1. Judge expresses doubt about Trump’s lawyers
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche desperately tries to save Trump from being held in contempt of court for allegedly violating a gag order banning attacks on potential trial witnesses and other participants, the presiding judge said. Juan Merchan clearly wasn’t impressed.
“Mr. Branch, you are losing all credibility, I have to tell you now,” the judge said. “You are losing all trust of the court. Is there anything else you would like to argue?
Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office are asking Trump to fine him up to $1,000 for each of 10 posts they say violate a gag order, as he directly or indirectly pursues his former lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actors Stormy Daniels.
For now, the judge has suspended finding Trump in contempt of court. But he appeared deeply skeptical of the arguments of Branch, who found himself at a disadvantage during the contempt hearing, which was held before the trial resumed and featured the prosecution’s first witness. testimony.
Branch tried several explanations for the posts: Trump was responding to a political attack, which is allowed under the gag order, he was retweeting a link to a New York Post story or Fox News host Jesse Quotations from Waters and others.
The businessman was unmoved. He questioned why Trump waited until a challenge to the gag order was rejected by a New York appeals court to “respond” to Cohen’s taunts in a post, rather than respond immediately, to which Branch did not respond.
The judge also invited Branch to demonstrate instances where retweets were found to be any different than posts written by the defendants and to provide specific political attacks against Trump. “Give me one. Please tell me about a recent attack he was dealing with,” Moqian said.
The outcome of the contempt hearing was particularly bad for Trump, with the judge interrupting Branch to clarify that it was a mistake to characterize a post as simply retweeting a quote from Waters on television. Merchan said Trump “manipulated” the sentence by adding in his own words and then putting quotation marks around it.
2. Enquirer deal to help 2016 campaign
As the trial resumed Tuesday afternoon, the Manhattan district attorney immediately sought testimony from former National Enquirer president David Pecker that Trump personally recruited him and the tabloid to help his 2016 campaign.
The connection is important because the district attorney’s case revolved around elevating misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records to felonies by proving they promoted a second crime: conspiring to promote an election campaign through illegal means.
On the witness stand, prosecutors had Pecker confirm that in meetings with Trump and Cohen, he was asked how he could help the 2016 campaign. Pecker said he told them he would be the campaign’s “eyes and ears” and keep them informed of negative stories about Trump.
Specifically, Pecker testified that he would alert Cohen to negative Trump stories put forward by women: “When someone is running for office like this, these women will often call a magazine like the National Enquirer and try to sell themselves the opinion of.
Of course, that was the case with Trump and Daniels, who had a story about an alleged affair with Trump that Pecker later argued could be damaging to the 2016 campaign with female voters because it was in Notorious Appeared shortly after the release of Obvious Access.
Prosecutors also asked Pecker to confirm that Cohn wanted the arrangement to remain secret, otherwise it would undermine the National Enquirer’s mission to “seize and neutralize” negative stories about Trump before the 2016 election.
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3. Trump manages his own finances
The Manhattan district attorney asked Pecker to detail how Trump personally reviewed and approved invoices and other financial documents — another important detail since Trump’s defense hinges in part on his entrusting everything to people like Cohen. statement.
“We were talking at the same time as he was reviewing the accounts payable package, and I noticed that he reviewed the invoice, looked at the check, and then signed it,” Peck recalled.
Prosecutor Joshua Stanglas then asked Pecker how the documents were presented to Trump, trying to prove that Trump was meticulous about his finances and that Trump was not signing the checks without knowing what they were for. Random checks.
“As far as I remember, the whole package was stapled together,” Peck said in response to a question about whether the check had been stapled to the invoice. “I think he was very cautious and very frugal with money.”
