in a Manhattan courthouse away from voters and unable to speak for much of the day, his rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, was attending a Holocaust remembrance ceremony and condemning antisemitism.
It’s an issue Trump has sought to use against Biden in the campaign by seizing on the protests at college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war.
____
Whitehurst reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Michael Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Jake Offenhartz and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this story.
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What Stormy Daniels said happened in Trump’s hotel suite, from the transcript By Niha Masih and Leo Sands May 08, 2024 at 8:12 ET Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels appeared on the witness stand at Donald Trump’s hush money trial Tuesday, offering an account of her alleged one-night stand with the former president. Despite the repeated objections of Trump’s lawyers, Daniels went into great detail about the 2006 sexual encounter; her description at times made it sound like the sex could be viewed as nonconsensual. The presumptive Republican nominee could be heard muttering profanities at certain points in the proceedings. Trump, who denies ever having sex with Daniels, has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to Daniels during the 2016 election. Here are key moments from Tuesday’s trial in New York, based on an early transcript and lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
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Trump trial arrives at a pivotal moment: Star witness Michael Cohen is poised to take the stand
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JENNIFER PELTZ, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ
9 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney's most important witness in the case, and his expected appearance signals that the trial is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they may wrap up their presentation of evidence by the end of the week.
Cohen is expected to testify about his role in arranging hush money payments on Trump's behalf during his first presidential campaign, including to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who told jurors last week that the $130,000 that she received in 2016 was meant to prevent her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite a decade earlier.
He also matters because the reimbursements he received form the basis of the charges — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — against Trump. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged as legal expenses to conceal the payments' true purpose.
Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that the fixer-turned-foe is an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump's activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But politically, prosecutors' reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments and to lying to Congress — could be a boon for Trump as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.
Either way, his role as star prosecution witness further cements the disintegration of a mutually beneficial relationship that was once so close that Cohen famously said he'd “take a bullet for Trump.” After Cohen's home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media, praising him as a “fine person with a wonderful family” and predicting — incorrectly — that Cohen would not "flip."
Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty that August to federal campaign-finance charges in which he implicated Trump. By that point, the relationship was irrevocably broken, with Trump posting on the social media platform then known as Twitter: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”
Prosecutors are expected to elicit detailed testimony from Cohen about his past crimes in hopes of blunting the impact of defense lawyers' questioning and showing that they're not trying to hide his misdeeds. But it's unclear how effective that will be, given that defense lawyers will be prepared to exploit all the challenges that accompany a witness like Cohen.
In addition to painting Cohen as untrustworthy, they're also expected to cast him as vindictive, vengeful and agenda-driven. Since their fallout, Cohen has emerged as a relentless and sometimes crude critic of Trump, appearing as recently as last week in a live Tik Tok wearing a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars. The judge on Friday urged prosecutors to tell him to refrain from making any more statements about the case or Trump.
“He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said during opening statements. “He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump’s family go to prison. He has talked extensively about President Trump getting convicted in this case.”
No matter how his testimony unfolds, Cohen is indisputably central to the case, as evidenced by the fact that his name was mentioned in the jury's presence during opening statements more than 130 times — more than any other person.
Other witnesses, including former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and former Trump adviser Hope Hicks, have testified at length about the role Cohen played in arranging to stifle stories that were feared to be harmful to Trump's 2016 candidacy. And jurors heard an audio recording of Trump and Cohen discussing a plan to purchase the rights to a story of a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump.
During a massive rally on Saturday in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood, Trump revived his criticism of the case, wrongly blaming President Joe Biden for orchestrating the New York charges, calling the case a “Biden show trial.”
That argument ignores the reality that the hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any other White House office. The Justice Department has said the White House has had no involvement in the two criminal cases against Trump brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
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Star witness Michael Cohen directly implicates Trump in testimony at hush money trial
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, JILL COLVIN, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ
1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, directly implicated the former president in a hush money scheme Monday, telling jurors that his celebrity client tasked him on several occasions to stifle stories about sex that he feared could torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign.
A similar episode occurred when Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Trump had an extramarital affair. The order was clear: “Make sure it doesn't get released,” Cohen said Trump told him. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in a hush money arrangement that was made after Trump was given a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”
“What I was doing was at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified, later adding: “Everything required Mr. Trump's sign-off.”
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case, and his much-awaited appearance on the stand signaled that the first criminal trial of a former American president is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they could wrap up their presentation of evidence by week's end.
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments — also carries sizable risks with a jury and could be a boon to Trump politically as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.
The men, once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump, had no visible interaction inside the courtroom. The calm was a marked contrast from their last courtroom faceoff, when Trump last October walked out of the courtroom after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen during his civil fraud trial.
This time around, Trump sat at the defense table with his eyes closed for long stretches of testimony as Cohen recounted his decade-long career as a senior Trump Organization executive, doing work that by his own admission sometimes involved lying and bullying others on his boss's behalf.
Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Cohen's testimony is crucial to prosecutors because of his proximity to Trump and because he says he was in direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to prevent from surfacing.
Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the 2016 election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose.
Under questioning from a prosecutor, Cohen detailed the steps he took to mask the payments — which he had agreed to front — from his wife and his bank. When he opened a bank account to pay Daniels, an action he said he told Trump he was taking, he said it was for a new limited liability corporation but withheld the actual purpose.
"I’m not sure they would’ve opened it,” he said, “if it stated: to pay off an adult film star for a non-disclosure agreement.”
Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer who was such a close Trump ally that Cohen said he told him that his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer as he described it, where files related to Mr. Trump were located." That effort that took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.
The Daniels payment was finalized several weeks after that revelation, but Monday's testimony also centered on the deal earlier that fall with McDougal.
Cohen testified that he went to Trump immediately after the National Enquirer alerted him to a story about the alleged McDougal affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released," he says Trump told him.
Trump checked in with Pecker about the matter, asking him how “things were going” with it, Cohen said. Pecker responded: "'We have this under control, and we’ll take care of this,’” Cohen testified.
Cohen also said he was with Trump as Trump spoke to Pecker on a speakerphone in his Trump Tower office.
“David stated it would cost $150,000 to control the story,” Cohen said. He quoted Trump as saying: “No problem, I’ll take care of it," meaning that the payments would be reimbursed.
To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Trump's endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Cohen designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager on whose behalf Cohen said he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.
“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”
“If he learned of it in another manner, that wouldn’t go over well for you,” Cohen testified.
Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that he's an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.” Besides portraying him as untrustworthy, they’re also expected to cast him as vindictive, vengeful and agenda-driven.
Prosecutors are hoping to try to blunt those attacks by acknowledging Cohen's past crimes to jurors during opening statements and by relying on other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress Cohen's testimony. They include a lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal, as well as Pecker and Daniels.
Cohen's role as star prosecution witness further cements the disintegration of a mutually beneficial relationship. After Cohen's home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media, praising him as a “fine person with a wonderful family” and predicting — incorrectly — that Cohen would not "flip."
Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty that August to federal campaign-finance charges in which he implicated Trump. By that point, the relationship was irrevocably broken, with Trump posting on the social media platform then known as Twitter: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”
Since the men's fallout, Cohen has emerged as a relentless and sometimes crude critic of Trump, appearing as recently as last week in a live TikTok wearing a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars. The judge on Friday urged prosecutors to tell him to refrain from making any more statements about the case or Trump.
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By MICHAEL R. SISAK, ERIC TUCKER, MICHELLE L. PRICE and COLLEEN LONG
35 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — It wasn't until after a decade in the fold, after his family pleaded with him, after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room, Michael Cohen testified Tuesday, that he finally decided to turn on Donald Trump.
That decision led to a 2018 guilty plea to federal charges involving a payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump and to other, unrelated crimes. And it's that insider knowledge of shady deals that pushed Manhattan prosecutors to make Cohen the star witness in their case against Trump about that same payment, which they say was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Under questioning this week, Cohen has described the nuts-and-bolts of how the scheme worked.
“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen said Tuesday.
There’s been no witness-stand bombast or fireworks so far from Cohen, a man who was defined for years by his braggadocio as Trump’s problem-zapper. Instead, his testimony about purposefully mislabeled checks, false receipts and blind loyalty, however dry it was, placed Trump at the center of the scheme and underscored the foundational argument of the case — that it’s not about the spectacle of what Trump was paying for, but rather his effort to illegally cover up those payments.
A shocking moment did come, but it was courtesy of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who appeared at the courthouse with Trump and who used his powerful bully pulpit to turn his political party against the rule of law by declaring the Manhattan criminal trial illegitimate. He and other GOP lawmakers are serving as surrogates while Trump himself remains barred by a gag order in the case following an appeals court ruling Tuesday.
“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they’re speaking very beautifully,” Trump said before court as the group gathered in the background. “And they come ... from all over Washington. And they’re highly respected, and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen.”
The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and denies that any of the encounters took place.
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche spent no time Tuesday asking about the allegations at the center of the trial. He instead worked to portray Cohen as a Trump-obsessed media hound, intimating that Cohen leaked self-serving information about himself.
Amid rapid-fire objections from prosecutors, Blanche probed Cohen’s hyperfocus on Trump, quizzing him about various social media posts and comments he's made. Cohen was asked to listen through headphones to a snippet of his podcast, as was Trump while sitting at the defense table.
Cohen was asked by Blanche if he recalled an October 2020 podcast episode in which he said Trump needs to wear handcuffs and that “people will not be satisfied until this man is sitting inside a cell.” The line of questioning was designed to persuade jurors that Cohen was driven by personal animus to hold Trump accountable.
