Trump trial highlights: David Pecker testifies in hush money case

An alternate juror has an emergency dental appointment this afternoon.

Tomorrow, Judge Merchan plans to finish at 2 p.m. for the Passover vacation.

Most jurors regarded straight forward as they handed the protection desk on the best way out of the courtroom.

Pecker stated former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard is now residing in Australia and, to his understanding, has a spinal situation that makes it unattainable for him to journey internationally. (This seems to be a method of Steinglass explaining to jurors why Howard received’t be testifying, if certainly he doesn’t).

He’s the primary person ever to testify at a legal trial of a former U.S. president, and David Pecker is doing so below subpoena, along with his lawyer within the courtroom.

But the weighty event nonetheless had a lighthearted second. It got here when a prosecutor requested Pecker to recite components of telephone numbers he’d had in the course of the time interval of the allegations from 2015 to about 2017, a query that may have been requested to be able to authenticate telephone data afterward. After Pecker rattled off the closing digits of 4 completely different cell and workplace numbers from reminiscence, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass assured him, “This isn’t a quiz.” Pecker responded with a cackling giggle.

Pecker is testifying concerning the National Enquirer’s use of “checkbook journalism,” a follow that entails paying a supply for a narrative. Pecker stated he “gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a narrative with out getting his approval.

He went on to explain the publication’s protection conferences — through which he had remaining say over celeb tales — and his editorial philosophy. “The only thing that is important is the cover of a magazine,” Pecker stated.

The wood benches within the courtroom the place everybody sits are very laborious, so some folks like me are bringing pillows or seat cushions to sit down on. Earlier, I left to report one thing outdoors the courtroom, got here again for opening statements and somebody had not solely taken my seat, however was sitting on my pillow.

Pecker’s introductory questioning was briefly interrupted when Merchan realized jurors had not but been given pens and paper to take notes. He requested the jury if anybody needed writing supplies, to which a number of jurors raised their fingers.

The trial’s first witness, Pecker is the National Enquirer’s former writer and a longtime Trump good friend. Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to assist Trump’s marketing campaign determine unfavorable tales about him.

Pecker took the stand simply after midday Monday, sporting a charcoal swimsuit, yellow tie and glasses. The 72-year-old is now consults, together with for his old employer, the corporate previously referred to as American Media Inc.

▶ Read extra about David Pecker and different key gamers in Trump’s hush money trial

Blanche concluded by urging jurors to concentrate to all the testimony and to make use of widespread sense, observing, “We’re all New Yorkers here.”

“If you do that, there will be a very swift not guilty verdict,” Blanche stated.

Court subsequently took a break and Trump left the courtroom with out chatting with reporters within the hallway.

Blanche emphasised that though prosecutors described the allegations of their opening as a conspiracy, they didn’t truly cost Trump with conspiring.

“There’s nothing illegal about what you will hear happened among the National Enquirer, AMI, David Pecker and Donald Trump,” Blanche stated, including: “It’s not a scheme, unless a scheme means something that doesn’t matter, that’s not illegal.”

“I will say one other thing about Ms. Daniels’ testimony: It doesn’t matter,” Blanche stated, explaining that she had no consciousness about how the funds to Cohen had been logged. “Her testimony, while salacious, does not matter,” he stated.

Daniels has made “hundreds of thousands of dollars” since her allegations in opposition to Trump turned public, Blanche stated. She wrote a guide, starred in a documentary and gained fame. At the identical time, he famous, courts have sided with Trump in authorized disputes with Daniels and that she owes him a considerable sum of money.

As anticipated, Blanche is offering an in depth account of Cohen’s legal report and his historical past of mendacity below oath. He stated that Cohen turned in opposition to Trump solely after he was not given a job within the administration and located himself in authorized bother.

Blanche accused Cohen of being “obsessed with President Trump,” saying “his entirely financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction.”

“You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche stated.

While arguing that Trump did nothing unlawful when his firm recorded the checks to Cohen as authorized bills — prosecutors say they had been veiled reimbursements meant to cowl up Cohen’s funds to Daniels — Blanche can also be difficult the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his marketing campaign.

Acknowledging that the money did change fingers near the election, Blanche characterised the transaction because the then-candidate making an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass him and his family members. “President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche advised jurors.

Blanche took explicit subject with the prosecution’s insinuation that making an attempt to affect an election connotes illegality. “I have a spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy,” Blanche stated. “They put something sinister on this idea, as if it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”

Blanche portrayed the ledger entries at subject within the case as professional forma actions carried out by a Trump Organization functionary. Trump “had nothing to do” with the bill, the examine being generated or the entry on the ledger, Blanche stated.

While prosecutors allege Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen $420,000 — greater than double what Cohen paid to Daniels — as a result of the cover-up was essential to the marketing campaign, Blanche stated the surplus funds are proof that Trump had nothing to do with the scheme.

