Trump news today: Donald Trump faces virtual hush money court appearance as E Jean Carroll seeks new damages

Donald Trump’s former attorney has boldly predicted that the former president is going to jail as the criminal investigation into the trove of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago continues to heat up.

Rachel Sharp has the story.

Donald Trump will appear in court by video today for his second hearing in his criminal case after he became the first US president in American history arrested and charged with a crime.

The former president will appear virtually in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday afternoon so that Judge Juan Merchan can make sure he understands the terms of the protective order in the case.

The judge imposed the order after Mr Trump took aim at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Merchan himself as he was charged with 34 felonies for falsifying business records while making hush money payments to cover up alleged affairs with women.

During his own tenure in the White House in 2018, Mr Trump loudly cheered Mr DeSantis’s bid for the governor’s mansion, throwing his weight behind the former congressman and appearing at rallies to stump for him, playing an important role in the candidate’s narrow defeat of Democratic rival and Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum.

Since then, however, a great deal of water has passed beneath the bridge and the two men are now increasingly antagonistic towards each other.

Donald Trump has lashed out at Fox News’ Laura Ingraham over a so-called “hit piece” in which she said that Ron DeSantis has a better chance of taking on President Joe Biden in the 2024 race than him.

“Laura Ingraham on FoxNews just did a hit piece on me (there go her ratings!) showing some polls which indicate that Ron DeSanctimonious may do better against Biden than I would, when actually polls show that I do MUCH better against Biden than ‘Rob,’” he wrote on Truth Social on Monday night.

“The poll your looking at now, which has me doing far better against Crooked Joe, was just put out by FOX, I am sure unhappily. I’m also leading DeSanctus by over 40 points in Primary Voting.”

An attorney working Donald Trump’s legal team has quit, citing in-fighting among the former president’s inner circle.

Timothy Parlatore left his role this week, according to The New York Times, after working for Mr Trump for at least a year.

In an interview with CNN on Saturday, Mr Parlatore explained that the reason for his departure was ongoing friction with Boris Epshteyn, another legal adviser to Mr Trump.

Lauren Boebert hit out at unsubstantiated claims that she was in a romantic relationship with a pro-Trump country singer following her divorce from her longtime husband.

The hard-right congresswoman told The Daily Beast that there was “absolutely nothing romantic” between her and Christian strummer Sean Feucht, nor had there ever been.

“How can I be with a man with better hair than me?” she quipped, referring to Mr Feucht’s chest-length mane of blond curls.

For his part, Mr Feucht called the claims “false and defamatory”, threatening to sue anyone making the accusation.

“Good luck to Senator Tim Scott in entering the Republican Presidential Primary Race,” the former president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “It is rapidly loading up with lots of people, and Tim is a big step up from Ron DeSanctimonious, who is totally unelectable. I got Opportunity Zones done with Tim, a big deal that has been highly successful. Good luck Tim!”

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Donald Trump will not have to show up in court for a hearing at a Manhattan courthouse to bar him from using evidence to attack witnesses.

He will instead appear through a video link, with his face beaming onto courtroom TV monitors. However, his lawyers and prosecutors will still appear in person.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to the extra step of personally instructing Mr Trump on the restrictions after listing them on 8 May in what’s known as a protective order.

Mr Trump is allowed to speak publicly about the case, but he risks being held in contempt if he uses evidence turned over by prosecutors in the pretrial discovery process to target witnesses or others involved.

The protective order bars the former president and his lawyers from disseminating evidence to third parties or posting it to social media, and it requires that certain, sensitive material shared by prosecutors be kept only by Mr Trump‘s lawyers, not Mr Trump himself.

Prosecutors sought the order soon after Mr Trump‘s arrest, citing what they say is his history of making “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about people he’s tangled with in legal disputes.

A judge on Monday dismissed the only remaining legal claim in Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her loss in last year’s race for Arizona governor, affirming the election of Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter A Thompson said Ms Lake failed to prove her claim that Maricopa County did not verify signatures on mail ballots as required by law.

“The evidence the Court received does not support Plaintiff’s remaining claim,” he wrote.

While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Ms Lake did not. She has touted her legal battle in fundraising appeals and speeches around the country.

Ms Lake did not immediately comment on the ruling.

As the GOP field begins to take shape, the Haley-Scott faceoff is putting some of their mutual supporters in the critical early voting state of South Carolina in a conundrum as they weigh which candidate to support.