Here&#39;s what you need to know about former President Donald Trump&#39;s historic hush money criminal trial&nbsp;in&nbsp;Manhattan criminal court.

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Nation/World

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Janon Fisher

Former President Donald Trump's sentencing in his Manhattan hush money trial will be postponed until September after Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision granting all presidents immunity from criminal prosecution threatened to upend the conviction. 
New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in a letter to both parties on Tuesday set a Sept. 18 date to hear his punishment after a jury convicted him in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide his affair with adult-film star Stormy Daniels from voters. 
“The July 11, 2024, sentencing date is therefore vacated,” the judge wrote. 
Trump faces up to 4 years in prison for each count of falsifying business records, a Class E felony, but it's likely, legal experts say, that he would not receive any time behind bars. The judge would likely factor his age, that he has no criminal record and the fact that this is a nonviolent offense into account when deciding his punishment. 
Prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had agreed on Tuesday to the delay, saying that they need extra time to counter the defense team’s request to set aside the verdict in light of the high court's decision. 
“Although we believe defendant's arguments to be without merit,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass wrote in his response,&nbsp;“we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion.” 
On Monday, the former president’s lawyer Todd Blanche filed a letter to Merchan, asking the judge for time to file legal papers to overturn the jury’s decision. 
“The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an executive branch that cannibalizes itself,’ ” Blanche wrote, citing the high court’s ruling. 
In May, after a six-week trial, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements to Michael Cohen in order to cover up hush money payments Trump's former fixer made to Daniels to cover up an alleged sexual tryst. 
During the trial, Blanche argued that testimony involving Trump’s tweets and public comments that he made while in office should not be heard by the jury because of presidential immunity. 
The former president is facing three other prosecutions:&nbsp;a state charge in Georgia and two federal cases, one in Florida and another in Washington, D.C. — which alleges that Trump plotted to undermine the 2020 presidential election. 
In the D.C. case, called Trump v. The People of the United States, lawyers for the former president argued to strike evidence from being allowed in the case because he was acting in his official capacity as president of the United States. 
That argument was rejected by two lower courts, but the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday found in a landmark decision that presidents are immune from criminal charges, not only when acting in their official capacity, but also in actions that are on the “outer perimeter” of their duties. Further, the court ruled that there is a presumption of immunity that prosecutors must overcome before they can bring charges against the commander in chief. 
“Under Trump, this official-acts evidence should never have been put before the jury,” Blanche wrote to the judge. “Consistent with arguments that we made before and during the trial, the Supreme Court held in Trump that President Trump ‘may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.’ ” 
Blanche had argued that the hush money case should not have gone forward until the Supreme Court decided on the case, but Merchan denied that motion. 
“At trial and during summations, [Manhattan prosecutors] placed highly prejudicial emphasis on official-acts evidence, including witness testimony regarding events in the Oval Office that [prosecutors] described as 'devastating,'” Blanche wrote. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to reporters after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30, 2024.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/06532c4c-7e70-4f5c-b482-6569f50052e3" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/06532c4c-7e70-4f5c-b482-6569f50052e3', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/06532c4c-7e70-4f5c-b482-6569f50052e3"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/06532c4c-7e70-4f5c-b482-6569f50052e3/e3298824-89f1-420e-ad90-7b156b3913a1.jpeg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to reporters after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30, 2024. </a> 
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office asked for a July 24 deadline to file its response to the defense motion. 
Legal experts say the high court’s ruling has raised more questions than it answered. 
“We are in uncharted territory,” Mark Zauderer, a trial and appellate attorney in Manhattan. 
He said that once the arguments from both sides are filed, the judge will have to decide whether or not the tweets and other communications mentioned by the defense lawyer fall under the official acts mentioned in the Supreme Court ruling. 
“There is a serious legal issue as to whether the conviction stands, because if it's found that the conviction was based on substantial evidence that the Supreme Court would say now would be inadmissible in other words, like communications between that are covered by the immunity, then there could possibly be a new trial,” he said. 
Zauderer said that under New York State law, there’s a legal principle referred to as the “harmless error rule,” which means that if the inadmissible evidence was not central to the jury’s verdict, the outcome stands. 
It would be Merchan’s call as to whether or not the trial testimony at issue was central to the prosecution’s case. 
“There's a gray area between on the one hand, would be inconsequential [evidence], and on the other hand, what would lead the court to think that it could have affected the jury,” the attorney said. “If the inadmissible evidence is strong enough, is significant enough, a court could say, look, certainly very possible that the jury based its verdict on inadmissible evidence.” 
The judge could let the conviction stand and go through with the sentencing, leaving it for the appellate court to determine how the Supreme Court’s decision affects the case or if the “harmless error rule” applies, Zauderer said. 
“I think that it would be a fool's errand at this point to reach any conclusion as to what the trial judge&nbsp;or the Appellate Division might do on this question,” he said. “Remember, the Supreme Court decision sets down guidelines, but how to apply that and in what circumstances to afford immunity is still uncertain.”&nbsp;

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Former President Donald Trump's sentencing postponed until Sept. 18 following high court immunity ruling

Trump sentencing in hush money case delayed until September after high court immunity ruling

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wants to keep the gag order on Donald Trump for a while longer. 
Prosecutors in Bragg's office wrote a letter to Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on Wednesday opposing the former president’s bid to speak freely ahead of his sentencing date on July 11. 
Trump, who was convicted last week of&nbsp;34 counts of falsifying business records, is prohibited under the judge’s order from commenting on witnesses, jurors, court personnel or their family members. 
Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president in&nbsp;the November election, called out the judge’s daughter for political work she did on behalf of Democrats and the Biden campaign. 
The gag order did not bar Trump from criticizing Bragg or the judge. 
Manhattan prosecutor Matthew&nbsp;Colangelo argued in a letter that the order should remain in place for the same reasons it was put in place during testimony, to “prevent actual harm to the integrity of the proceedings” which are still ongoing. 
“These interests have not abated, and the court has an obligation to protect the integrity of these proceedings and the fair administration of justice at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions,” Colangelo wrote. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a news conference following the conviction of former President Donald Trump in his hush money trial on Thursday.
" data-attr-credit="Getty Images" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/0b76e72f-400a-4566-9e43-1f490080ce95" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/0b76e72f-400a-4566-9e43-1f490080ce95', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/0b76e72f-400a-4566-9e43-1f490080ce95"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/0b76e72f-400a-4566-9e43-1f490080ce95/2155348270.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks at a news conference following the conviction of former President Donald Trump in his hush money trial on Thursday. </a> 
On Tuesday, the former president’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, filed a request to Merchan that he lift the order so Trump can defend himself from political attacks during the campaign. 
“Now that the trial is concluded, the concerns articulated by the government and the court do not justify continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump — who remains the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election — and the American people,” Blanche wrote in his letter to the court. 
During the trial, Merchan&nbsp;ruled Trump violated the gag order 10 times and fined him $10,000. The judge also threatened to throw him in jail if he continued to violate the gag order. 
The day after his conviction, the former president held a news&nbsp;conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan during which he once again spoke out about two witnesses, his former fixer Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels. 
Blanche cited several instances in which President Joe Biden or his campaign spoke about Trump’s trial and conviction. 
Unless it is lifted, Blanche said, Trump would not be able to speak free of the gag order during the first presidential debate on June 27. 
Defense lawyers and prosecutors intend to submit further arguments before the debate at the end of the month before Merchan rules on the issue.

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wants to keep gag order on Donald Trump in hush money case

Prosecutors oppose lifting Trump's gag order in hush money case

Trump Hush Money

Laura Figueroa Hernandez and Tom Brune

WASHINGTON — The criminal conviction of former President Donald Trump has thrust an already tight rematch with President Joe Biden into uncharted territory, with both campaigns left to figure out how to win over the small group of voters who have said a guilty verdict would impact their votes. 
National polls conducted during&nbsp;Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan, which ended Thursday&nbsp;with a guilty verdict, show a majority of voters reported the outcome of the trial would have no impact on how they would vote&nbsp;in November. 
But pollsters and political scientists told&nbsp;Newsday both campaigns likely are eyeing the segment of voters who&nbsp;have said a&nbsp;guilty verdict would make them either less likely or more likely to back&nbsp;Trump. 
Any nominal shift among those voters, particularly in battleground states, could decide the election, experts said. 
“There are groups that this may have an impact on, and small numbers moving can have a difference between winning and losing in the swing states,”&nbsp;Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion, told Newsday. 
“It’s that kind of election where it’s going to be fought in the margins,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “It’s basically a toss-up election.” 
Trump leads Biden by an average of 3.1%&nbsp;across polls in seven battleground states, according to the poll tracking website Real Clear Politics. But that lead in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin&nbsp;is within the 3% to 4%&nbsp;margin of error in the surveys&nbsp;Real Clear Politics cited. 
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Trump&nbsp;has not seen a dip in support since the start of the trial in April. But political experts say polling numbers could change after a&nbsp;jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business documents to conceal hush money payments to a porn actress ahead of the 2016 election. 
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Thursday and Friday, and released Friday evening, found 57% said the verdict would not influence their vote. But the data also revealed potential problem areas for Trump among Republicans and independents who said the verdict would make them less likely to vote for him. 
A quarter of independent registered voters said Trump's conviction would make them less likely to support him in November, compared with 18% who said it would make them more likely to vote for him and 56% who said it would not impact their vote. 
Among Republicans, 10% of those surveyed by Reuters/Ipsos said the guilty verdict made them less likely to vote for Trump, compared with&nbsp;56% who said the verdict would have no effect on their vote. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1%. 
Miringoff likened Trump’s legal challenges to those of his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, who suffered&nbsp;a dip in support amid revelations she used a private email server while serving as U.S. secretary of state. 
“One of the things we learned, certainly in 2016 with Hillary and the emails, is that a steady drum beat on a topic can have an impact,” Miringoff said. “Trump has always done well when he can change the narrative … But this has been a steady drip of legal court decisions, and I think that there may be, ultimately, some cumulative effect.” 
A Marist College/NPR/PBS NewsHour poll released Thursday&nbsp;found 67%&nbsp;of U.S. voters polled May 21-23&nbsp;said a guilty verdict would make no difference to their vote — but 17%&nbsp;said it would make them less likely to vote for Trump. 
Among independents surveyed, 11%&nbsp;said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump, while 15%&nbsp;said it would make them more likely to vote for him. Independents are a critical bloc&nbsp;for either candidate to win over in a tight election year. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7%. 
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A majority of voters — 53% — polled by Emerson&nbsp;College said a guilty verdict would not impact their vote. But 25%&nbsp;said it would make them less likely to vote for Trump and 23%&nbsp;said it would make them more likely to vote for him. The poll, conducted May 21-23, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9%. 
“There aren’t many true persuadables — somewhere in the low to mid-single digits — but in a close election, they could easily determine the election’s outcome,” Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said in an email. “Remember, this isn’t just about Biden versus Trump (versus RFK Jr. and the others). It’s about voting or not voting too. A turned-off voter can become a non-voter. Already Americans are indicating they are unenthusiastic about the whole election, not just a specific candidate or candidates.” 
Siena College pollster Don Levy said Trump’s trial and conviction “could lead to a small erosion of Trump voters.” 
A New York Times/Siena poll taken late in late October&nbsp;found about 6% of voters who either supported Trump or were undecided said if Trump were convicted and sentenced to prison, they would switch to Biden. 
Another 4% said they would vote for someone else and 4% said they wouldn’t vote. Overall, it’s not a large percentage — but it could be enough to make a difference in some swing states, Levy told Newsday Friday. 
“There are some voters who will have to think about ‘Do I really want to vote for someone who is a convicted felon?’” Levy said. “I think there will be some erosion amongst those voters. It could add up to a point or 2 points — but that is significant at this point.” 
He stressed the fall poll occurred when a Trump conviction was hypothetical. Now that it’s a reality, results could change.&nbsp; 
Further, nationally, “we are down to 20% of voters who are not locked in” to voting for Biden or Trump, Levy said. They could be swayed by the trial or other factors — the economy, Israel, Ukraine, the presidential debates or a combination of everything. 
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“All these factors could potentially move them,” Levy said. 
Trump, 77, has vowed to appeal the verdict and has blasted&nbsp;other criminal charges he is facing, including federal felony charges for allegedly mishandling classified documents upon leaving office. 
Despite Trump’s legal problems, Biden, 81, has struggled&nbsp;to gain a lead in polls, amid concerns about his age&nbsp;and economic angst among voters, said Jacobs of&nbsp;the University of Minnesota. 
In most years that would be a real problem for the incumbent, Jacobs said. “But this race is shaping up as Jimmy Carter's economic malaise versus Richard Nixon's halo of corruption. It's not going to have the kind of massive impacts of those two races. But I think it tilts the race, but in different directions.” 
Lawrence Levy, executive dean of Hofstra University’s National Center for Suburban Studies,&nbsp;said&nbsp;both campaigns likely will focus on&nbsp;the suburbs to wage their fight for persuadable voters. 
“History and voting patterns suggest that while there may be a lot of blue progressives and bright red MAGA conservatives in the suburbs, there's a preponderance of moderate persuadables, and these are the sorts of voters who are likely to be most affected by the verdict,” Levy said. 
With Yancey Roy