"I wouldn’t put it past me,” Cohen testified.
"Is it fair to say you’re motivated by fame?” Blanche asked.
“No sir, I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Cohen said. “I’m motivated by many things.”
Cohen will be the prosecution's last witness. Trump's defense will begin after Cohen, though it's not clear whether his attorneys will call any witnesses or if Trump will testify in his own defense.
Jurors have already heard how Trump and others in his orbit were reeling after the leak just a few weeks before the 2016 election of an “Access Hollywood” tape in which he bragged about grabbing women by the genitals without their permission. The publication of the tape hastened the payments to Daniels, according to testimony.
Cohen testified that Trump was constantly apprised of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign. And after paying out $130,000 to Daniels in order to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter, Trump promised to reimburse him.
Jurors followed along as Hoffinger, in a methodical and clinical fashion, walked Cohen through that reimbursement process. It was an attempt to show what prosecutors say was a lengthy deception to mask the true purpose of the payments.
As jurors were shown business records and other paperwork, Cohen explained their purpose and reiterated again and again that the payments were reimbursements for the hush money — they weren’t for legal services he provided or for a retainer.
It’s an important distinction, because prosecutors allege that the Trump records falsely described the purpose of the payments as legal expenses. These records form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. All told, Cohen was paid $420,000, with funds drawn from a Trump personal account.
“Were the descriptions on this check stub false?” Hoffinger asked.
“Yes,” Cohen said.
“And again, there was no retainer agreement,” Hoffinger asked.
“Correct,” Cohen replied.
But prosecutors also spent time working to blunt the potential credibility issues, painting Cohen as a longtime Trump loyalist who committed crimes on behalf of the former president. On the witness stand, Cohen described in detail the April 2018 raid that marked the beginning of the end of his time being devoted to Trump.
“How to describe your life being turned upside-down. Concerned. Despondent. Angry,” Cohen told the jury.
“Were you frightened?” Hoffinger asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
But he was heartened by a phone call from Trump that he said gave him reassurance and convinced him to remain “in the camp.”
He said to me, ‘Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK,’” Cohen testified.
Cohen told jurors that he “felt reassured because I had the president of the United States protecting me ... And so I remained in the camp.”
It was his wife and family who finally made him see how sticking by Trump was detrimental.
“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty,” Cohen testified. “It was about time to listen to them,” he said.
The men were once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump. But as their relationship soured, Cohen became one of Trump’s most vocal critics. The two have, over the years, traded vicious barbs. During their last courtroom faceoff in October during Trump's civil fraud trial, Trump walked out of the courtroom after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen.
Throughout Cohen’s testimony Tuesday, Trump reclined in his chair with his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side. He shifted from time to time, occasionally leaning forward and opening his eyes, making a comment to his attorney before returning to his recline. Even some of the topics that have animated him the most as he campaigns didn’t stir his attention.
“Mr. Cohen, do you have any regrets about your past work for Donald Trump?” Hoffinger asked.
“I do,” Cohen said. “I regret doing things for him that I should not have. Lying. Bullying people to effectuate a goal. I don’t regret working for the Trump Organization. As I expressed before, I had some very interesting, great times."
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
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How much dirt and how much did Trump have to blackmail these congressman to get them to come to his trial and spew his bs messages? How little spine do these republicans have?
Comments
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I also buy a lot of Amazon stock. It has performed great too.
And I auto-reinvest the dividends into the same equity as well. It does add up.
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Yet new data shows its main product — the conservative-friendly social network Truth Social — remains a very tiny player in its industry, and it’s getting even smaller.
Truth Social’s average number of daily active US users on iOS and Android dropped by 19% year over year in April to about 113,000, according to data shared exclusively with CNN from Similarweb, a data intelligence company.
The Similarweb data, which captures the first 29 days of April, showed that the average number of users dipped 4% month over month. That drop comes despite the considerable attention received by the ongoing Trump criminal trial and the growing focus on the US presidential election.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/03/media/truth-social-stock-trump-djt/index.html
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NEW YORK (AP) — Former White House official and Donald Trump adviser Hope Hicks took the stand Friday at the former president's hush money trial and recounted how his 2016 campaign became embroiled in a political firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission.
Hicks, once one of Trump's closest confidants, was subpoenaed by prosecutors, who are trying to show that the uproar over the infamous leaked “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump's then-lawyer to pay off a porn actor to bury a negative story that could imperil his 2016 presidential bid.
Hicks' testimony provided jurors with a glimpse into the chaotic fallout in the Trump campaign over the tape's release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other Trump advisers after learning about the tape's existence from a Washington Post reporter.
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“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."
She added: "This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
In the aftermath of the tape's release, she asked Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen to chase down a rumor of another potentially damaging tape. Hicks said she wanted to be proactive in seeking out the supposed tape because she didn't want anyone to be "blindsided.” There ended up not being one.
