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Former president’s historic ‘hush money’ election interference trial is underway in New York
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Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial is now well underway with the prosecution and defence teams having presented their opening statements on Monday.
Tabloid media mogul David Pecker, who published The National Enquirer and was part of the “catch-and-kill” scheme at the heart of the case, has given testimony about specific instances of ensuring stories of an alleged love child and an affair with a Playboy model were never published.
Judge Juan Merchan will soon rule on complaints raised by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s team about numerous instances of Mr Trump allegedly violating the terms of his gag order in posts on his Truth Social platform.
The defendant has continued to complain about the case outside of the courtroom and lash out at the judge and prosecutors on social media.
Elsewhere on the legal front, an agreement has been reached over Mr Trump’s $175m bond to appeal the civil fraud trial ruling against him; witness statements in the classified documents case have been made public; and on Thursday the Supreme Court will hear arguments on presidential immunity defence against prosecution.
Alex Woodward is providing live updates from the courthouse throughout the trial.
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s historic hush money trial have refused to hand over a list of witnesses in the case in a bid to save them from Truth Social attacks by the former president.
Kelly Rissman and Ariana Baio report:
Prosecutors would normally hand over witness information but said they were reluctant to do so because of Donald Trump’s penchant for lashing out on Truth Social
Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on the judge in his New York hush money trial on Truth Social on Tuesday morning – just moments after his attorneys were forced to defend his posts in a hearing determining whether he had violated the gag order in the case.
Before testimony resumed in the historic case, Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments from the prosecution and the defence about the former president’s Truth Social posts.
Prosecutors have accused Mr Trump of violating his gag order at least 10 times in online attacks against potential witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.
Kelly Rissman and Alex Woodward report:
Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday said he would make a decision on the potential gag order violations at a later date
Donald Trump‘s valet, Walt Nauta, was reportedly told he would be pardoned during a potential second Trump administration if he was charged with lying to the FBI.
Mr Nauta was charged in June 2023 for lying to the FBI and for obstructing the agency’s investigation into the classified government documents Mr Trump had stored at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency.
Graig Graziosi reports:
Mr Nauta maintains that he did not know the boxes he moved at Mar-a-Lago on the day before an August 2022 FBI raid at the former president’s Florida club were filled with classified government documents
Martha McHardy reports:
Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has wildly claimed, without any evidence, that Democrats want Donald Trump to be “murdered in jail.”
The right-wing lawmaker made the remarks during an interview with Infowars host Alex Jones, in which she suggested that the four criminal cases Mr Trump is facing – including an ongoing trial where he has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts relating to alleged hush money payments – are an intentional effort by his political rivals to imprison the former president until he dies.
Continue reading…
The right-wing lawmaker from Georgia claimed on Infowars that the former president would have secret service detail removed if he is sent to prison after any of his four criminal trials
The trial will resume on Thursday at 9.30am.
Donald Trump appeared in the hallway and spoke at the assembled media while brandishing printouts of op-ed articles that claim the case against him is a sham.
He also complained that the courtroom was freezing and yet again claimed that all the court cases brought against him were orchestrated by President Joe Biden. Which they are not.
Per the pool report:
Trump spoke in the hallway next to attorney Todd Blanche for just over three minutes, calling the courtroom “totally freezing,” and answered one question by a pooler on what his thoughts were of the gag order, which he called “totally unconstitutional.”
Trump on gag order: “It’s totally unconstitutional. I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me.”
He later said, “I’d love to say everything on my mind.”
He then went on again to rant about Joe Biden.
Cohen seemed “very agitated” during that time, Pecker says.
“He kept on calling and each time he called he seemed more anxious.”
Asked where he thinks that pressure came from, he said he assumed it came from his conversations with Trump.
We’re breaking for the day.
Jury is being excused.
David Pecker tells the court that Cohen told him that “we shouldn’t be talking about this over a landline” and “we should use Signal”.
Pecker suggested to Trump that he buy up the story. “I said I still believe we should take this story off the market,” despite Trump thinking it would only bring more attention.
“He said, let me think about it and I’ll have Michael Cohen call you back in a few days.”
Dylan Howard meanwhile went to Los Angeles to meet with Ms McDougal’s attorney Keith Davidson.
“Dylan was going to sit down and do the interview and he would call us when he was there.”
Karen McDougal, a 53-year-old model and actor best known for appearing in Playboy magazine, claims she had a nine-month-long affair with Mr Trump in 2006.
She was paid $150,000 by AMI for the exclusive rights to her story before the 2016 presidential election and to feature her on two magazine covers and publish over 100 articles she authored.
Cohen considered buying the exclusive rights to Ms McDougal’s story from AMI, but that deal fell through.
AMI later admitted to prosecutors that it bought the exclusive rights to the story so that Ms McDougal could not share it elsewhere – but had never intended to publish her story. Instead, the so-called “catch-and-kill scheme” involved suppressing her story altogether in a bid to ward off any harm to Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.
Ms McDougal could also be a witness for the district attorney.
Read more about the key figures in the trial…
“Dylan came to me in early June 2016 and said he received a call from one of his major sources in California that there’s a Playboy model who is trying to sell a story about a relationship with Donald Trump,” says Pecker.
“I called Michael Cohen and I told him exactly what Dylan told me about this Playboy model.”
Pecker continued: “I think we should vet this story out first” and “Michael Cohen said ‘I think that’s a good idea … I’ll let you know what our next steps are gonna be.’”
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Former President Donald Trump watches as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass questions David Pecker before Justice Juan Merchan
REUTERS
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