Long Island

Politics

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Trump, Biden eye 'persuadable' voters after guilty verdict

Campaigns focus on 'persuadable' voters after Trump guilty verdict

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Nicole Fuller

It was the trial of a lifetime. 
Before former President Donald Trump, never had an American president been tried on criminal charges. 
Trump on Thursday became the first former leader of the free world to become a&nbsp;felon when a jury — 12 Manhattan residents — found him&nbsp;guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in what the jury found was an effort by Trump to conceal from the voting public ahead of the 2016 presidential election that he had a sexual encounter with an adult film actress. 
Trump is set to be sentenced July 11 and could receive a punishment that includes probation, community service and up to 4 years in prison. 
The seven-week-long trial, extraordinary because the defendant had once occupied the Oval Office, was littered with tales of extramarital sex and tabloid dysfunction. 
Here are the key moments: 
<h2>The prosecution's first witness</h2> 
Former tabloid king David Pecker, a soft-spoken 72-year-old who still considers himself a friend of Trump, was the first witness called by prosecutors. 
Pecker — the ex-publisher of American Media&nbsp;Inc., which published the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer — testified under a non-prosecution agreement and took the jury inside what prosecutors called a &quot;criminal conspiracy&quot; between himself, Trump and his attorney to &quot;catch and kill&quot; negative stories about Trump as he campaigned for president. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="David Pecker, former chairman and CEO of American Media, speaks at an event on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. " data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/27b98e1a-fb22-4417-8e28-dad096418d0b" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/27b98e1a-fb22-4417-8e28-dad096418d0b', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/27b98e1a-fb22-4417-8e28-dad096418d0b"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/27b98e1a-fb22-4417-8e28-dad096418d0b/6aab160e07f143f0ba629f4db.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />David Pecker, former chairman and CEO of American Media, speaks at an event on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. </a> 
&quot;It was just an agreement between friends,&quot; Pecker said, noting it was not put in writing. 
That agreement&nbsp;—&nbsp;born at a meeting at Trump Tower about two months after Trump, then a reality TV star and bombastic New York City businessman, famously descended the golden escalator at his eponymous tower and announced his candidacy for president — caught the attention of the jury. 
During deliberations, the jury foreman sent a note to the presiding judge requesting readbacks of the testimony of both Pecker and Trump's then-attorney, Michael Cohen,&nbsp;regarding the meeting. 
As part of the conspiracy, Pecker testified, the National Enquirer also published a slew of nasty, false or half-true stories about Trump's opponents in the presidential race, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom Trump ultimately defeated in the general election. 
<h2>Long Island native played key role</h2> 
Cohen, who grew up in Lawrence, may have been the last witness called to testify by the prosecution, but he was the star of the 20-witness lineup. His almost singular proximity to Trump as his former personal attorney and so-called fixer&nbsp;provided the jury with firsthand knowledge of Trump's thoughts and actions. 
When The Washington Post published the infamous &quot;Access Hollywood&quot; video featuring Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals — an &quot;October surprise&quot; for the ages — Cohen told the jury that Trump was panicked. 
“This is a disaster,” Cohen testified Trump said in an October 2016 phone call. “This is a total disaster. Women will hate me. Guys will think it’s cool, but women will hate me. This is a total disaster for the campaign.” 
So when Pecker's team got wind that the adult film star Trump allegedly had sex&nbsp;with years earlier came looking for a payday as he ran for president, Trump, who was described by various witnesses as tightfisted with his money, was ready to pay up, Cohen said. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Michael Cohen leaves his Manhattan apartment building on May 20.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/5003624b-5874-4049-ba27-026506243ef0" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/5003624b-5874-4049-ba27-026506243ef0', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/5003624b-5874-4049-ba27-026506243ef0"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/5003624b-5874-4049-ba27-026506243ef0/8f39a46aeb4e472884c75876d.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Michael Cohen leaves his Manhattan apartment building on May 20. </a> 
&quot;Just take care of it,&quot; Cohen testified Trump told him. 
Trump's lead attorney, Todd Blanche, attempted to paint Cohen, a convicted perjurer, as a pathological liar hellbent on seeing Trump convicted as revenge for Cohen's own legal troubles. Plus, Blanche alleged, Cohen also was sour because Trump didn't offer his once-loyal soldier a position in his presidential administration, a move that gutted Cohen. 
Cohen, famously bombastic with a strong Long Island accent, kept his composure on the stand despite constant digging by Blanche. 
<h2>An adult film actress takes the stand</h2> 
Adult film star Stormy Daniels testified over the course of several days about her awkward sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. 
Trump denied they had sex. Daniels, who in 2018 made an appearance at a Melville strip club, told a detailed tale of meeting Trump on the links and then being approached by his bodyguard with an invitation to dinner with Trump. But when she arrived at Trump's hotel suite, he was clad in silk pajamas, and the two had friendly banter about her career in adult films and his work in reality TV. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Stormy Daniels leaves Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9 after testifying at former President Donald Trump's hush money trial.
" data-attr-credit="TNS" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/2ca4899c-2556-42ea-be17-2490a169e389" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/2ca4899c-2556-42ea-be17-2490a169e389', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/2ca4899c-2556-42ea-be17-2490a169e389"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/2ca4899c-2556-42ea-be17-2490a169e389/US-NEWS-NY-TRUMP-PROBE-TE.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Stormy Daniels leaves Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9 after testifying at former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. </a> 
When she emerged from his bathroom — she admitted snooping in his toiletries and laughed about the fact that he used down-market brands such as Old Spice and PertPlus — Trump was on the bed with a come hither look on his face, Daniels testified. 
The sex was brief and she stared at the ceiling as she laid in the missionary position with her bra on, she said. Trump called her &quot;honey bunch&quot; and told her the sex was &quot;great&quot; before she departed his room without ever having dinner. 
The intimate details got under Trump's skin. 
&quot;I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous,&quot; the judge warned the defense attorneys during a bench conference. &quot;It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.&quot; 
<h2>Nassau's Robert Costello spars with the judge</h2> 
While the burden is on the prosecution in any criminal case — the defense can literally do nothing — Trump's team did put on a defense, albeit a brief one. Trump's defense team called two witnesses, one of whom was Nassau County-based attorney Robert Costello, a veteran prosecutor and defense attorney who has represented clients ranging from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Judge Juan M. Merchan poses in his chambers in New York on March 14, 2024. 
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/69176994-4a77-4828-8185-a05bd38a5d07" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/69176994-4a77-4828-8185-a05bd38a5d07', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/69176994-4a77-4828-8185-a05bd38a5d07"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/69176994-4a77-4828-8185-a05bd38a5d07/ad58b28c-2fa5-41d4-abf0-074374b82378.jpeg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Judge Juan M. Merchan poses in his chambers in New York on March 14, 2024. </a> 
But Costello shockingly clashed with the judge, Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan, muttering &quot;ridiculous&quot; and &quot;jeez&quot; in response to the judge's rulings. The judge dismissed the jury and cleared the courtroom to admonish Costello, an extraordinary step as courtrooms are open to the public. The judge warned Trump outside the presence of the jury that he would remove Costello from the witness stand and strike his testimony from the record if his conduct continued. 
Costello denied Cohen’s earlier testimony that he pressured the former fixer to hire him as a defense lawyer to act as a back channel to then-president Trump after the FBI raided his home and office. 
“Intimidate Michael Cohen? Ridiculous. No,” Costello testified. 
<h2>Trial's other historic first</h2> 
In another historic moment, Trump was the first former president to be held in criminal contempt when Merchan ruled Trump violated the limited gag order in the case that prohibited Trump from speaking publicly about witnesses, the jury or court staff. Merchan fined Trump $9,000 and warned him he could face jail time if he continued. Merchan held Trump in contempt a second time, but the violations occurred before the judge warned him with jail time. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his hush money trial on Thursday.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/69eb216d-bf3e-48bf-9924-6864f80e4edc" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/69eb216d-bf3e-48bf-9924-6864f80e4edc', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/69eb216d-bf3e-48bf-9924-6864f80e4edc"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/69eb216d-bf3e-48bf-9924-6864f80e4edc/e5904c7208004790ace515f6d.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his hush money trial on Thursday. </a> 
Trump, however, was free to speak publicly about Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, who both were not covered by the gag order. Trump, multiple times a day, derided Merchan as &quot;corrupt&quot; and called the proceeding &quot;rigged.&quot; 
Trump also had another frequent complaint: that the courtroom was consistently cold, a fact confirmed by journalists in the room. 
&quot;I'm going to sit in a freezing cold ice box for eight&nbsp;hours, nine&nbsp;hours or so,” Trump complained to the media.

NYTRUMP240602

Trump's hush money trial: Tales of extramarital sex and tabloid dysfunction

Trump's trial featured tales of extramarital sex, tabloid dysfunction 

Craig Schneider

Christina Haubeil, a Wantagh mother of three teens, knows that discussing the guilty verdicts against former President Donald Trump could turn her dinner table into a verbal war zone. She is a Democrat, her husband is a Conservative, and her mother, who lives with them, watches Fox News daily, she said. 
To be blunt, Haubeil said, she won't bring it up unless someone else does, which she fully expects will happen.&nbsp; 
&quot;If they do, I'll talk about how no one is above the law,&quot; said Haubeil, 50. &quot;Everybody has to be accountable for the crimes they commit.&quot;&nbsp; 
A Manhattan jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of fixing business records to conceal a sexual encounter with an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 presidential election.&nbsp;Never before has a current or former president been convicted of criminal charges.&nbsp;He is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. 
Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party, continued to insist he is innocent of the charges and that the trial was rigged against him. He said he will appeal. 
In this climate of red-hot political divisions, discussing the controversial verdict&nbsp;presents challenges for parents and teachers. Think about all the thorny issues: the complex legalities;&nbsp;the presence of an adult film star;&nbsp;defining &quot;hush money&quot;;&nbsp; the passionate opinions. 
But educators and child psychology experts say the 34 felony convictions should not be avoided, and that presenting the case in age-appropriate ways can provide&nbsp;important lessons about a consequential day in American history. There are lessons on free and fair elections,&nbsp;the rule of law, the workings of the judicial system and the need to&nbsp;employ&nbsp;facts when arriving at decisions, they said. 
<h2>'Tough for kids to process'</h2> 
&quot;This is a toughie. It's the first time this has ever been done against a former president,&quot; said Gloria Sesso,&nbsp;president of the Long Island Council for the Social Studies. &quot;Some people think democracy triumphed, and that no one is above the law. Others say democracy didn't triumph, and this was done for political partisanship to eliminate an opponent. It's tough for kids to process.&quot; 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption=" Donald Trump on Friday in Manhattan. Educators and child psychology experts say that presenting the case in age-appropriate ways can provide important lessons.
" data-attr-credit="Getty Images" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/eeb72410-6780-40d7-b204-714fcbc3dea8" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/eeb72410-6780-40d7-b204-714fcbc3dea8', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/eeb72410-6780-40d7-b204-714fcbc3dea8"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/eeb72410-6780-40d7-b204-714fcbc3dea8/2155447605.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" /> Donald Trump on Friday in Manhattan. Educators and child psychology experts say that presenting the case in age-appropriate ways can provide important lessons. </a> 
The verdicts come as many teachers struggle&nbsp;to teach about the Israel-Hamas war, fearful that their classes could devolve into emotional&nbsp;arguments, she said. 
That said, teachers &quot;cannot and should not&quot; ignore this historic moment, said Andrea Libresco, a Hofstra University&nbsp;professor of social studies education. Teachers should try to avoid the hyperpartisan debates&nbsp;but help students understand the moment and why it is historically significant, she said. 
&quot;Nobody needs to get bogged down in the picayune details. There are big themes here,&quot;&nbsp;Libresco said. &quot;This is the Olympics of social studies. What factors should matter when voting for president?&quot;&nbsp; 
Using the state education standards, Libresco said fourth grade is a good place to start discussing the case, using it to teach about the separation of powers, and checks and balances in government.&nbsp; 
In later grades, the case can be a gateway into learning about the justice system and&nbsp;the Constitution,&nbsp;as well as discussions on what qualities people look for in a president,&nbsp;she said. 
<h2>'This is not about Trump'</h2> 
Teachers need not discuss the more salacious aspects&nbsp;such as Trump's alleged affair with an adult film&nbsp;actress, as they don't speak directly&nbsp;to&nbsp;the legal merits of the case, she said. 
&nbsp;Avoid the personalities involved, she said, adding,&nbsp;&quot;This is not about Trump. It's about raising citizens in a democracy. ... This is a moment when social studies teachers shine.&quot; 
For parents, the case can be the springboard to a host of life lessons for children, on topics ranging from their&nbsp;process of making decisions to the value of respecting other's opinions and&nbsp;keeping an open mind, she said. 
&quot;It's about how people speak to one another. They can disagree strongly, but not attack each other personally,&quot; Libresco said. &quot;It can't be that 49% of people are idiots.&nbsp; Most people have reasons for their decisions, how they grew up and their experiences.&quot; 
Don Sinkfield, a mental health therapist in Valley Stream, said parents can use the case to teach their children that people can have both good and bad aspects. 
&quot;I would say making someone all bad or all good is something to avoid,&quot; said Sinkfield, who has treated many children.&nbsp;&quot;We don't want to make [Trump]&nbsp;into the devil or some perfect person.&quot; 
Whatever children say, it's important to make them feel they are being heard, he added. 
So far, no one in the&nbsp;Haubeil household has brought up the case, as the family is still grieving from the recent death of their dog, Christina Haubeil said.&nbsp; 
When it does surface, Haubeil said, she is hoping to keep a lid on it and impart a lesson to her children about making clear-headed decisions. 
&quot;I'll speak to them so they understand you look at the facts and then form an opinion,&quot; she said.