Four days before the 2016 election, Hicks said she received a request for comment from a Wall Street Journal reporter for a forthcoming story about American Media Inc. buying the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story that she had an affair with Trump years earlier. Trump denies the allegations.
Hicks recalled reaching out to Jared Kushner in hopes he could use his connections to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Journal’s parent company, to help delay the story. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told her that he likely would not be able to reach Murdoch in time, Hicks testified.
Trump showed no emotion as he watched Hicks take the witness stand, where she acknowledged after stepping up to the microphone that she was “really nervous.” Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump,” she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022.
While no longer in Trump's inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background. Hicks complimented Trump multiple times in the first few minutes of her testimony, describing him as a “very good multitasker, a very hard worker.”
Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case accusing Trump of a scheme to illegally influence the election. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.
Trump's defense has worked to poke holes in the credibility of prosecution witnesses and to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by keeping the women quiet. The defense also suggested while questioning an attorney who represented two women in hush money negotiations that Trump was, in fact, the victim of extortion. Trump has denied the claims of extramarital sexual encounters.
Hicks’ proximity to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to congressional and criminal investigators alike, who have sought her testimony on multiple occasions on topics ranging from Russia election interference to Trump’s election loss and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Her testimony came a day after prosecutors played a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen shortly before the 2016 election in which they discussed a plan to pay off an ex-Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump.
Cohen is heard telling Trump about a plan to purchase the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
In the recording, Cohen revealed that he had spoken to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg about “how to set the whole thing up with funding.”
Trump can be heard responding: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Trump suggested the payment be made with cash, prompting Cohen to object by repeatedly saying “no." Trump then says “check” before the recording cuts off.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. The charges stem from paperwork such as invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organization records. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was seized with worry about the potential political damage from a tape that showed Trump bragging about grabbing women sexually without their permission, longtime Trump adviser Hope Hicks testified Friday at his hush money trial.
Hicks, a former White House official, was compelled to testify by Manhattan prosecutors, who are hoping her remarks bolster their argument that the uproar over the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape hastened Trump’s then-lawyer to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury a negative story that could imperil his 2016 presidential bid.
Once one of Trump's closest confidants, Hicks provided a window into the chaotic fallout over the tape's release just days before a crucial debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton. It was recorded in 2005 but was not seen by the public until Oct. 7, 2016, about a month before Election Day. Hicks described being stunned and huddling with other Trump advisers after learning about the tape's existence from the Washington Post reporter who broke the story. Hicks forwarded the reporter's request to campaign leadership with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny,” she said.
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“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."
She added: "This was just pulling us backwards in a way that was going to be hard to overcome.”
Prosecutors called her to the witness stand to strengthen their case alleging Trump worked to prevent damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public as part of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has sought to establish that link not just to secure a conviction but also to persuade the public of the significance of the case, which may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to reach trial this year.
Hicks told jurors that Trump claimed he did not know anything about his then-attorney Michael Cohen paying $130,000 to Daniels to prevent her from going public with claims of a sexual encounter with Trump. But, Hicks said, Trump eventually came to believe that burying Daniels' story was prudent, saying he thought “it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election.”
At other points, Hicks' testimony appeared to help the defense's contention that the former president was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case, which he has slammed as an effort to derail his campaign to reclaim the White House in November.
Under questioning by Trump's attorney, Hicks told jurors that he was worried about the effect of the “Access Hollywood” tape on his family. And when the Wall Street Journal published a story revealing ex-Playboy Model Karen McDougal's affair allegations right before the election, Hicks said Trump was concerned about his wife seeing the story and asked Hicks to make sure newspapers weren't delivered to their residence that morning.
But when asked if Trump was also worried about the story’s impact on the campaign, Hicks responded that everything they spoke about during that time was viewed through the lens of the campaign. Trump would often asking her, “How is it playing?” as a way of gauging how his appearances, speeches and policies were landing with voters, she said.
Hicks’ proximity to Trump over the years has made her a figure of interest to congressional and criminal investigators alike, who have sought her testimony on multiple occasions on topics ranging from Russian election interference to Trump’s election loss and the subsequent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
She appeared reluctant to be in the courtroom, taking a deep breath as she stepped up to the microphone and acknowledging she was “really nervous.” She later started crying on the witness stand, forcing the court to take a brief break, when Trump lawyer Emil Bove started to ask her to reflect on her time at the Trump Organization before he brought her onto his 2016 campaign.
Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump” and later “President Trump” when speaking about their time in the White House, she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022. While no longer in Trump’s inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background.
She recounted how the political firestorm that ensued after the release of the tape was so intense that it knocked an actual storm out of the headlines. Before the tape became public, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane that was charging toward the East Coast.
“I don’t think anybody remembers” where that hurricane hit, Hicks told jurors.
Hurricane Matthew, which hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm, made landfall in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 8, 2016, the day after the “Access Hollywood” tape was made public.
Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case charging Trump with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.
Testimony will resume Monday. The trial could last another month or more, with important witnesses who have yet to be called, including Cohen and Daniels.
One of the most pivotal pieces of evidence disclosed to jurors this week was a recording of a meeting between Trump and Cohen before the 2016 election in which they discussed a plan to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.
At one point, Trump can be heard saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
In a victory for Trump just as court was ending for the week, Judge Juan M. Merchan denied a request by prosecutors to ask Trump, should he choose to testify, about being held in contempt of court for gag order violations in the case. Merchan said allowing it would be “so prejudicial it would be very, very difficult for the jury to look past that.”
Trump this week paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order that bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the case.
His attorney, Todd Blanche, told the judge Friday they are appealing the finding that Trump violated the gag order. Blanche said that they took particular issue with penalties for what are known as reposts — instances where Trump shared someone else’s post with his followers.
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Ruth Brown and Michelle Price in New York contributed to this report.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Porn actor Stormy Daniels took the witness stand Tuesday in the hush money case against Donald Trump, who looked on as she detailed their alleged sexual encounter and the payment she got to keep it quiet.
Prosecutors allege Trump paid Daniels to keep quiet about the claims as he ran for president in 2016. Her testimony aired them very publicly as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee seeks to win the White House again.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels, and his lawyers unsuccessfully pushed for a mistrial midway through her testimony.
It's the biggest spectacle yet in the first criminal trial of a former American president, now in its third week of testimony in Manhattan.
Here are some takeaways from Daniels' testimony:
WHO IS STORMY DANIELS?
The case centers on a $130,000 payment to Daniels from Trump's then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Prosecutors say it was part of a scheme to illegally influence the campaign by burying negative stories about him.
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His lawyers have sought to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by shielding them from embarrassing stories about his personal life.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, told jurors that she started exotic dancing in high school and appearing in adult films at age 23, eventually moving on to direct more than 150 films and winning a roster of porn industry awards.
MEETING TRUMP
Daniels testified she first met and chatted with Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe celebrity golf outing where her studio was a sponsor.
He referred to her as “the smart one” and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner, she said. Daniels testified that she accepted Trump’s invitation because she wanted to avoid dinner with her co-workers and thought it might help her career. Trump had his bodyguard get her number, she said.
When they met up later in his penthouse, she appreciated that he seemed interested in the business aspects of the industry rather than the “sexy stuff." He also suggested putting her on his TV show, “The Apprentice,” a possibility she hoped could help establish her as a writer and director.
She left to use the bathroom and was startled to find Trump in his underwear when she returned, she said. She didn’t feel physically or verbally threatened but realized that he was “bigger and blocking the way,” she testified.
“The next thing I know was: I was on the bed,” and they were having sex, Daniels recalled. The encounter was brief but left her “shaking,” she said. “I just wanted to leave,” she testified.
PAYMENTS FOR SILENCE
Daniels was asked if Trump ever told her to keep things between them confidential and said, “Absolutely not.” She said she learned in 2011 that a magazine had learned the story of their encounter and she agreed to do an interview for $15,000 to make money and “control the narrative.” The story never ran.
In 2016, when Trump was running for president, Daniels said she authorized her manager to shop the story around but did not initially receive interest from news outlets. She said that changed in October with the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about grabbing women sexually without asking permission. She said she learned that Cohen wanted to buy her silence.
MISTRIAL PUSH
Midway through her testimony, Trump's lawyers moved for a mistrial.
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued that Daniels' testimony about the alleged encounter and other meetings with him had “nothing to do with this case,” and would unfairly prejudice the jury.
The judge rejected it, and he faulted defense attorneys for not raising more of their objections while she was testifying.
Before Daniels took the stand, Trump’s lawyers had tried to stop her from testifying about the encounter's details, saying it was irrelevant in “a case about books and records.”
Prosecutors countered that Daniels’ testimony gets at what Trump was trying to hide and they were “very mindful” not to draw too much graphic detail. Before Daniels took the stand, they told the judge the testimony would be “really basic,” and would not “involve any details of genitalia.”
While the judge didn’t side with Trump’s lawyers, he acknowledged that some details were excessive. The objections could potentially be used by Trump’s lawyers if he is convicted and they file an appeal.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Trump's lawyers tried to attack Daniels' credibility, suggesting she was motivated by money and that her account has shifted over the years.
“Am I correct that you hate President Trump?” Defense lawyer Susan Necheles asked Daniels at one point. Daniels acknowledged she did.
“And you want him to go to jail?” the lawyer asked.
“I want him to be held accountable,” Daniels said. Pressed again whether that meant going to jail, she said, “If he’s convicted.”
The defense pressed Daniels on the fact that she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees stemming from an unsuccessful defamation lawsuit and on a 2022 tweet in which she said she “will go to jail before I pay a penny.” Daniels dug in at times in the face of pointed questions, forcefully denying the idea that she had tried to extort Trump.