“Ask yourself, would a frugal businessman, a man who pinches pennies, repay a 130,000 debt to the tune of $420,000?” Blanche requested.

“President Trump had nothing to do with any of the 34 pieces of paper, the 34 counts, except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country.”

In the prosecution’s openings, Donald Trump was known as “the defendant.” But his personal legal professionals are referring to him as “President Trump.”

“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche stated.

Other Trump legal professionals have used the identical language in earlier authorized instances.

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche started, “President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case.”

“He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defending himself,” Blanche stated as Trump regarded on with curiosity. He went on to explain Trump as a former president but in addition an on a regular basis person — a person, a husband, a father.

Next up, Trump’s protection lawyer Todd Blanche.

Anticipating the protection’s possible assaults on their star witness, Colangelo is acknowledging Michael Cohen’s legal report.

“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” Cohen stated.

“We will be very upfront about it,” he continued, including that Cohen, “like other witnesses in this trial, has made mistakes.”

“You can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony despite those past mistake,” he provides.

The proof will present Trump is a “very frugal businessman. He believed in pinching pennies” and watching each greenback, Colangelo stated. “It’s all over every book he’s written.”

Yet, when it got here to reimbursing Cohen, Trump paid him double. “This might be the only time it ever happened,” Colangelo stated. Trump’s willingness to half with a lot money confirmed simply how vital it was to him to maintain the hush money scheme below wraps, the prosecutor posited.

After the election, Trump invited Pecker to Trump Tower to thank him for his contribution to the marketing campaign. He additionally invited the writer to the inauguration and later to the White House, the place a dinner was held to honor Pecker and then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

But Colangelo stated Trump nonetheless had a couple of “loose ends” to tie up, together with reimbursing Cohen for the funds he had given to Daniels.

“Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star pay-off,’” Colangelo stated. “So they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”

Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape turning into public, Colangelo advised jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that porn actor Stormy Daniels was agitating to go public together with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo advised jurors, referring to the scheme as a “conspiracy” and “election fraud, pure and simple.”

Colangelo advised jurors that The Washington Post’s publication of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, the place Trump was heard on a scorching mic “bragging about sexual assaults,” “was immediate and explosive.”

Colangelo advised jurors that distinguished Trump allies withdrew their endorsements and condemned his language. The prosecutor stated proof will present the Republican National Committee even thought-about whether or not it was potential to switch Trump with one other candidate.

As Colangelo learn aloud phrases from the tape, Trump confirmed no response.

Speaking of the preparations made to pay former Playboy mannequin Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress her claims of a virtually year-long affair with the married Trump, Colangelo stated Trump “desperately did not want this information … become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”

Colangelo advised jurors they might hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to purchase McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo advised jurors they might hear Trump in his personal voice, saying, “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

The plan was hatched at Trump Tower shortly after the then-presidential candidate had introduced his candidacy, what Colangelo is referring to because the “Trump Tower conspiracy.”

During that assembly, prosecutors say that David Pecker, then the writer of the National Enquirer, agreed to “help the defendant’s campaign by working as the eyes and the ears of the campaign.”

All 18 jurors are trying immediately on the veteran prosecutor, who stands at a lectern in the midst of the courtroom about midway between them and Trump.

Colangelo, senior counsel to the district lawyer, advised jurors that although the funds to Michael Cohen, then Trump’s private lawyer, had been labeled as authorized charges pursuant to a retainer settlement, there was no retainer and there have been no authorized companies.

“The defendant was paying him back for an illegal payment to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the election. The defendant falsified those business records because he wanted to conceal his and others’ criminal conduct,” he stated.

“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo advised jurors.

As the choose was giving jurors directions concerning the trial, Trump’s marketing campaign despatched out a fundraising e mail to his supporters declaring, “THE HEARTLESS THUGS ARE FORCING ME TO SKIP MY SON’S GRADUATION!” and “THEY WANT TO RUIN MY LIFE!”

In actuality, Judge Merchan has not but dominated on the requests that courtroom be adjourned on May 17 so the previous president can attend his son Barron’s commencement, as effectively June 3 so one of many legal professionals can attend their very own baby’s ceremony.

Merchan has beforehand stated that he’s prepared to adjourn for one or each days if the trial proceeds as deliberate. “It really depends on how we’re doing on time and where we are in the trial,” he stated final week.

Without cameras within the courtroom, CNN is emulating web sites through the use of one-third of its display screen for a operating stay weblog of what’s going on within the trial, written by three correspondents within the courthouse.

Meanwhile, pundits on each CNN and MSNBC, previewing opening statements, in contrast it to a film trailer, a preview of coming sights. “So many times, movie trailers are better than the movies,” stated MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart.