Education

LITEACH240602

The Donald Trump conviction: What should teachers tell their students?

In Trump conviction, a new challenge for teachers, parents 

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A defiant Donald Trump vowed on Friday morning, the day after he became the first former president found guilty of a felony, to fight his conviction, repeating previous claims that the charges were politically motivated and the legal system was biased against him. 
“It was a rigged trial,” he said. 
From the lobby of Trump Tower, his flagship property in midtown Manhattan where much of the crime took place, the former president was at times outraged, defiant and mocking. Trump, the Republican nominee for the November presidential election, attacked the trial judge, his former fixer Michael Cohen, the legal system and President Joe Biden. 
He also bragged that the conviction had produced a windfall for his campaign, which claimed to have raised more than $34.8 million since the verdict was announced shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday. 
“I like those figures,” he said to applause from a crowd of about 100 supporters, including his defense lawyer Todd Blanche and his son Eric Trump. “So far, I guess, it’s backfired. I would rather not have it happen. I want to win legitimately.” 
The amount cannot be verified until campaign finance reports are filed in the coming months. 
In response to Trump’s criticism of the case, Biden defended the justice system. 
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday. 
The president said Trump’s trial followed the same legal guidelines as any other trial and the jury’s decision should be respected. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-align="center" data-onecms-id="contentid/cd787ada-eee4-405e-8be4-b069677b7e97" data-onecms-type="video" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/cd787ada-eee4-405e-8be4-b069677b7e97', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/cd787ada-eee4-405e-8be4-b069677b7e97"><img src="/onecms/polopoly_fs/atex.onecms.Widget-pCustomResourceArea!/img/video-x-generic.png" /></a> 
“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case, and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you,” he said, adding that the former president was free to appeal the verdict. 
Trump appeared unbowed by his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records — a low-level felony — which was part of a conspiracy to hide reimbursements to Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to former adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a one-night stand in a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2006. The Manhattan district attorney’s office charged that the payoff amounted to election fraud because it was deliberately hidden from American voters just before the 2016 presidential election. 
“We will be appealing this scam,” Trump said. “We will be appealing it on many things. He would not allow us to have witnesses. We were not allowed to talk. The judge was a tyrant.” 
Each count carries a sentence of up to 4 years, but for a nonviolent crime for a first-time offender of his age, a hefty prison sentence is unlikely, legal experts say. 
A sentencing date has been set for July 11. 
Trump in his speech, falsely claimed&nbsp;that Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan barred him from allowing a federal election law witness to testify. The judge only limited the testimony of the expert witness, Merchan said, to avoid confusing the jury. 
Manhattan federal prosecutors didn’t want to bring the case, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was convinced to prosecute it. 
The former president again called the trial “unfair” and claimed it was “done by Washington.” 
Trump targeted Cohen, possibly again violating a gag order, which remains in effect. Merchan already fined him $10,000 during the trial for attacking witnesses and the jurors. 
Although he did not mention Cohen by name, he referred to the man who people call his “former fixer.” 
“I never thought of him as a fixer,” he said. “He was a lawyer, a fairly good one too. Later on, I did not like what he did. I did not like that when I became president he went around making deals with companies. When I found out about it, he was gone.” 
Trump continued to claim that the charges against him were flawed. 
“They missed the statute of limitations by a lot,” he said Friday. “Instead of bringing this seven years ago, they brought it during an election.” 
Many of the delays in the case were at the request of the defense lawyers. 
Trump did not take any questions during or after his address just before noon and ignored reporters’ attempts to ask. 
The Friday speech took on the tone of a campaign speech and touched on many of the points in his platform, spending most of the talk railing against illegal migrants and the Biden administration. 
“Millions of people are flowing in from all parts of the world. Not just from South America, from Africa, from Asia, from the Middle East, coming in from jails and prisons and coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums,” he said. “We have a president and a group of fascists that do not want to do anything about it.”

NYTRUMP240601

Former President Donald Trump vows to appeal historic conviction in hush money trial during defiant speech

Trump, in defiant speech, vows to appeal conviction in hush money trial

One day after a jury found ex-President Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush money trial, Long Islanders react.&nbsp;

nyTRUMP240601_video

LIers react to Trump's guilty verdict

New York City

Manhattan

new york

Newsday

'The first time in history'

nyTRUMP240601_photos

NEW YORK — Donald Trump sought to move past his historic criminal conviction on Friday and build momentum for his bid to return to the White House with fierce attacks on the judge who oversaw the case, the prosecution’s star witness and the criminal justice system as a whole.
Speaking from his namesake tower in Manhattan in a symbolic return to the campaign trail, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee delivered a message aimed squarely at his most loyal supporters. Defiant as ever, he insisted without evidence that the verdict was “rigged” and driven by politics.
“We’re going to fight,&quot; Trump said from the atrium of Trump Tower, where he descended a golden escalator to announce his 2016 campaign nine years ago next month. The machinations during the final, dramatic weeks of that campaign ultimately led to the charges that made Trump the first former president and presumptive presidential nominee of a major party to be convicted of a crime, exposing him to potential prison time.
While the guilty verdict has energized Trump’s base, fueling millions of dollars in new campaign contributions, it’s unclear how the conviction and his rambling response will resonate with the kinds of voters who are likely to decide what is expected to be an extremely close November election. They include suburban women, independents, and voters turned off by both candidates.
Speaking before dozens of reporters and cameras that carried his remarks live, Trump cast himself as a martyr, suggesting that if this could happen to him, “They can do this to anyone.”
“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to save our country and save our Constitution. I don’t mind,” he said, as he traded the aging lower Manhattan courthouse where he spent much of the last two months for a backdrop of American flags, rose marble and brass.
“It’s a very unpleasant thing, to be honest,&quot; he added. “But it’s a great, great honor.”
President Joe Biden, responding to the verdict at the White House, said Trump “was given every opportunity to defend himself” and blasted his rhetoric.
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said.
Trump has made his legal woes the centerpiece of his campaign message as he has argued, without evidence, that Biden orchestrated the four indictments against him to hobble his campaign. The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who don’t work for the Justice Department or any White House office. 
A Manhattan jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
Despite the historic ruling, a convicted Trump sounded much the same as a pre-convicted Trump, as he delivered what amounted to a truncated version of his usual rally speech. He argued the verdict was illegitimate and driven by politics and sought to downplay the facts underlying the case. He said he would appeal.
“It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement,&quot; he said. “Totally legal, totally common.”
When Trump emerged from the courtroom immediately after the verdict Thursday, he had appeared tense and deeply angry, his words pointed and clipped. But by Friday, he seemed more relaxed — if a little congested — especially as he moved on to other topics. He did not take questions from reporters, marching off as supporters assembled in the lobby cheered.
His lawyer, Todd Blanche, who was with him at Trump Tower but didn't speak, said in an interview later Friday that he had been “shocked” by how well Trump took the verdict.
“He’s not happy about it, but there’s no defendant in the history of our justice system who’s happy about a conviction the day after,&quot; he said. “But I think he knows there’s a lot of fight left and there’s a lot of opportunity to fix this and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
Trump has portrayed himself as a passionate supporter of law enforcement and has even talked favorably of officers handling suspects roughly. But he has spent the last two years attacking parts of the criminal justice system as it applies to him and raising questions about the honesty and motives of agents and prosecutors. 
In his disjointed remarks, Trump attacked Biden's immigration and tax policies before pivoting to his case, growling that he was threatened with jail time if he violated a gag order. He cast intricate parts of the case and trial proceedings as unfair, making false statements and misrepresentations as he went.
Trump said he had wanted to testify in his trial, a right that he opted not to exercise. Doing so would have allowed prosecutors to cross-examine him under oath. He raised the specter on Friday of being charged with perjury for a verbal misstep, saying, “The theory is you never testify because as soon as you testify — anybody, if it were George Washington — don’t testify because they’ll get you on something that you said slightly wrong.”
Testing the limits of the gag order that continues to prohibit him from publicly critiquing witnesses including Michael Cohen, Trump called his former fixer, the star prosecution witness in the case, “a sleazebag,&quot; without referencing him by name.
He also blasted the judge in the case, saying his side's chief witness had been “literally crucified by this man who looks like an angel, but he’s really a devil.”
He also circled back to some of the same authoritarian themes he has repeatedly focused on in speeches and rallies, painting the U.S. under Biden as a “corrupt” and “fascist” nation.
His son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, joined him, but his wife, Melania Trump, who has been publicly silent since the verdict, was not seen.
Outside, on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, supporters gathered across the street flew a giant red “TRUMP OR DEATH” sign that flapped in front of a high-end boutique. A small group of protesters held signs saying “Guilty” and “Justice matters.&quot;
Trump’s campaign announced Friday evening it had raised $52.8 million in the 24 hours after the verdict. The campaign said one-third of those donors had not previously given to him.
Trump and his campaign had been preparing for a guilty verdict for days, even as they held out hope for a hung jury. On Tuesday, Trump railed that not even Mother Teresa, the nun and saint, could beat the charges, which he repeatedly labeled as “rigged.”
His top aides on Wednesday released a memo in which they insisted a verdict would have no impact on the election, whether Trump was convicted or acquitted.
The news nonetheless landed with a jolt. Trump listened as the jury delivered a guilty verdict on every count. Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read.
His campaign fired off a flurry of fundraising appeals, and GOP allies rallied to his side. One text message called him a “political prisoner,” even though he hasn't yet found out if he will be sentenced to prison. The campaign also began selling black “Make America Great Again” caps, instead of the usual red, to reflect a “dark day in history.”
Aides reported an immediate rush of contributions so intense that WinRed, the platform the campaign uses for fundraising, crashed.
In the next two months, Trump is set to have his first debate with Biden, announce a running mate and formally accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention. But before he goes to Milwaukee for the RNC, Trump will have to return to court on July 11 for sentencing. He could face penalties ranging from a fine or probation up to prison time.

AP-US-Election-2024-Trump, 21st Ld-Writethru

Trump tries to move past his guilty verdict by attacking the criminal justice system

ICYMI: Trump spoke to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan on Friday, his return to campaigning a day after he was convicted of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by falsifying business records.

New York

nyTRUMP240601_towerspeech_video

Replay: Trump responds to his guilty verdict

  'It's not hush money. It's a nondisclosure agreement.'

Matthew Chayes

Shouts of “guilty!” broke the news to Donald Trump’s fans, foes and other gawkers awaiting the verdict Thursday afternoon outside Manhattan Criminal Court. Fifteen floors up, the cheering on the street was audible in the courtroom as Trump became the first U.S.&nbsp;president, current or former,&nbsp;to be convicted of a crime. 
Within 15 minutes, giant anti-Trump banners celebrating the verdict had been spray-painted. A Trump impersonator in an orange jumpsuit made&nbsp;the rounds. A man sang a song: “Lock him up!” 
Red-hatted Trump supporters were outnumbered. 
Trump’s foes cheered the news as a vindication of the rule of law, at last a reckoning for a man who’s long skirted justice for his misdeeds. His fans jeered that same news as the latest in a series of politically motivated witch hunts, more fuel to power Trump’s return to the presidency in 2024. 
Collect Pond Park, a space dating to Colonial times that has served as a makeshift caldron of protest since the first of several grand juries indicted Trump last year, was where hundreds gathered yet again to commiserate or celebrate — or fight — over the verdict. 
“Guilty! Guilty! 34 times!” a woman shouted in refrain over another man, who was wearing a “TRUMP 2024” hat, who shouted back, “you’re full of hate!” as yet another man taunted the Trump fan that Joe Biden is “an unconvicted president.” 
Several NYPD officers stood between the shouters. 
Belio Martinez, 31, of Harlem, wearing a MAGA hat, used a barnyard expletive to describe the verdict before using more polite language. 
“It’s a bunch of malarkey. It’s a sham trial,” he said. 
Gene Jacobson, a 72-year-old paralegal who lives in TriBeCa, was sitting outside listening to the radio near the courthouse when he heard the verdict. 
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” he said. “I hate Donald Trump.” 
“Unfortunately, I don’t think it means much in terms of what matters to the next election. I wish it would matter a lot, but people who vote for Trump are morons,” he said. 
Crowds also gathered outside Trump's namesake tower in midtown after the verdict. 
Florida tourist Andrew Larson, 16, had his camera out. 
&quot;It’s an interesting time to be alive,” he said. “What are people going to say 30 years from now? Crazy.” 
Kevin Burke, 47, of Rochester, said he was&nbsp;is in town being treated for stage 4 cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering. 
“I thought there would be more happening. More chaos,” he said. “More sparks flying.” 
At the park, Amanda Guinzburg, a writer who lives in lower Manhattan, rushed&nbsp;down to the courthouse when she heard there would be a verdict. 
“I think it’s a great day for the rule of law and New York City and the United States of America, because he’s a person who’s been committing crimes for upwards of 50 years and this is the first time he’s ever been held criminally accountable for any of them. I think it’s important that one of these cases was decided before the election. Whether or not it has any impact I still think it’s important that it happened.” 
Stefano Grassi, 29, a tourist and salesperson from Torino, Italy, was at the nearby 9/11 museum and went to see the verdict aftermath. Grassi&nbsp;was carrying an American flag he had just purchased&nbsp;at the museum. 
“I hope that American people finally would see Trump for who he is,” he said: “a criminal and not a representative of what United States' values are.” 
Surveying the scene, Tyler Fischman, 20, a Brown University rising sophomore from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said he considered what was happening — the political arguments, the dueling signs, the passionate screaming — as a microcosm of where the country America is today. 
“It’s a spectacle,” he said, adding: “It’s a reflection of what’s going on in America.” 
With Janon Fisher and Craig Schneider