TRUMP IN COURT
Trump whispered frequently to his attorney during Daniels’ testimony, and his expression seemed to be pained at one point as she recounted details about the dinner she says they shared. He shook his head and appeared to say something under his breath as Daniels testified that Trump told her he didn’t sleep in the same room as his wife.
At one point, the judge told defense lawyers during a sidebar conversation — out of earshot of the jury and the public — that he could hear Trump “cursing audibly" and see him shaking his head, according to a transcript of the proceedings.
“I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Judge Juan Merchan told Blanche, Trump's lawyer. Blanche assured the judge he would talk to his client.
“You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that,” the judge said.
On the way out of the courthouse, Trump called it “a very revealing day." He didn't address Daniels' testimony explicitly but claimed the prosecutors' case was “totally falling apart.”
A JARRING SPLIT SCREEN
Trump’s appearance in court Tuesday, like all other days he’s stuck in the courtroom, means he can’t be out on the campaign trail as he runs for president a third time. It’s a frequent source of his complaints, but Daniels' testimony in particular might underscore how much of a distraction the trial is from the business of running for president.
While Trump was stuck in a Manhattan courthouse away from voters and unable to speak for much of the day, his rival, Democratic President Joe Biden, was attending a Holocaust remembrance ceremony and condemning antisemitism.
It’s an issue Trump has sought to use against Biden in the campaign by seizing on the protests at college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war.
____
Whitehurst reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Michael Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Jake Offenhartz and Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this story.
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By Niha Masih and Leo Sands
May 08, 2024 at 8:12 ET
Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels appeared on the witness stand at Donald Trump’s hush money trial Tuesday, offering an account of her alleged one-night stand with the former president. Despite the repeated objections of Trump’s lawyers, Daniels went into great detail about the 2006 sexual encounter; her description at times made it sound like the sex could be viewed as nonconsensual. The presumptive Republican nominee could be heard muttering profanities at certain points in the proceedings.
Trump, who denies ever having sex with Daniels, has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to Daniels during the 2016 election.
Here are key moments from Tuesday’s trial in New York, based on an early transcript and lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
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NEW YORK (AP) — The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney's most important witness in the case, and his expected appearance signals that the trial is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they may wrap up their presentation of evidence by the end of the week.
Cohen is expected to testify about his role in arranging hush money payments on Trump's behalf during his first presidential campaign, including to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who told jurors last week that the $130,000 that she received in 2016 was meant to prevent her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite a decade earlier.
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He also matters because the reimbursements he received form the basis of the charges — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — against Trump. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged as legal expenses to conceal the payments' true purpose.
Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that the fixer-turned-foe is an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump's activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But politically, prosecutors' reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments and to lying to Congress — could be a boon for Trump as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.
Either way, his role as star prosecution witness further cements the disintegration of a mutually beneficial relationship that was once so close that Cohen famously said he'd “take a bullet for Trump.” After Cohen's home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media, praising him as a “fine person with a wonderful family” and predicting — incorrectly — that Cohen would not "flip."
Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty that August to federal campaign-finance charges in which he implicated Trump. By that point, the relationship was irrevocably broken, with Trump posting on the social media platform then known as Twitter: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”
Cohen later admitted lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that he had pursued on Trump's behalf during the heat of the 2016 Republican campaign. He said he lied to be consistent with Trump's “political messaging.”
Prosecutors are expected to elicit detailed testimony from Cohen about his past crimes in hopes of blunting the impact of defense lawyers' questioning and showing that they're not trying to hide his misdeeds. But it's unclear how effective that will be, given that defense lawyers will be prepared to exploit all the challenges that accompany a witness like Cohen.
In addition to painting Cohen as untrustworthy, they're also expected to cast him as vindictive, vengeful and agenda-driven. Since their fallout, Cohen has emerged as a relentless and sometimes crude critic of Trump, appearing as recently as last week in a live Tik Tok wearing a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars. The judge on Friday urged prosecutors to tell him to refrain from making any more statements about the case or Trump.
“He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said during opening statements. “He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump’s family go to prison. He has talked extensively about President Trump getting convicted in this case.”
No matter how his testimony unfolds, Cohen is indisputably central to the case, as evidenced by the fact that his name was mentioned in the jury's presence during opening statements more than 130 times — more than any other person.
Other witnesses, including former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and former Trump adviser Hope Hicks, have testified at length about the role Cohen played in arranging to stifle stories that were feared to be harmful to Trump's 2016 candidacy. And jurors heard an audio recording of Trump and Cohen discussing a plan to purchase the rights to a story of a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump.
During a massive rally on Saturday in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood, Trump revived his criticism of the case, wrongly blaming President Joe Biden for orchestrating the New York charges, calling the case a “Biden show trial.”