While permitting for Trump — if he testifies — to be questioned to a restricted extent about his recent civil business fraud trial and author E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuits in opposition to him, Merchan declined prosecutors’ requests to deliver up two different authorized instances.

One was the 2022 New York legal tax fraud trial of Trump’s business, the Trump Organization. The firm was convicted by a jury. Trump wasn’t charged in that case.

The different is the almost $1 million nice {that a} federal choose in Florida final yr ordered Trump and one in all his attorneys to pay. The choose levied the penalty after discovering that Trump filed a “completely frivolous” lawsuit in opposition to his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.

Prior to the beginning of opening statements, the choose is giving jurors directions about trial process, the burden of proof and different facets of their function. The jurors regarded on attentively.

Members of the jury have entered the courtroom. Trump turned in his seat and regarded briefly of their route.

“Good morning, jurors. We are about to proceed with the trial of the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump,” stated Judge Merchan.

Because the panel was chosen over a number of days, that is the primary time the complete jury has been collectively. It’s additionally the primary time jurors are seeing the courtroom filled with reporters, a departure from final week when the gallery was filled with potential jurors — or empty seats, because the teams had been whittled down — and there have been only a few reporters permitted inside.

Trump shook his head as Judge Merchan dominated that prosecutors might ask him concerning the consequence of his recent civil business fraud trial, through which one other choose discovered that Trump, alongside along with his business and key executives, fraudulently inflated his wealth on paperwork used to safe loans and insurance coverage.

Merchan stated prosecutors might problem the previous president’s credibility by questioning him about six authorized determinations in 4 instances, together with his $88.3 million in judgments for defaming author E. Jean Carroll.

Strict limits can be placed on what prosecutors can query Trump about relating to these instances, together with prohibiting them from eliciting the quantities of the financial penalties imposed, stated Merchan.

He is not going to permit them to indicate the precise video in courtroom.

Trump’s legal professionals object to the usage of a transcript. But Merchan stated that in his view there’s “no reason” why a transcript of the video, the place Trump boasted about grabbing girls’s genitals with out permission, “should not be admitted into evidence.”

An alternate juror has an emergency dental appointment this afternoon; courtroom will adjourn at 12:30 p.m.

Before the juror’s tooth subject, Judge Merchan had beforehand deliberate to adjourn the trial at 2 p.m. due to Passover. He plans to finish at 2 p.m. on Tuesday for the vacation.

Judge Merchan made the announcement after questioning the individual behind closed doorways.

Judge Juan M. Merchan stated his understanding was “that the juror was concerned about the media attention” to the case and wasn’t “100% sure they wanted to be here today.”

The juror did present as much as courtroom Monday and can be questioned additional within the choose’s robing room, out of the view of the press, he stated.

The former president stuffed his cheeks with air and exhaled earlier than sitting down. Photographers rapidly crowded round him, snapping pictures forward of the proceedings.

The gallery is filled with reporters, and the temperature within the courtroom is barely hotter than on earlier days, the place the coolness was a topic of a lot dialogue.

Before heading into the courtroom, Trump addressed a digicam within the hallway, as soon as once more saying that it’s “unfair” he must be there, moderately than out campaigning.

He as soon as once more solid the trial as a “witch hunt” and a “shame” aimed toward damaging his marketing campaign.

“I’m here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and lots of other places campaigning and it’s very unfair,” he stated.

Trump additionally spoke at size about one other listening to taking place at a close-by courtroom, relating to the $175 million bond he paid in his civil fraud case.

A small group of anti-Trump protesters was outdoors the courthouse forward of opening statements, chanting, “No one is above the law,” whereas members of the media and public lined as much as get inside.

Police had mentioned the potential of closing the park throughout the road, Collect Pond Park, after a person set himself on hearth there final week, however on Monday it remained open to the general public, together with protesters.

He walked straight inside.

After departing Trump Tower somewhat after 8:30 a.m., Trump is posting a few of his most typical refrains from Truth Social. “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” he writes in a single submit. “WITCH HUNT!!!” in one other.

Regulations limiting media protection in courtrooms date again almost a century, when the spectacle of brilliant flashbulbs and digicam operators standing on witness tables in the course of the 1935 trial of the person accused of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh’s child son horrified the authorized neighborhood, in keeping with a 2022 report by the New York-based Fund for Modern Courts.

Yet an curiosity in open authorities chipped away at these legal guidelines and — slowly, rigorously — video cameras started to be permitted in courts throughout the nation, typically on the discretion of judges presiding in individual instances.

New York allowed them, too, on an experimental foundation between 1987 and 1997, however they had been shut down. Lobbyists for protection legal professionals stay robust in New York and maintain explicit sway amongst legal professionals within the state Assembly, stated Victor Kovner, a former New York City company counsel who advocates for open courtrooms.