NYREAX240531

Outside Manhattan courthouse, cheers, jeers over Trump guilty verdict

Cheers, jeers over Trump guilty verdict

Newsday Staff

Rich Schaffer,&nbsp;Suffolk County Democratic chairman: “Today, justice was served. No one is above the law. Donald Trump is a convicted felon.” 
Jesse Garcia, Suffolk County Republican chairman:&nbsp;“Today the liberal left has made it clear that they are desperate to manipulate this election by exploiting and weaponizing the criminal justice system to help their failed President Joe Biden …&nbsp;Democrats are going to immediately see that this courtroom charade will galvanize support at the polls this year.” 
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “No one is above the law. The verdict speaks for itself.” 
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R):&nbsp;“I think this is the biggest miscarriage of justice that I’ve witnessed in my life. As a lawyer I can’t see any basis for a conviction. I think that this was a conflicted judge with a biased district attorney … ” 
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): “No one should be above the law. Like every criminal defendant, Mr. Trump had the opportunity to mount a vigorous defense and to be judged by a jury of his peers. I respect the jury’s verdict.” 
Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-Island Park):&nbsp;“I have testified in court against countless convicts during my time as an NYPD Detective, and it is clear to me that Democrats are so afraid of engaging in a fair fight against President Trump that they continue to weaponize the justice system in an attempt to stop him.” 
Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman, of New York City: “Our tried and true democratic justice system is rooted in the Constitution and requires that an impartial jury of 12 citizens consider only the facts, evidence, and law in determining guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The same rules apply to Donald Trump. No one is above the law.” 
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville):&nbsp;“The best way to unwind Alvin Bragg’s political prosecution and [Thursday's] conviction is for Governor Hochul to immediately announce her intention to pardon President Trump and preemptively commute any sentence.&nbsp;To not do so is to allow America to become a banana republic.” 
Compiled by Tom Brune, Vera Chinese and&nbsp;Scott Eidler

USREAX240531

NY Congress members, party leaders react to Donald Trump's conviction

New York officials react to Trump conviction

usREAX240531_photos

Laura Figueroa Hernandez

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction on 34 felony charges Thursday&nbsp;likely will be a major issue on the presidential campaign trail, but the verdict likely will have little effect on his chances against Democratic President Joe Biden, political experts said. 
Of Trump, who pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business documents to conceal hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential election, an overwhelming number of voters said the outcome of the trial would not change their support or opposition to Trump. 
A Newsday/Siena College poll of Long Island voters found 69% of respondents said their opinion of Trump wouldn't be impacted even if he were found guilty. The poll, conducted May 13-15, had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.9 percentage points. 
“We have this unprecedented event, and the vast majority of voters are saying, 'Regardless of how it turns out, it's not gonna have any effect on me,' ” Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, told Newsday Thursday. 
Levy said while more than 60% of Long Island voters polled said they were paying attention to the trial, the fact that cameras were prohibited in Judge Juan M. Merchan’s lower Manhattan courtroom, likely worked to Trump’s benefit. 
“Had we had cameras in the courtroom, perhaps at least on some days, it would have been highly watched television, and very well had more of an effect,” Levy said. 
A Marist College/NPR/PBS NewsHour poll released Thursday found 67% of voters surveyed nationally said a guilty verdict would make no difference in how they vote. Only 17% said it would make them less likely to vote for Trump. The poll, conducted May 21-23, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. 
“Despite Biden’s campaign appearances and Trump’s court appearances, the contest for president has been and remains tight,” said Lee M. Miringoff, Director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “When it comes to this rematch, it’s as if voters are saying, 'Tell me something about Biden and Trump, I don’t already know.' ” 
Republican campaign strategist Michael Dawidziak, who advised the late Republican President George H.W. Bush’s campaign, said the trial is likely not hurting Trump’s poll numbers because most voters already were aware of the details of the hush money allegations, which first surfaced in news reports in 2018. 
“I think there are bigger issues for people — whether it's immigration, whether it's inflation, whether it's reproductive rights — there are bigger issues that people are going to use to make up their minds about whether they're going to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden,” Dawidziak told Newsday. 
If Biden is able to appeal to a portion of the 17%&nbsp;of voters who said the verdict would keep them from voting for Trump, it could help close the gap in critical swing states, said Lawrence Levy, executive director of Hofstra University's National Center for Suburban Studies. 
&quot;If only 5% shifted — especially in the big three swing states —&nbsp;it would be enormous and possibly&nbsp;decisive,&quot; Levy told Newsday of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. 
Republican campaign strategist Susan Del Percio said Thursday’s verdict could&nbsp;help Biden “peel away” Republicans who have soured on Trump, including those who voted for former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. 
But&nbsp;“as disturbing as the charges are, there was nothing new and there was nothing that was a game changer in the political race,” Del Percio, who is based in Manhattan, told Newsday. 
The Manhattan District Attorney’s case was the first of the four criminal cases against Trump to go to trial. The others involve his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,&nbsp;his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office&nbsp;and his alleged efforts in Georgia to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.

USELECTION240531

Experts: Donald Trump conviction likely to have little impact on presidential race