That argument ignores the reality that the hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any other White House office. The Justice Department has said the White House has had no involvement in the two criminal cases against Trump brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, directly implicated the former president in a hush money scheme Monday, telling jurors that his celebrity client tasked him on several occasions to stifle stories about sex that he feared could torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign.
“Stop this from getting out,” Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, quoted Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels' account of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.
A similar episode occurred when Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Trump had an extramarital affair. The order was clear: “Make sure it doesn't get released,” Cohen said Trump told him. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in a hush money arrangement that was made after Trump was given a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”
“What I was doing was at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified, later adding: “Everything required Mr. Trump's sign-off.”
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case, and his much-awaited appearance on the stand signaled that the first criminal trial of a former American president is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they could wrap up their presentation of evidence by week's end.
The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments — also carries sizable risks with a jury and could be a boon to Trump politically as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.
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The men, once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump, had no visible interaction inside the courtroom. The calm was a marked contrast from their last courtroom faceoff, when Trump last October walked out of the courtroom after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen during his civil fraud trial.
This time around, Trump sat at the defense table with his eyes closed for long stretches of testimony as Cohen recounted his decade-long career as a senior Trump Organization executive, doing work that by his own admission sometimes involved lying and bullying others on his boss's behalf.
Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Cohen's testimony is crucial to prosecutors because of his proximity to Trump and because he says he was in direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to prevent from surfacing.
Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the 2016 election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose.
Under questioning from a prosecutor, Cohen detailed the steps he took to mask the payments — which he had agreed to front — from his wife and his bank. When he opened a bank account to pay Daniels, an action he said he told Trump he was taking, he said it was for a new limited liability corporation but withheld the actual purpose.
"I’m not sure they would’ve opened it,” he said, “if it stated: to pay off an adult film star for a non-disclosure agreement.”
Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer who was such a close Trump ally that Cohen said he told him that his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer as he described it, where files related to Mr. Trump were located." That effort that took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.
The Daniels payment was finalized several weeks after that revelation, but Monday's testimony also centered on the deal earlier that fall with McDougal.
Cohen testified that he went to Trump immediately after the National Enquirer alerted him to a story about the alleged McDougal affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released," he says Trump told him.
Trump checked in with Pecker about the matter, asking him how “things were going” with it, Cohen said. Pecker responded: "'We have this under control, and we’ll take care of this,’” Cohen testified.
Cohen also said he was with Trump as Trump spoke to Pecker on a speakerphone in his Trump Tower office.
“David stated it would cost $150,000 to control the story,” Cohen said. He quoted Trump as saying: “No problem, I’ll take care of it," meaning that the payments would be reimbursed.
To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Trump's endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Cohen designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager on whose behalf Cohen said he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.
“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”
“If he learned of it in another manner, that wouldn’t go over well for you,” Cohen testified.
Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that he's an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.” Besides portraying him as untrustworthy, they’re also expected to cast him as vindictive, vengeful and agenda-driven.
Prosecutors are hoping to try to blunt those attacks by acknowledging Cohen's past crimes to jurors during opening statements and by relying on other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress Cohen's testimony. They include a lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal, as well as Pecker and Daniels.
Cohen's role as star prosecution witness further cements the disintegration of a mutually beneficial relationship. After Cohen's home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media, praising him as a “fine person with a wonderful family” and predicting — incorrectly — that Cohen would not "flip."
Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty that August to federal campaign-finance charges in which he implicated Trump. By that point, the relationship was irrevocably broken, with Trump posting on the social media platform then known as Twitter: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”
Cohen later admitted lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that he had pursued on Trump's behalf during the heat of the 2016 Republican campaign. He said he lied to be consistent with Trump's “political messaging.”
He was sentenced to three years in prison, but spent much of it in home confinement.
Since the men's fallout, Cohen has emerged as a relentless and sometimes crude critic of Trump, appearing as recently as last week in a live TikTok wearing a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars. The judge on Friday urged prosecutors to tell him to refrain from making any more statements about the case or Trump.
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NEW YORK (AP) — It wasn't until after a decade in the fold, after his family pleaded with him, after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room, Michael Cohen testified Tuesday, that he finally decided to turn on Donald Trump.
That decision led to a 2018 guilty plea to federal charges involving a payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump and to other, unrelated crimes. And it's that insider knowledge of shady deals that pushed Manhattan prosecutors to make Cohen the star witness in their case against Trump about that same payment, which they say was an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Under questioning this week, Cohen has described the nuts-and-bolts of how the scheme worked.
“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen said Tuesday.
There’s been no witness-stand bombast or fireworks so far from Cohen, a man who was defined for years by his braggadocio as Trump’s problem-zapper. Instead, his testimony about purposefully mislabeled checks, false receipts and blind loyalty, however dry it was, placed Trump at the center of the scheme and underscored the foundational argument of the case — that it’s not about the spectacle of what Trump was paying for, but rather his effort to illegally cover up those payments.