▶ Read extra about why Trump’s trial isn’t televised and the way it’s impacting media protection.

The man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on hearth outdoors the courthouse the place former President Donald Trump is on trial has died, police stated.

The New York City Police Department advised The Associated Press early Saturday that the person was declared useless by employees at an space hospital.

The man was in Collect Pond Park round 1:30 p.m. Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them round, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on hearth, officers and witnesses stated.

Numerous law enforcement officials had been close by when it occurred. Some officers and bystanders rushed to assistance from the person, who was hospitalized in important situation on the time.

▶ Read extra about the person who set himself on hearth.

He appears “selfish and self-serving,” stated one girl. The method he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” stated one other.

His “negative rhetoric and bias,” stated one other man, is what’s “most harmful.”

Over the previous week, Donald Trump has been compelled to sit down inside a frigid New York courtroom and take heed to a parade of potential jurors in his legal hush money trial share their unvarnished assessments of him.

It’s been a dramatic departure for the previous president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, who’s accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and fixed adulation.

Now a legal defendant, Trump will as a substitute spend the following a number of weeks subjected to strict guidelines that strip him of management over every little thing from what he’s permitted to say to the temperature of the room.

“And the outcome could go in a direction he really doesn’t want,” he added.

▶ Read extra about what potential jurors stated about Trump.

The allegations on the coronary heart of this case don’t accuse Trump of an egregious abuse of energy just like the federal case in Washington charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, or of flouting nationwide safety protocols just like the federal case in Florida charging him with hoarding categorized paperwork.

But the New York prosecution has taken on added significance as a result of it might be the one one of many 4 instances in opposition to Trump that reaches trial earlier than the election. Appeals and authorized wrangling have delayed the opposite three instances.

MICHAEL COHEN — Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. He was as soon as a fierce Trump ally, however now he’s a key prosecution witness in opposition to his former boss. Cohen labored for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal jail after pleading responsible to marketing campaign finance violations regarding the hush money preparations and different, unrelated crimes.

STORMY DANIELS — The porn actor who obtained a $130,000 fee from Cohen as a part of his hush-money efforts. Cohen paid Daniels to maintain quiet about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having intercourse with Daniels.

KAREN MCDOUGAL — A former Playboy mannequin who stated she had a 10-month affair with Trump within the mid-2000s. She was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the dad or mum firm of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story concerning the alleged relationship. Trump denies having intercourse with McDougal.

DAVID PECKER — The National Enquirer’s former writer and a longtime Trump good friend. Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to assist Trump’s marketing campaign determine unfavorable tales about him.

HOPE HICKS — Trump’s former White House communications director. Prosecutors say she spoke with Trump by telephone throughout a frenzied effort to maintain allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape leaked weeks earlier than the 2016 election. In the tape, from 2005, Trump boasted about grabbing girls with out permission.

▶ Read extra concerning the key gamers in Trump’s hush money trial.

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business data and will face 4 years in jail if convicted, although it’s not clear if the choose would search to place him behind bars. A conviction wouldn’t preclude Trump from turning into president once more, however as a result of it’s a state case, he wouldn’t have the ability to try and pardon himself if discovered responsible. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Unfolding as Trump vies to reclaim the White House, the trial would require him to spend his days in a courtroom moderately than the marketing campaign path. He must pay attention as witnesses recount salacious and probably unflattering particulars about his non-public life.

Trump has nonetheless sought to show his legal defendant standing into an asset for his marketing campaign, fundraising off his authorized jeopardy and repeatedly railing in opposition to a justice system that he has for years claimed is weaponized in opposition to him.

The case introduced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a chapter from Trump’s previous when his celeb previous collided along with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he sought to forestall probably damaging tales from surfacing by means of hush money funds.

One such fee was a $130,000 sum that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and private fixer, gave to porn actor Stormy Daniels to forestall her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from rising into public shortly earlier than the 2016 election.

Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the funds in inside data when his firm reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded responsible to federal fees in 2018 and is anticipated to be a star witness for the prosecution.

Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his legal professionals argue that the funds to Cohen had been reputable authorized bills.

To convict Trump of a felony, prosecutors should present he not solely falsified or brought on business data to be entered falsely, which might be a misdemeanor, however that he did so to hide one other crime.

For the primary time in historical past, prosecutors will current a legal case in opposition to a former American president to a jury as they accuse Donald Trump of a hush money scheme aimed toward stopping damaging tales about his private life from turning into public.

A 12-person jury in Manhattan is about to listen to opening statements at the moment from prosecutors and protection legal professionals within the first of 4 legal instances in opposition to the presumptive Republican nominee to achieve trial.

The statements are anticipated to provide jurors and the voting public the clearest view but of the allegations on the coronary heart of the case, in addition to perception into Trump’s anticipated protection.

Court is scheduled to be again in session at 9:30 a.m. ET.