Trump conviction unlikely to impact presidential race

APTOPIX Trump Hush Money

Donald&nbsp;Trump became the first former American president convicted of criminal charges Thursday when a Manhattan jury found him guilty of fixing business records to conceal a sexual encounter with an adult film actress from the voting public ahead of the 2016 presidential election. 
The jury found Trump, the 45th president of the United States, guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in what prosecutors described as&nbsp;a scheme to subvert the will of the American people. 
After about 12 hours of deliberations, the jury foreman announced the verdict to a packed courtroom that included Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg and Trump’s middle son, Eric Trump, at around 5 p.m. in Manhattan Criminal Court. 
“Guilty,” the jury foreman repeated 34 times, in response to each count charged. 
Trump, seated at the defense table amid his army of lawyers, had no discernible reaction. 
“This was a disgrace,” Trump said to reporters outside the courtroom shortly after the verdict was rendered, adding that he is innocent. “This was a rigged trial.” 
Trump, 77, of Palm Beach, Florida, now both a&nbsp;felon and the Republican Party's presumptive nominee for president in November, faces up to 4 years in prison at sentencing. Trump, the first ex-president or president to go on trial on criminal charges, is expected to appeal. 
His lawyers left the downtown Manhattan courthouse without commenting. 
Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan set sentencing for July 11 — just days before Trump is expected to officially become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate at the GOP’s national convention in Milwaukee. 
After the historic verdict was rendered, Merchan thanked the jury for its service, noting jurors spent weeks away from their jobs and other responsibilities. 
“You engaged in a very stressful and difficult task,” Merchan told the jurors, whose identities have been kept secret from the public. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his hush money trial on Thursday.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/53f2b6d4-aec2-4ac1-b710-1febd60d7c95" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/53f2b6d4-aec2-4ac1-b710-1febd60d7c95', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/53f2b6d4-aec2-4ac1-b710-1febd60d7c95"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/53f2b6d4-aec2-4ac1-b710-1febd60d7c95/e5904c7208004790ace515f6d.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records at his hush money trial on Thursday. </a> 
Bragg, speaking at a news conference Thursday evening, praised the jury. The “12 everyday New Yorkers” convicted the former president “by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor,” said Bragg, who declined to say what sentence his office would seek for Trump. 
“I did my job,” said Bragg, who faced verbal attacks from Trump and his supporters. “Our job is to follow the facts in the law …&nbsp; and that's exactly what we did here, and I feel enormous gratitude to work alongside phenomenal public servants that do that each and every day.” 
Bragg added: “The only voice that matters is the voice of the jury.” 
The prosecution’s star witness — Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer, Lawrence native Michael Cohen,&nbsp;who took jurors inside what prosecutors said was a conspiracy to silence negative stories about Trump to better his chances at becoming president — spoke out on social media following the conviction. 
“Today is an important day for accountability and the rule of law,” Cohen wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “While it has been a difficult journey for me and my family, the truth always matters.” 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Michael Cohen leaves his Manhattan apartment building on May 20.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/862da4be-8169-4ba2-aca3-e224f029bf42" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/862da4be-8169-4ba2-aca3-e224f029bf42', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/862da4be-8169-4ba2-aca3-e224f029bf42"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/862da4be-8169-4ba2-aca3-e224f029bf42/8f39a46aeb4e472884c75876d.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Michael Cohen leaves his Manhattan apartment building on May 20. </a> 
The verdict followed a seven-week-long trial during which the jury heard from 22 witnesses, a mix of Trump loyalists and enemies&nbsp;who told a tawdry tale of sex and tabloid deception in what prosecutors said was a conspiracy that reached the White House. 
Trump, on a daily basis throughout the trial, railed against the prosecution and judge in social media posts and in comments to journalists, calling the case against him a “witch hunt” and the trial “rigged.” He chronically complained that the courtroom was freezing and that President Joe Biden, his expected opponent in the November election, was behind the prosecution that was unfairly keeping him in the&nbsp;courthouse and away from the campaign trail. 
The trial itself became a required stop for Trump loyalists in the GOP, with scores of Republican members of Congress and other elected officials in attendance. Three of Trump's four children made appearances at the trial, but his wife, former first lady Melania Trump, was notably absent. 
In another historic first, Trump was the first president to be held in criminal contempt of court when Merchan found he violated the gag order in the case, which prohibited Trump from publicly criticizing the jury and court staff. 
Trump, who had vowed to testify, did not take the witness stand. The defense called two witnesses, including Nassau County-based lawyer Robert Costello, who epically clashed with Merchan before the judge cleared the courtroom to admonish him and threatened to kick him off the witness stand. 
Manhattan prosecutors had argued that Trump, some two months after he announced his candidacy for president in June 2015 after descending a golden escalator inside his eponymous building on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, hatched a “criminal conspiracy” to win the election. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="David Pecker, former chairman and CEO of American Media, speaks at an event on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. " data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/939db7f5-c7b9-4b7b-becd-8c3459c88fae" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/939db7f5-c7b9-4b7b-becd-8c3459c88fae', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/939db7f5-c7b9-4b7b-becd-8c3459c88fae"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/939db7f5-c7b9-4b7b-becd-8c3459c88fae/6aab160e07f143f0ba629f4db.jpg?w=400&amp;q=0.3" />David Pecker, former chairman and CEO of American Media, speaks at an event on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York. </a> 
The “catch and kill” scheme dictated that Trump associate David Pecker, then the publisher of American Media Inc., the parent company of the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, would be the “eyes and ears” for any negative stories about Trump that anyone attempted to shop around to the tabloid press. 
Pecker, in direct testimony, told the jury the plan was that he would alert Cohen and they would work to quash it. 
That meeting was apparently key to Trump’s conviction, as the jury requested a readback of both Cohen and Pecker’s testimony about that very meeting on its first day of deliberations on Wednesday. 
And according to trial testimony, the trio executed the “catch and kill” plan three times, paying adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000; $150,000 to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged to have had an affair with Trump; and $30,000 to Dino Sajudin, a door attendant at Trump Tower who had shopped a false story that Trump fathered a child outside his marriage. 
Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, speaking to the jury during a nearly five-hour summation, likened the nondisclosure agreement signed by Daniels to an illegal campaign donation. 
“The purpose of this meeting was to fool the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion,” Steinglass said. “NDAs are indeed illegal when they serve an illegal purpose, like unreported campaign contributions.” 
But Trump's lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, argued that the notion that Trump, Cohen and Pecker cooked up a conspiracy to impact the presidential election during that meeting didn't align with trial testimony, which included Pecker testifying that The National Enquirer's parent company long had been in the practice of buying and burying stories for celebrities. 
“This is the same thing that AMI had been doing for decades,” Blanche told the jury during his nearly three-hour summation. “They had been doing it for President Trump since the '90s. They purchase stories all the time. They did it with Mark Wahlberg, Tiger Woods. … Many politicians work with the media to try to promote their image. It’s how you try to win elections.” 
Blanche echoed what he emphasized in his opening statement — impacting an election is part of the democratic process. “This is a campaign,” Blanche told the jury. “This is not a crime. Nothing criminal about it. It’s done all the time.” 
The payment to Daniels was initially made by Cohen, who was later reimbursed by Trump, according to Cohen and a series of checks signed by Trump in his distinctive black Sharpie signature, which prosecutors entered into evidence. 
The reimbursement to Cohen for the Daniels payment and how they were recorded in the business records of The Trump Organization, the ex-president's Manhattan-based real estate company, were at the heart of the criminal charges. Trump was&nbsp;not charged in connection with the payments to McDougal and Sajudin, but the judge permitted prosecutors to present evidence of those payments to the jury. 
Prosecutors alleged Trump falsified business records 34 times — in the form of invoices, ledgers and checks — in recording the payments to Cohen, which Trump's defense argued were payments for Cohen's work as Trump's personal attorney. Eleven of the counts related to what prosecutors said were phony invoices Cohen submitted for legal work, 11 counts&nbsp;related&nbsp;to checks written by Trump using his funds to reimburse Cohen for paying Daniels, and 12 counts related to ledger entries — accounting records made for reimbursements in Trump's books. 
The charges of falsifying business records are misdemeanors, but were upgraded to Class E felonies by prosecutors, who argued the crimes were committed to cover up the crime of conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Prosecutors have said the payment was illegally recorded in Trump Organization records as legal services as part of a retainer agreement, but neither the retainer nor the legal services existed. 
Trump was not required to have made the false entry himself, but to have “made and caused a false entry” with “the intent to defraud to commit another crime,” according to legal instructions the judge gave to the jury before deliberations began. 
The whole saga that put Trump on trial in a historic first is alleged to have begun with a man cheating on his wife. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Stormy Daniels leaves Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9 after testifying at former President Donald Trump's hush money trial.
" data-attr-credit="TNS" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/116e7261-4f6c-4513-99d5-283176aa9586" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/116e7261-4f6c-4513-99d5-283176aa9586', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/116e7261-4f6c-4513-99d5-283176aa9586"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/116e7261-4f6c-4513-99d5-283176aa9586/US-NEWS-NY-TRUMP-PROBE-TE.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Stormy Daniels leaves Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9 after testifying at former President Donald Trump's hush money trial. </a> 
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, testified in frank terms about her encounter with Trump in a hotel suite in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006. 
She first met Trump, then a reality TV personality, hours earlier at a celebrity golf tournament, she testified. The pair took a smiling photo, which was presented as evidence for the jury. 
Trump's then-bodyguard, Keith Schiller, who would go on to work at the White House in the Trump administration, asked if she'd meet Trump for dinner later that night, Daniels testified. She agreed. 
When she arrived at his suite, Trump was clad in silk pajamas, Daniels testified. She joked about his attire and he changed, she said. 
They chatted for hours about her career, reality TV and even his family. Trump told Daniels not to worry about his wife, who had just months earlier given birth to their son, Barron, saying the pair slept in separate beds, Daniels testified. 
Trump and Daniels never ate dinner. But when she emerged from the bathroom, where she had combed through his toiletry bag and found discount brands Old Spice and PertPlus shampoo, Trump was beckoning her to his bed, Daniels testified. 
They had brief, missionary-style sex, Daniels said, adding that Trump did not wear a condom — the kind of intimate details that Trump, or any defendant, could find uncomfortable listening to in a packed courtroom, much less being broadcast for all the world to hear. 
Trump and his lawyers denied he had sex with Daniels and pointed to a previously written statement she made denying the illicit liaison. 
Daniels, who was among the first prosecution witnesses to take the stand, could not be reached for comment Thursday. 
The hush money payment to Daniels was made in the homestretch of the 2016 election following the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, which featured Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. 
Former campaign and White House aide Hope Hicks, a somewhat reluctant prosecution witness, testified that the release of the recording by The Washington Post was a disaster for the Trump campaign. 
Prosecutors alleged the recording's release pressed the famously cheap Trump to sign off on the payment to Daniels&nbsp;in a desperate attempt to salvage his campaign. 
But Blanche painted his client as a victim of extortion by Daniels and her lawyer, Keith Davidson, who denied that assertion while testifying but said he had been investigated by federal authorities for alleged extortion and admitted brokering a series of payoffs to celebrity accusers. 
Cohen, the disbarred attorney who has served prison time after pleading guilty to federal crimes, including lying to Congress, served as the prosecution's star witness — and the defense's villain. 
Cohen was the only witness who testified that he discussed with Trump the hush money payment to Daniels, providing prosecutors with evidence that Trump acted with intent. 
And prosecutors played a voice recording of Trump discussing the payment to McDougal with Cohen, in which Trump is heard saying to pay in “cash.” Prosecutors, perhaps in an attempt to buffer concerns about Cohen's credibility, called a series of witnesses before Cohen in an attempt to pre-corroborate much of his testimony. 
“It’s patently obvious that the defense wants to make this case about Michael Cohen — it’s not,” Steinglass told the jury during his closing arguments. “This case is not about Michael Cohen;&nbsp;this case is about Donald Trump.” 
Blanche attempted to catch Cohen in lies, aggressively questioning Cohen about a 1-minute, 36-second phone conversation he had with Trump&nbsp;in which Cohen said he discussed Daniels' finalized nondisclosure agreement with Trump. 
Blanche posited that Trump and Cohen had only discussed a 14-year-old who had been prank-calling Cohen, based on text messages between Cohen and Schiller shortly before Cohen called Schiller's phone and he passed it to Trump. But Cohen asserted they had discussed both issues. 
During his closing arguments, Blanche accused Cohen of perjuring himself about that call and derided Cohen as “like the MVP of liars” and the “GLOAT, greatest liar of all times.” 
Steinglass urged the jury to concentrate on the documents at the heart of the case. “Michael Cohen provides context and color,” Steinglass said in his summation. “He’s like a tour guide through the physical evidence. These documents don’t lie. These documents tell you everything you need to know. You don’t need Michael Cohen to connect these dots.” 
Steinglass walked the jury back through the financial documents entered into evidence, displaying on an overhead projector trial exhibits, including a bank record on which former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg wrote by hand a breakdown of the $420,000 to be paid to Cohen. Steinglass described the notes written by Weisselberg and another Trump executive as “smoking guns” that corroborate what Cohen testified. 
“They blow out of the water the defense claim that the payments in 2017 were for services rendered,” said Steinglass, referring to the defense contention that Trump paid Cohen during that period to be his personal attorney. “They have to stare at these pieces of paper and tell you with a straight face these are not reimbursements.” 
Trump's payments to Cohen — $35,000 monthly — were not repayments&nbsp;for the hush money, Blanche argued, but were simply what the documents stated — legal services. Cohen was still acting as Trump's personal attorney at the time, Blanche argued, and it's preposterous to believe that Cohen would have worked for free, despite Cohen's testimony that he was making money from various entities at the time by trading on his connection to Trump, then the newly minted president. 
Trump was in the White House during this period and far removed from the running of his company, Blanche argued. 
“President Trump was busy running the country,” Blanche said. 
With this trial behind him, Trump now&nbsp;faces prosecutions of 88 criminal charges in three other jurisdictions. The charges include&nbsp;allegations that he attempted to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, incited a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and improperly stored classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. None are expected to happen before the election.

NYTRUMP240531

Former President Donald Trump found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in hush money trial

Donald Trump convicted on all counts in historic hush money trial

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NewsdayTV&#39;s Shari Einhorn reports on the historic verdict with other Newsday writers.

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Trump guilty of all counts in hush-money trial

long island

Guilty on 34 counts

Former President Donald Trump stands convicted of the 34 counts of falsifying business records. The&nbsp;Manhattan District Attorney’s Office now has several choices on what to do next in the case, former prosecutor Abe George and other experts say. 
<h2></h2> 
<h2>Bail</h2> 
Prosecutors have not asked for bail to be set on Trump before sentencing. 
<h2></h2> 
<h2>Presentence report</h2> 
After a conviction, the defendant will have an interview with the New York City Department of Probation. Usually, this is a chance for the court system to learn about the defendant’s life outside the scope of the crime. Probation will make a recommendation for sentencing based on that interview. 
<h2></h2> 
<h2>Appeal</h2> 
Defense lawyers will likely ask that Trump remain free while they work on their appeal. Again, there could be conditions placed on him if he remains free. 
<h2>Sentence</h2> 
The crime of falsifying business records, which becomes a Class E felony if done to cover up another crime, carries a punishment of 1 to 4 years in prison. 
Merchan can sentence him to the maximum or the minimum, probation, or anywhere in between. He will have to weigh a number of factors, some legal, and, in this case, some political, when deciding how to punish the former president. 
Additional factors for the judge to consider are that this is Trump’s first conviction, he’s 77, the former president of the United States and likely the Republican Party nominee for president in the November election. 
The judge would also look at the presentence report and the prosecutor's recommendations, which George believes is likely to be incarceration. 
“They could be sending a message to political candidates,” the former Manhattan prosecutor said. “Politicians should be held to a higher standard. I'm sure that's the argument that they're gonna make.” 
<h2>Election</h2> 
There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that bars Trump from running for office, if convicted, and if he wins, he could be serving his sentence in the White House. The only three restrictions for running or serving as president are the candidate’s age (35), native birth and residency in the United States for the last 14 years. A felony conviction, however, could inhibit his ability to vote. A convicted felon may not vote in New York State while serving a sentence. 
Compiled by Janon Fisher

NYRIVER240531

What's next in the case for Donald Trump?

Now convicted, what happens next to Donald Trump?

Key moments in Donald Trump's hush money criminal case

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Shares of Trump Media &amp; Technology Group, the owner of social networking site Truth Social, slumped before the opening bell Friday after former President Donald Trump was convicted in his hush money trial.
A New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
Shares fell 9% immediately Thursday in after-hours trading as news of the verdict emerged, and were down 5% early Friday. 
The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” has been extraordinarily volatile since its debut in late March, joining the group of meme stocks that are prone to ricochet from highs to lows as small-pocketed investors attempt to catch an upward momentum swing at the right time. 
The stock has tripled this year, in the process frequently making double-digit percentage moves either higher or lower on a single day. It peaked at nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. For context, the S&amp;P 500 is up almost 10% year to date.
Meme stocks, including AMC Entertainment, and GameStop fell as well early Friday, as did shares of social media companies, but the decline for Trump Media was at least double the decline for any stock in either sector before the opening bell. 
In a filing with the U.S. Securities &amp; Exchange Commission before going public, Trump Media warned investors of the potential pitfalls faced by the former president and the adverse affect it might have on the stock. “President Donald J. Trump is the subject of numerous legal proceedings, the scope and scale of which are unprecedented for a former President of the United States and current candidate for that office. An adverse outcome in one or more of the ongoing legal proceedings in which President Donald J. Trump is involved could negatively impact TMTG and its Truth Social platform.”
Earlier this month, Trump Media reported that it lost more than $300 million last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three-month period that ended March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC was an example of what’s known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes to getting their shares trading publicly, but with much less scrutiny. 
Trump Media &amp; Technology fired an auditor this month that federal regulators recently charged with “massive fraud.” The media company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3, delaying the filing of its quarterly earnings report.
Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors — one that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated by its board in March, just as it was rehiring BF Borgers.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.
The charge, a felony, arose from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.
Trump's defense contended that the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services.

Business

AP-US-Trump-Media-Shares, 3rd Ld-Writethru

Shares in Trump Media slump after former president convicted in hush money trial

DENVER — Donald Trump may be convicted of a felony and reside in Florida, a state notorious for restricting the voting rights of people with felony convictions. But he can still vote as long as he stays out of prison in New York state.
That’s because Florida defers to other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state felonies. In Trump’s case, New York law only removes the right to vote for people convicted of felonies when they’re incarcerated. Once they’re out of prison, their rights are automatically restored, even if they’re on parole, per a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic legislature.
“If a Floridian’s voting rights are restored in the state of conviction, they are restored under Florida law,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a post, noting that people without Trump’s legal resources are often confused by Florida’s complex rules.
So as long as Trump isn’t sent to prison, he can vote for himself in Florida in November’s election.
“His rights depend on his sentencing,” wrote Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who’s tracked his state’s felony disenfranchisement rules, on the social media site X, formerly Twitter. 
Trump was convicted Thursday of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
A lifelong New Yorker, Trump established residency in Florida in 2019, while he was in the White House. 
Even if he is elected president again, Trump will not be able to pardon himself of state charges in New York. The president's pardon power applies only to federal crimes. 
The conviction, and even imprisonment, would not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House. The Republican National Convention, which will open four days after his July 11 sentencing date in New York, adopted rules last year that didn't include any specific provisions if its presumptive nominee is convicted of a crime. 
Delegates could move to change their rules before formalizing Trump's nomination, but there's no evidence that a significant faction of the party would try to replace the former president on the GOP ticket. Trump commands loyalty across the GOP base, and the Republican National Committee is run by his loyalists, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.