A shocking moment did come, but it was courtesy of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who appeared at the courthouse with Trump and who used his powerful bully pulpit to turn his political party against the rule of law by declaring the Manhattan criminal trial illegitimate. He and other GOP lawmakers are serving as surrogates while Trump himself remains barred by a gag order in the case following an appeals court ruling Tuesday.
“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they’re speaking very beautifully,” Trump said before court as the group gathered in the background. “And they come ... from all over Washington. And they’re highly respected, and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen.”
The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and denies that any of the encounters took place.
Cohen has testified in detail about how the former president was linked to all aspects of the hush money scheme, and prosecutors believe Cohen’s insider knowledge is critical to their case. But their reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — he was disbarred, went to prison and separately pleaded guilty to lying about a Moscow real estate project on Trump’s behalf — could backfire, especially as Trump’s attorneys cross-examine him.
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche spent no time Tuesday asking about the allegations at the center of the trial. He instead worked to portray Cohen as a Trump-obsessed media hound, intimating that Cohen leaked self-serving information about himself.
Amid rapid-fire objections from prosecutors, Blanche probed Cohen’s hyperfocus on Trump, quizzing him about various social media posts and comments he's made. Cohen was asked to listen through headphones to a snippet of his podcast, as was Trump while sitting at the defense table.
Cohen was asked by Blanche if he recalled an October 2020 podcast episode in which he said Trump needs to wear handcuffs and that “people will not be satisfied until this man is sitting inside a cell.” The line of questioning was designed to persuade jurors that Cohen was driven by personal animus to hold Trump accountable.
"I wouldn’t put it past me,” Cohen testified.
"Is it fair to say you’re motivated by fame?” Blanche asked.
“No sir, I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Cohen said. “I’m motivated by many things.”
Cohen will be the prosecution's last witness. Trump's defense will begin after Cohen, though it's not clear whether his attorneys will call any witnesses or if Trump will testify in his own defense.
Jurors have already heard how Trump and others in his orbit were reeling after the leak just a few weeks before the 2016 election of an “Access Hollywood” tape in which he bragged about grabbing women by the genitals without their permission. The publication of the tape hastened the payments to Daniels, according to testimony.
Cohen testified that Trump was constantly apprised of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign. And after paying out $130,000 to Daniels in order to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter, Trump promised to reimburse him.
Jurors followed along as Hoffinger, in a methodical and clinical fashion, walked Cohen through that reimbursement process. It was an attempt to show what prosecutors say was a lengthy deception to mask the true purpose of the payments.
As jurors were shown business records and other paperwork, Cohen explained their purpose and reiterated again and again that the payments were reimbursements for the hush money — they weren’t for legal services he provided or for a retainer.
It’s an important distinction, because prosecutors allege that the Trump records falsely described the purpose of the payments as legal expenses. These records form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. All told, Cohen was paid $420,000, with funds drawn from a Trump personal account.
“Were the descriptions on this check stub false?” Hoffinger asked.
“Yes,” Cohen said.
“And again, there was no retainer agreement,” Hoffinger asked.
“Correct,” Cohen replied.
But prosecutors also spent time working to blunt the potential credibility issues, painting Cohen as a longtime Trump loyalist who committed crimes on behalf of the former president. On the witness stand, Cohen described in detail the April 2018 raid that marked the beginning of the end of his time being devoted to Trump.
“How to describe your life being turned upside-down. Concerned. Despondent. Angry,” Cohen told the jury.
“Were you frightened?” Hoffinger asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
But he was heartened by a phone call from Trump that he said gave him reassurance and convinced him to remain “in the camp.”
He said to me, ‘Don’t worry. I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Everything’s going to be OK. Stay tough. You’re going to be OK,’” Cohen testified.
Cohen told jurors that he “felt reassured because I had the president of the United States protecting me ... And so I remained in the camp.”
It was his wife and family who finally made him see how sticking by Trump was detrimental.
“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty,” Cohen testified. “It was about time to listen to them,” he said.
The men were once so close that Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Trump. But as their relationship soured, Cohen became one of Trump’s most vocal critics. The two have, over the years, traded vicious barbs. During their last courtroom faceoff in October during Trump's civil fraud trial, Trump walked out of the courtroom after his lawyer finished questioning Cohen.
Throughout Cohen’s testimony Tuesday, Trump reclined in his chair with his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side. He shifted from time to time, occasionally leaning forward and opening his eyes, making a comment to his attorney before returning to his recline. Even some of the topics that have animated him the most as he campaigns didn’t stir his attention.
“Mr. Cohen, do you have any regrets about your past work for Donald Trump?” Hoffinger asked.
“I do,” Cohen said. “I regret doing things for him that I should not have. Lying. Bullying people to effectuate a goal. I don’t regret working for the Trump Organization. As I expressed before, I had some very interesting, great times."
___
Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
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