AP-US-Trump-Hush-Money-Can-He-Vote, 3rd Ld-Writethru

Trump could still vote for himself after New York conviction if he's not in prison on Election Day

The Washington Post

For six weeks, 100 Centre St. - Manhattan’s criminal courthouse - has been the center of the country’s political and media maelstrom. But the storied downtown building has also been a workplace for 12 New Yorkers deciding the fate of former president Donald Trump. 
Having delivered their verdict, finding Trump guilty on 34 felony charges of falsifying records to conceal a sex scandal, the jurors will be loosed on Thursday to their homes in Harlem, Hell’s Kitchen and other locations around the city. After dispensing with a civic obligation at once routine and historic - in the first criminal trial of a former president - members of the panel now return to their day jobs in sales, finance, education and health care. 
The transition is likely to be a disorienting one, said Marc J. Whiten, a retired New York criminal court judge in Manhattan and the Bronx. 
“It’s a surreal experience under ordinary circumstances,” Whiten said. “Most days, you go to work and do your job, then you get home at night and go to bed. Suddenly, you have the power to decide whether someone’s freedom is taken away. Here that someone is a former president. That’s big. That’s surreal. And it’s difficult to put behind you.” 
The judge in the case, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, thanked jurors after polling each on the verdict. 
“You were engaged in a very stressful and difficult task,” he said. 
Throughout the six-week trial, the names of the jurors were known only to counsel for the opposing sides. Merchan shielded their identities from the media and the public owing to the “likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment.” 
Merchan also instructed reporters not to publicize the employers of prospective jurors during the selection process in April. During that process, known as voir dire, prospective jurors were quizzed on their political beliefs, hobbies and news habits, offering insight into the makeup of the panel that was eventually seated. The panel has seven men and five women. They are Black and White as well as Asian, ranging from young to middle age. 
They expressed mixed feelings about Trump, with some offering harsh judgments of his character but others saying they favored certain aspects of his presidency or approach to politics. All said they could be fair and judge Trump only on the evidence entered in court. 
During the trial, Merchan admonished jurors not to discuss the case or read about it as part of his routine guidance before dismissing them each day. 
After delivering the verdict, the jurors will be free to decide how much to say about their closed-door decision-making - and what it was like to sit in judgment of Trump, an opportunity available to most Americans only at the ballot box. 
After they rendered their verdict, Merchan told jurors they could decide whether to discuss the case and their role in it. 
“No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do,&quot; the judge said. “The choice is yours.” 
In past high-profile trials, individual jurors have often opted to pull back the curtain on the private discussions. 
The jury foreman in the 1970-1971 trial of the century’s most infamous murderer, Charles Manson, held a news conference within months of the guilty verdict to air his views on the case. Just days after O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murdering his former wife by a Los Angeles jury in 1995, a member of the panel went on ABC’s “Nightline” to reveal that only two of the jurors required persuading to find the former football player not guilty. 
In 2018, a month after a Pennsylvania jury found the comedian Bill Cosby guilty of aggravated indecent assault, the judge in the case revealed the names of the jurors who had reached that verdict. The judge, Steven T. O’Neill, pointed to a 2007 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision affirming that the media had a right to such information in that state. 
Already, one juror had spoken about the case on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” And there had been feverish attempts to interview other panel members, who had been sequestered in a hotel during the weeks-long trial. 
Dianne Scelza, one of the jurors, recalled receiving texts alerting her that TV cameras were sprouting in her neighborhood before she even returned home after the verdict was announced. She was offered money and given fruit baskets by people hoping to coax her to talk, she said. 
“I wanted to give it a lot of thought and reacclimate to being home again,” said Scelza, a health care consultant. She ultimately decided to speak to CBS, she said, to defend the jury’s decision-making and describe how meticulous the process had been. An appellate court later overturned the conviction. 
The jurors in the Trump case were not sequestered - now a rare step in New York’s judicial system. And unlike another recent Trump case, their identifies were anonymous only to the public. Their names were shared with the prosecutor and Trump’s lawyers. 
That differed from the circumstances of the civil defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll against Trump earlier this year in federal court in Manhattan, where the rules are more permissive of anonymous juries than in the state system. The judge in that case, Lewis A. Kaplan, kept juror names shielded from the public as well as from parties to the dispute. He told them not to disclose their names even to each other. 
At the trial’s close, the judge advised them, “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury.” 
Scelza, the juror in the Cosby trial, said her advice for jurors in the hush money trial would be different: “Lay low, give yourself time to readjust and then decide what you want to say, if anything.”

NYJURORS240531

Challenges await Trump jurors after 'surreal experience'

President Joe Biden&#39;s campaign, with actor Robert De Niro, showed&nbsp;up outside the Manhattan courtroom&nbsp;where closing arguments were&nbsp;held in&nbsp;Donald&nbsp;Trump&#39;s criminal case.

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Robert De Niro speaks to media outside Trump trial

Robert De Niro makes case for Biden outside Trump trial

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The jury that began deciding the fate of former President Donald Trump in his hush money trial worked for a few hours Wednesday before it went home without reaching a verdict after the first day of deliberations in the historic criminal case. 
State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan in Manhattan informed the court shortly after 3 p.m. that the jury sent a note asking to rehear the testimony of key witness David Pecker, former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid. Jurors also want to rehear the testimony of prosecution star witness&nbsp;Michael Cohen, former Trump attorney and fixer. 
The jury sent a second note at 3:51 p.m., asking Merchan to read them the jury instructions again. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of felony falsifying business records as part of what prosecutors alleged was a scheme to cover up the payment of hush money to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who testified — in sometimes graphic detail — that she had a sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006. 
Trump also has denied having sex with Daniels. 
Prosecutors have said the cover-up was part of a pattern of &quot;catch and kill” schemes, the heart of a “criminal conspiracy” between Trump, Cohen and Pecker, to buy negative stories about Trump and bury them as he campaigned against Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016. 
Merchan began Wednesday’s proceedings in Manhattan Criminal Court by instructing the jury on the law and then asked the panel of seven men and five women to step into the jury room to deliberate. The jury deliberated for some 4 &frac12; hours. 
The jury foreperson sent a note to the judge asking for four materials, including testimony from Cohen and Pecker about their meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2015, when prosecutors said the conspiracy to impact the election with the “catch and kill” scheme began. 
The note also asked for Pecker's testimony about his conversation with Trump while in an investor meeting and his testimony about not finalizing the deal with Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who is said to have had an affair with Trump, over her nondisclosure agreement. 
Merchan instructed the prosecution and defense to discuss and agree about which portions of the trial transcript will satisfy the jury's request. The requested testimony will be read back to the jury Thursday morning, the judge said, along with the rereading of the jury instructions, which will also happen Thursday. 
Trump, 77, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, was accompanied by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., in court Wednesday. 
Trump, in a yellow tie, criticized the case outside the courtroom after the jury was asked to begin deliberations at about 11:30 a.m. 
“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges,” said Trump, perhaps seeking to lower expectations. “The charges are rigged.” 
Outside the courthouse in lower Manhattan, there were about three dozen Trump supporters gathered at Collect Pond Park when jury deliberations began. Many were wearing red hats that said “Trump” or “Make America Great Again.” Some were carrying U.S. and Trump flags. They occasionally broke out into chants — “We love Trump! We love Trump!” — but mostly they milled around, chatting in disparate groups. 
There was a woman selling Trump key chains made from bottle caps for $3. There were also a handful of counterprotesters holding signs saying “Convict Trump Now.” The scene was peaceful and nonconfrontational. 
The first day of deliberations began after a marathon session of closing arguments that began Tuesday morning and didn’t end till just before 8 p.m. 
Trump was portrayed by his defense as the victim of Cohen, his lying former personal attorney turned star prosecution witness. 
The prosecution, however, depicted Trump as the lead perpetrator in subverting the will of the American public in the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records to cover up an illicit liaison with an adult-film star. 
“Michael Cohen, he’s the human embodiment of reasonable doubt. He lied to you,” Trump’s lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, told the jury during his summation. “He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true. … Michael Cohen is the GLOAT, greatest liar of all times.” 
Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass retorted: “We didn’t choose Michael Cohen. We didn’t pick him up at the witness store. The defendant chose Michael Cohen to be his fixer.” 
The charges of falsifying business records are misdemeanors, but were upgraded to felonies by prosecutors, who argued the crimes were committed in order to cover up another crime — conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Prosecutors have said the payments to Cohen, which were reimbursements for the $130,000 in hush money he paid to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election plus additional fees to cover taxes, were illegally recorded in Trump Organization records as legal services as part of a retainer agreement, but neither the retainer nor the legal services existed. 
In addition to dismissing Cohen as a serial liar and perjurer, Trump’s attorneys have argued that Trump paid Cohen $420,000, not to repay the Daniels’ payment, but for legal services rendered by Cohen who was in 2017 working as Trump’s personal attorney. Therefore the business records noting the payments were for legal services are entirely accurate — case closed — Trump’s defense has argued. 
“President Trump is innocent,” said Blanche, in a summation that began Tuesday morning and lasted nearly three hours. “He did not commit any crimes and the district attorney did not meet the burden of proof.” 
Blanche accused Cohen, who was the only witness to allege a direct link between Trump and the falsified business records, of lying while on the stand and cautioned the jury against convicting Trump based on the word of the now-disbarred attorney. 
Blanche accused Cohen of lying about several parts of his testimony, and questioned a voice recording that Cohen made of Trump, in which they allegedly discussed a hush money payment to McDougal. The $150,000 alleged hush money payment to McDougal and a $30,000 payment to a door attendant who peddled a false story that Trump fathered a child outside of his marriage are not part of the charges against Trump, but prosecutors were permitted to include the allegations as part of their case. 
Blanche cautioned jurors that they have “no idea about the integrity of this file” in which Trump is heard saying to pay “cash.” 
“There’s no way that you can believe that President Trump knew about this payment without believing the words of Michael Cohen,” said Blanche. “And you cannot, you cannot believe the words of Michael Cohen.” 
Steinglass, however, painted the recording as a watershed moment for the jury. 
“This recording is nothing short of jaw-dropping,” said Steinglass. “This recording shows the defendant’s cavalier effort to hide the payoff. This shows the defendant suggested paying in cash. It doesn’t even matter if he’s referring to a bag of cash in one lump sum. This tape shows a presidential candidate actively engaging in a scheme to pay off Karen McDougal.”

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Trump hush money trial: Jurors ask to hear testimony of 2 main witnesses

Trump jurors ask to hear testimony of 2 main witnesses

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The world awaits a decision from the jury on the fate of ex-President Trump in his criminal trial in New York. NewsdayTV&rsquo;s Steve Langford reports.&nbsp;

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Jury deliberates in Trump's historic hush money trial 

'Hopefully, justice is served'

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Janon Fisher and Nicole Fuller

Former President Donald Trump is either the victim of his lying former personal attorney turned star prosecution witness or the lead perpetrator in subverting the will of the American public in the 2016 presidential election by falsifying business records to cover up an illicit liaison with an adult film actress, the defense and prosecution argued to the jury in closing arguments Tuesday at Trump's hush money trial. 
The prosecution concluded its almost five-hour summations&nbsp;Tuesday night, while the competing narrative from the defense lasted almost three hours. The jury of five women and seven men, which appeared attentive throughout the lengthy summations, is expected to receive instructions on the law Wednesday morning, and then begin deliberations in the historic case — the first time a president or ex-president has faced trial on criminal charges. 
“Mr. Trump not only corrupted those around him, he got them to lie to cover it up,” Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said. “In this case, there’s literally a mountain of evidence that connects the defendant to this crime.” 
But Trump's lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who cross-examined the prosecution's star witness, Michael Cohen, a Lawrence native who was Trump's personal attorney and so-called “fixer,” argued his client holds no criminal liability. 
“President Trump is innocent,” Blanche said. “He did not commit any crimes and the district attorney did not meet the burden of proof.” 
Blanche accused Cohen, who was the only witness to allege a direct link between Trump and the falsified business records, of lying while on the stand and cautioned the jury against convicting Trump based on the word of the now-disbarred attorney. 
“Michael Cohen, he’s the human embodiment of reasonable doubt. He lied to you,” Blanche told the jury. “He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true. … Michael Cohen is the GLOAT, greatest liar of all times.” 
Steinglass, in a version of a retort routinely used by prosecutors when the defense tries to question the credibility of cooperating witnesses, said: “We didn’t choose Michael Cohen. We didn’t pick him up at the witness store. The defendant chose Michael Cohen to be his fixer.” 
In a highly-charged statement that later earned the stern rebuke of the presiding judge, Blanche told the jury: “You cannot, you cannot send someone to prison, you cannot convict someone based on the words of Michael Cohen.” 
Defense attorneys are prohibited from arguing against convicting their clients based on a penalty they could receive if found guilty, as jurors in New York State are instructed to only consider the evidence and whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty. Judges are tasked with imposing sentences. 
After Blanche concluded his summation and the jury was dismissed for lunch, Steinglass accused Blanche of misconduct, calling his statement “a blatant and wholly unlawful attempt to curry sympathy for their client.” 
Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan agreed with the prosecution's request for the judge to make a curative instruction to the jury. 
“I think saying that is outrageous,” Merchan said. &quot;...I can’t believe that was inadvertent.”&nbsp; 
Merchan later told the jury to disregard Blanche's statement and pointed out a prison sentence is not mandatory for the charges. Trump faces up to 4 years in prison if convicted, but could receive no jail time as a first-time offender in a nonviolent, white-collar case. 
“That comment is improper and you must disregard it. … If the verdict is guilty it is my responsibility to issue a sentence,” Merchan told the jury. “A prison sentence is not required.”&nbsp; 
For his part, Trump, 77, the GOP’s presumptive candidate for president in the November election, expressed his dissatisfaction with the prosecution's presentation in a post on his social media website Truth Social late Tuesday afternoon. 
“BORING!” Trump posted, followed by “FILIBUSTER!” 
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was in court as the closing arguments were delivered. Three of Trump's children were also in attendance — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump. Trump's wife, Melania Trump — who had only months before given birth to Trump's youngest son, Barron, now 18, at the time Stormy Daniels alleged she bedded Trump — was not. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of felony falsifying business records as part of what prosecutors alleged was a scheme to cover up&nbsp;the payment of hush money to&nbsp;Daniels, who testified — in sometimes graphic detail — that she had a sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. 
Prosecutors have said the cover-up&nbsp;was part of a pattern of ''catch and kill” schemes, the heart of a “criminal conspiracy” between Trump, Cohen and supermarket tabloid publisher David Pecker, to buy negative stories about Trump and bury them as he sought the presidency against Hillary Clinton. 
The charges of falsifying business records are misdemeanors, but were upgraded to felonies by prosecutors, who argued the crimes were committed in order to cover up another crime, which prosecutors said is conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Prosecutors have said the payment was illegally recorded in Trump Organization records as legal services as part of a retainer agreement, but neither the retainer nor the legal services existed. 
In his summation, Steinglass walked the jury back through the financial documents at the heart of the case, displaying on an overhead projector trial exhibits including a bank record on which former Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg wrote handwritten notes, including a breakdown of the $420,000 to be paid to Cohen. Steinglass called the notes written by Weisselberg and another Trump executive “smoking guns” that corroborate Cohen's testimony. 
“They blow out of the water the defense claim that the payments in 2017 were for services rendered,” said Steinglass, referring to the defense contention that Trump paid Cohen during that period to be his personal attorney. “They have to stare at these pieces of paper and tell you with a straight face these are not reimbursements.” 
Steinglass noted Trump signed the monthly checks to Cohen with his signature black Sharpie, which fell in line with how Trump conducted business, with a close eye on the bottom line, always vowing to sign checks to retain control of his money. 
“The plan was always to disguise the reimbursement as income and hide it as a retainer,” Steinglass said. “Approving this reimbursement scheme, this is causing false business records. That’s how the Trump Organization worked because that’s how the defendant wanted it to work.” 
Blanche emphasized the charges against Trump are based on documents — not a sexual liaison or the inner workings of the tabloid industry — which he argued shows Trump, then the leader of the free world, had no involvement in the company's record-keeping. 
“This case is about documents; it’s a paper case,” Blanche said. “This is not about an encounter with Stormy Daniels 18 years ago — an account that President Trump has denied.” 
Blanche seized on the testimony of Trump employees to disprove Trump directed the falsification of the records — vouchers, invoices and checks — with the intent to defraud, which jurors have to find in order to convict Trump. 
“Is the personal ledger accurate? Were those bookings entered with the intent to defraud?” Blanche asked the jury. “Our conclusion is absolutely not.” 
Blanche, who also displayed some of the documents in question for the jury as he spoke, reminded the jury of testimony from one Trump employee who said the vouchers were “auto-generated from the information in the invoices.” The word “retainer” was “generated by the software,” Blanche said. 
“The records were not false and the intent was not to defraud,” Blanche said.&nbsp; 
Trump's payments to Cohen — $35,000 monthly — were not repayment for the hush money, Blanche argued, but was simply what the documents stated — legal services. Cohen was still acting as Trump's personal attorney at the time.&nbsp; 
“The prosecution will say that you know that President Trump saw all of these invoices because she testified that she stapled the invoices to the checks” when she sent them to Washington, D.C.,” Blanche told the jury. “She told you about her general practice, but general practice is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. She never spoke to President Trump. She just did what she always does. She got an invoice from a lawyer and entered it in as a legal expense.” 
Blanche added: “It was consistent with what she understood was happening at that time which is that Michael Cohen was acting as President Trump’s personal attorney. That is not in dispute.”&nbsp; 
Trump was in the White House during this period and far removed from the running of his company, Blanche argued. 
“President Trump was busy running the country,” Blanche said. &quot;[White House aide] Ms. [Madeleine] Westerhout testified that sometimes President Trump looked at the checks, sometimes he didn’t. … You can’t convict President Trump because sometimes without anything specific at all to the charges in this case that he sometimes looked at invoices. That is a stretch. That is a stretch and that is reasonable doubt.” 
Steinglass, however, argued Trump never questioned the payments because he was in on the scheme. 
“Despite his frugality and his attention to detail, he didn’t ask any questions because he already knew the answers,” Steinglass said. “Don’t go for this bogus narrative that he was too busy. The defendant’s business philosophy is to be involved in every aspect of his business expenses down to the light bulbs.” 
But Blanche asked the jury to think about what made more sense — that Trump, as the prosecution alleges, reimbursed Cohen triple the $130,000 paid to Daniels, although Trump was described as penny-pinching by multiple witnesses? Or that the $420,000 that Trump paid Cohen, at a rate of $35,000 monthly, was Cohen's payment for working as Trump's personal attorney? 
“There’s a reason why in life, the simplest answer is the right one and the story that Michael Cohen told you on the witness stand is not true,” Blanche said. “The idea that President Trump would agree to pay Cohen $420,000 even though he only owed him $130,000 is absurd.” 
Steinglass, however, argued: “Is there anything you’ve learned from listening to this trial that would make you think he would pay twice the amount of the money he owed?” 
Blanche pointed out Trump repeatedly disclosed the payments to Cohen to various entities, including the Internal Revenue Service. “How is there an intent to defraud if he discloses it to the IRS, he tweets about it and he puts it on his financial disclosure form?” Blanche asked.&nbsp; 
Blanche also asked the jury to question why the prosecution did not call some potential witnesses to the stand, including former Trump CFO Weisselberg, ex-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard, former Trump bodyguard and White House aide Keith Schiller and the two eldest Trump sons. 
The Aug. 15, 2015, meeting at Trump Tower, Steinglass said, was the birth of the conspiracy between Trump, Cohen and Pecker, the then-publisher of American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump, which Steinglass said amounted to an unreported campaign donation. 
“This is not, as Mr. Blanche suggested, buy a story that you may or may not want to print it in the future,” Steinglass told the jury. “This agreement in Trump Tower is the exact opposite, it was the subversion of democracy. The value of this corrupt bargain forged in the meeting at Trump Tower, cannot be undervalued. It could well be what got Trump elected.” 
Steinglass, referencing the nondisclosure agreements or NDAs that were signed by Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, another woman who is said to have had an affair with Trump, said: “The purpose of this meeting was to fool the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion. NDAs are indeed illegal when they serve an illegal purpose, like unreported campaign contributions,” he said. 
But the notion Trump, Cohen and Pecker cooked up a conspiracy to impact the presidential election during that meeting doesn't align with trial testimony, that included Pecker testifying the National Enquirer's parent company had long been in the practice of buying and burying stories for celebrities. 
“This is the same thing that AMI had been doing for decades,” Blanche said. “They had been doing it for President Trump since the 90s. They purchase stories all the time. They did it with Mark Wahlberg, Tiger Woods. … Many politicians work with the media to try to promote their image. It’s how you try to win elections.”&nbsp; 
Echoing what he emphasized in his opening statement — that impacting an election is part of the democratic process — Blanche said: &quot;This is a campaign. This is not a crime. Nothing criminal about it. It’s done all the time.” 
Blanche accused Cohen of lying about several parts of his testimony and questioned a voice recording Cohen made of Trump, in which they allegedly discussed a hush money payment to McDougal. The $150,000 alleged hush money payment to McDougal and a $30,000 payment to a door attendant who peddled a false story that Trump fathered a child outside of his marriage are not part of the charges against Trump, but prosecutors were permitted to include the allegations as part of the&nbsp;case. 
Blanche cautioned jurors they have “no idea about the integrity of this file” in which Trump is heard saying to pay “cash.” 
“There’s no way that you can believe that President Trump knew about this payment without believing the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said. “And you cannot, you cannot believe the words of Michael Cohen.” 
Steinglass, however, painted the recording as a watershed moment for the jury. 
“This recording is nothing short of jaw dropping,” Steinglass said. “This recording shows the defendant’s cavalier effort to hide the payoff. This shows the defendant suggested paying in cash. It doesn’t even matter if he’s referring to a bag of cash in one lump sum. This tape shows a presidential candidate actively engaging in a scheme to pay off Karen McDougal.” 
Trump, who according to testimony was known to be frugal, was moved to payoff the women after the Washington Post reported on the existence of the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. 
“Hope Hicks told you that the news was so explosive that it eclipsed the news of a Category 4 hurricane bearing down on the coast,” Steinglass told the jury. “I guess it was a Category 5 hurricane.” 
Blanche, returning to a point he attempted to make during his cross-examination of Cohen, told the jury Cohen perjured himself when he testified that he discussed the hush money payment agreement on a 90-second phone call with Trump on Oct. 24, 2016, which was patched through by Schiller, then Trump's bodyguard. 
“It was a lie and he got caught red-handed,” Blanche said. “We all know that he called Mr. Schiller about a 14-year-old prank caller who had bothered him for a number of days.” 
With emphasis on each syllable, Blanche said: “That is perjury.” 
Steinglass said the deal to keep Daniels quiet was signed on Oct. 28 — 11 days before Election Day in 2016, a contest that Trump won. 
“Trump didn’t sign the documents himself, but that’s sort of the whole point, to keep him away from the documentation,” Steinglass said. “The same day the deal was signed, he calls Donald Trump to let him know the deal is done and to get credit for sidestepping this land mine. The objective is not protecting his family but securing the election.”&nbsp; 
Blanche, however, continued to attack Cohen, who testified he was convicted previously of lying to Congress. 
He’s repeatedly lied under oath,” Blanche said. “He’s lied to his family. He lied to his banker, he lied, if you believe what he says on the stand, he lied to the feds, he lied to every reporter he spoke to before the election. He’s like the MVP of liars. He’s also a thief. He stole tens of thousands of dollars on the way out the door of the Trump Organization. He lied to you.” 
Steinglass scoffed at the defense's attempt to make the case a referendum on Cohen. 
“It’s obvious that the defense wants to make this case about Michael Cohen — it’s not,” Steinglass said. “This case is not about Michael Cohen, this case is about Donald Trump.” 
&nbsp;And again, Steinglass instructed the jury to look to the documents to convict Trump. 
“Michael Cohen provides context and color. He’s like a tour guide through the physical evidence. These documents don’t lie. These documents tell you everything you need to know. You don’t need Michael Cohen to connect these dots.”&nbsp;

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Trump portrayed as both victim and lead perpetrator in closing arguments at hush money trial

Closing arguments wrap up at Trump's historic hush money trial

Closing arguments in&nbsp;Donald Trump's historic hush money trial are slated to begin Tuesday, the final chance prosecutors and the defense will have to present their opposing narratives to sway the jury tasked with deciding the former president's&nbsp;fate. 
Manhattan prosecutors, through some 20 witnesses called to testify against Trump over the last month, have tried to prove that Trump — the first president or ex-president to go on trial on criminal charges — is guilty of falsifying business records to conceal reimbursement payments he made to his personal attorney Michael Cohen, a Lawrence native. 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential candidate for 2024, had allegedly&nbsp;directed Cohen to pay $130,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels&nbsp;to keep their affair secret and therefore safeguard his chances at winning the 2016 presidential election, prosecutors have said. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Adult film actress Stormy Daniels testifies on the witness stand at Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/591a0f92-4b65-43c8-87ae-e11a0c40ecb9" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/591a0f92-4b65-43c8-87ae-e11a0c40ecb9', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/591a0f92-4b65-43c8-87ae-e11a0c40ecb9"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/591a0f92-4b65-43c8-87ae-e11a0c40ecb9/b6a8e114-9762-49d5-9de9-e6dc9d0d23a5.jpeg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Adult film actress Stormy Daniels testifies on the witness stand at Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on May 9. </a> 
Trump's lawyers have argued that prosecutors only have the word of Cohen — a convicted perjurer and admitted serial liar — on which to hang their case. Also, Trump's lawyers charge, the recording of the payments to Cohen as “legal services” was accurate. Pursuing Trump, they have argued, smacks of politics. And the prosecution's theory that Trump broke state election law? That's just how democracy works — candidates attempt to positively influence the electorate. Trump has also denied the affair. 
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records&nbsp;as&nbsp;part of what prosecutors argue was&nbsp;a ''catch and kill strategy&quot;&nbsp;to buy negative stories and bury them. Daniels testified as a prosecution witness, giving explicit&nbsp;details of the sexual encounter she allegedly had with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2006. 
The charges have been upgraded to felony-level crimes because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L.&nbsp;Bragg&nbsp;argued they were part of a conspiracy to cover up another crime — conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Two months after Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, according to testimony from David Pecker, the former chairman and publisher of American Media Inc. — the parent company of the National Enquirer — he was summoned by Cohen for a meeting at Trump Tower. 
“At that meeting Donald Trump and Cohen, they asked me what I can do and what my magazines can do to help the campaign,” Pecker testified. “I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents. I also said that 'I would be your eyes and ears.' I said that anything that I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself or if I hear anything about selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen.” 
That was the birth of what prosecutors alleged in their opening statement to the jury was a “criminal conspiracy” between the three men, in which Pecker and his top editor would alert Cohen to negative stories about Trump that were pitched to the supermarket tabloid by celebrity publicists and lawyers. 
In three instances, according to prosecutors, Trump paid to silence those making accusations against him, including Daniels. 
Trump, described as penny-pinching during the trial, was moved to open his wallet in order to save his prospects of winning the 2016 presidential election, according to prosecutors. 
It was in early October 2016 — about a month before Election Day — when The Washington Post published the “Access Hollywood” video of Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. 
“When you're a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on the recording, a transcript of which was provided to the jury. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan Criminal Court on May 20.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/05ab4e83-a02b-4f2d-a28c-65e4c5c8d434" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/05ab4e83-a02b-4f2d-a28c-65e4c5c8d434', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/05ab4e83-a02b-4f2d-a28c-65e4c5c8d434"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/05ab4e83-a02b-4f2d-a28c-65e4c5c8d434/0ce25963-8afe-4a6a-9f6c-ba7e0ea00895.jpeg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Michael Cohen leaves his apartment building on his way to Manhattan Criminal Court on May 20. </a> 
The release of the video was disastrous for the campaign, testified Hope Hicks, a former Trump campaign and White House aide, who also testified she didn't know Cohen to be charitable or selfless, but someone who “seeks” credit. 
“This is a disaster,” Trump said in an October 2016 phone call with Cohen, according to Trump's former fixer. “This is a total disaster. Women will hate me. Guys will think it's cool but women will hate me. This is a total disaster for the campaign.” 
Prosecutors also played for the jury a 2-minute, 31-second audio file of Cohen telling Trump about setting up a shell company to make the hush money payments. 
“I need to open up the company for the transfer of all that info for our friend David. I'm going to do that right away. I’ve spoken to [Trump's then-chief financial officer] Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen told Trump. 
“We'll pay cash,” the former president said on the recording. 
Over days of cross-examination, Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche sought to discredit the Manhattan district attorney’s star witness by painting him as a serial liar and perjurer. 
Cohen has served prison time after pleading guilty to various federal charges, including lying to Congress and a bank and engaging in campaign-finance violations related to the hush money scheme. 
Blanche also attempted to paint Cohen as a man out for revenge against Trump, who didn't give him a plum job in the White House. Cohen admitted regularly denouncing Trump on social media and making millions of dollars in proceeds from books he's written about Trump. 
Cohen also admitted, while under cross-examination, that he stole $30,000 from the Trump Organization when he was reimbursed $50,000 for payments to a computer services company called Red Finch. 
The defense called Robert Costello, a former federal prosecutor, as a witness for its brief case, to contradict some of Cohen's claims. But Costello, a&nbsp;Nassau resident,&nbsp;was almost removed from the witness stand after he muttered “ridiculous” and “jeez” in a show of apparent annoyance with Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan's rulings. 
Trump, despite saying multiple times he would testify, did not take the stand, as is his right as a criminal defendant.

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Jurors in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial to hear closing arguments Tuesday

Closing arguments in Trump's historic hush money trial set for today

After five weeks of testimony, 20 witnesses&nbsp;and more than 200 documents and photos entered into evidence, prosecutors rested their case this week&nbsp;against former President Donald Trump in his&nbsp;hush money criminal trial at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. 
Trump’s legal team took a shorter route to resting — calling only two witnesses and opting not to call Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, to testify. 
Jurors will reconvene Tuesday&nbsp;to hear&nbsp;closing arguments. The&nbsp;case centers on charges that Trump falsified business documents to cover up an alleged&nbsp;hush money payment his former personal attorney Michael Cohen made on his behalf to porn actor&nbsp;Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and denies&nbsp;allegations of an affair. 
Legal experts say&nbsp;Trump’s defense lawyers likely kept their witness list short by design, noting that the burden of proving Trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt lies with the prosecution. 
“A major question for any defense attorney is whether to put on a defense and, if so, how much of a defense to put on,”&nbsp;said Lance Fletcher, a Manhattan criminal defense attorney. 
“This is because the defendant is presumed innocent, and the prosecution must prove everything beyond a reasonable doubt,” Fletcher told Newsday. “If the defense attorney puts on a case, it might make it seem like the defense has something to prove, which it does not. It also might tend to shift the burden of proof in the juror’s mind.” 
Here are takeaways from the sixth week of Trump’s trial: 
<h2>Cohen admits stealing</h2> 
Trump’s lawyers continued their effort to undercut Cohen’s credibility, hammering at an admission that he stole&nbsp;$30,000 from The Trump Organization. 
Cohen testified he paid a tech firm, Red Finch, $20,000 to rig online polls in Trump’s favor before&nbsp;the 2016 presidential election. Cohen sought $50,000 in reimbursement from The Trump Organization — the amount initially promised to Red Finch — and Cohen pocketed the remaining $30,000. 
“You stole from the Trump Organization?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked. 
“Yes,” Cohen replied. 
The admission was not new — prosecutors had questioned Cohen about the reimbursement earlier in the trial — but at the time Cohen&nbsp;cast it as a move made in anger after his year-end bonus was&nbsp;cut from $150,000 to $50,000. 
“I just felt like it was almost like self-help. I wasn’t going to let him [Trump]&nbsp;have the benefit this way,” Cohen told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger. 
Fletcher, a former Manhattan prosecutor, said prosecutors long ago established for jurors that Cohen had character flaws, so hearing him confess to stealing from the company may not have been “too much of a shock”&nbsp;to the jury. 
“The jury was expecting Cohen to be a mess,” Fletcher said, noting that “much of Cohen‘s testimony was corroborated by other, seemingly more honest witnesses.” 
Randy Zelin, a criminal defense attorney and Cornell Law School professor, told Newsday the business theft aids Trump’s case&nbsp;by demonstrating Cohen had the capacity to go “rogue” and act without Trump’s knowledge. 
“It shows that Michael Cohen could get over on the former president, he could do things without the former president,” Zelin said. “And that's the entire defense in this case — which is that Michael Cohen went rogue”&nbsp;and paid Daniels “on his own, in an effort to curry favor with the former president.” 
<h2>No Trump testimony</h2> 
Trump’s legal team decided&nbsp;against putting the former president and GOP presidential candidate on the stand to testify in his defense. 
For weeks, Trump had told reporters he wanted to testify to clear his name, but legal experts said such a move would have opened him&nbsp;to intense cross examination by&nbsp;prosecutors. 
“For him to take the stand and risk a bad cross examination, it would have been the epitome of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” Zelin said. 
Trump testified in January in a&nbsp;personal defamation lawsuit brought against him by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll. During his three minutes of testimony, Trump violated the judge's rules about what he could say on&nbsp;the stand. The jury ruled for Carroll, ordering Trump to pay her $83 million in damages. He is appealing the ruling. 
<h2>Disorder in the court</h2> 
One of the most contentious exchanges in the trial came Monday&nbsp;when the defense called attorney Robert Costello as a witness. 
Costello, a Trump ally who also represented former Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, advised Cohen for a brief period after an&nbsp;FBI raid on his office and home in 2018. 
Costello testified that Cohen told him Trump had no role in the&nbsp;payment to Stormy Daniels.&nbsp;But Cohen had testified previously he had not been forthright with Costello out of concern Costello was reporting back to Giuliani and Trump. 
Costello’s conduct on the stand —&nbsp;continuing to speak after Judge Juan Merchan had sustained objections to his testimony — prompted Merchan to make the rare move of clearing the jury and reporters from the courtroom in order to scold&nbsp;Costello. 
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous,” Merchan said, according to a court transcript. “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.” 
Cohen’s personal attorney, Danya Perry, appearing on CNN, said Costello’s behavior buttressed Cohen’s testimony that he viewed Costello as untrustworthy. 
“I certainly thought it bolstered Michael’s testimony that he never trusted this guy, and I think the jury saw in full force why he didn’t,” Perry said. 
<h2>What’s next</h2> 
Closing arguments will begin Tuesday, giving prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers a final chance to make their case to jurors. 
Merchan could instruct jurors&nbsp;on the legal parameters of the case&nbsp;as early as Tuesday afternoon, before they begin deliberating. 
Zelin said it could help Trump’s defense that Merchan waited to schedule closing arguments after Memorial Day rather than continue with proceedings just before the holiday. 
“I have experienced times where jurors are deliberating and there is a holiday coming up — they don't want to come back after the holiday, and as a result, they will rush a decision,” Zelin said.

USTAKEAWAYS240526

Donald Trump hush money trial: Takeaways after week six

Trump criminal trial: Takeaways after week six

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Former President Donald Trump's defense team rested its case Tuesday without calling the current presidential candidate to the stand in his historic hush money trial in Manhattan, where jurors are expected to begin determining Trump's fate sometime next week. 
Trump, 77, said he was feeling “very good” as he spoke to reporters after the defense's last witness&nbsp;concluded his testimony Tuesday morning. Trump had previously said publicly that he wanted to testify in his own defense, a potentially perilous legal strategy that his attorneys eventually decided not to pursue. 
But Trump, the first president or&nbsp;ex-president to go on trial in a criminal case, has the sole discretion to determine whether or not to testify, like any other criminal defendant. The jury will later be directed to not make any inferences based on the lack of testimony from Trump, who is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a $130,000 hush money payment allegedly&nbsp;made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. 
Instead, the defense focused its case on attempting to discredit the prosecution's star witness, Michael Cohen, a Lawrence native, who previously worked as Trump's personal attorney and testified that he paid the $130,000 to Daniels just before the 2016 election&nbsp;to conceal a sexual encounter she had with Trump in order&nbsp;to protect his chances of winning the election. 
Cohen, 57, a convicted perjurer and disbarred lawyer, was reimbursed by Trump, whose business filings, according to prosecutors, falsely claimed that Cohen was being paid for legal fees pursuant to a retainer, which is the basis for the prosecution's case. 
It is unclear what impact the defense's witness, Nassau County-based criminal defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor Robert Costello, had on the jury after his dramatic standoff with the presiding judge; in a nearly unprecedented move, the judge ordered almost all spectators inside the courtroom — including journalists — to leave so he could admonish Costello for his antics on the witness stand. 
Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan cleared the courtroom Monday after Costello was heard muttering “ridiculous” and “jeez” in response to the judge's sustained objections and allegedly staring down the judge, who later warned Trump's legal counsel outside the presence of the jury that he would remove Costello from the witness stand and strike his testimony from the record if his conduct continued. 
Costello, who was on the stand for a little over an hour Tuesday, denied Cohen’s earlier testimony that he pressured the former fixer to hire him as a defense lawyer to act as a back channel to then-president Trump after the FBI raided his home and office. 
“Intimidate Michael Cohen? Ridiculous. No,” Costello said under cross-examination by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger. 
Costello, who has represented former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, finished testifying without incident Tuesday. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Emil Bove, left, and Susan Necheles, defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump, return to court for Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
" data-attr-credit="Getty Images" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/55cf357b-164c-43b8-a2ee-6935e2f9bf13" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/55cf357b-164c-43b8-a2ee-6935e2f9bf13', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/55cf357b-164c-43b8-a2ee-6935e2f9bf13"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/55cf357b-164c-43b8-a2ee-6935e2f9bf13/2153477400.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Emil Bove, left, and Susan Necheles, defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump, return to court for Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday. </a> 
Following the conclusion of Costello's testimony, Merchan told the jury it would hear closing arguments in the case next Tuesday. Depending on the length of the summations from the prosecution and defense, the jury could be given legal instructions by the judge as early as Tuesday afternoon. Jury deliberations would begin shortly thereafter. 
If convicted, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though he could receive a non-incarceratory sentence of probation given the fact that he is charged with nonviolent offenses and has not previously been convicted of a crime. Trump, however, has other legal problems to contend with. 
Including the hush money case, Trump is facing some 88 criminal charges in four states. Trump has been indicted in Georgia on election interference charges; in Washington, D.C., in connection with allegations he incited the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol; and in Florida, where he is charged with mishandling classified documents that prosecutors have said were found at his residence in Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House in 2021. 
Following the end of trial testimony in the New York case, during which the jury heard about the inner workings of the tabloid business&nbsp;as well as some colorful details about the alleged sexual encounter between Trump and Daniels, the judge and lawyers held a charge-conference Tuesday afternoon to debate the exact language of the legal instructions that will be delivered to the jury. The prosecution, which called more than 20 witnesses, rested its case Monday. 
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo cited the underlying crime that prosecutors alleged Trump violated — New York election law section 17-152, conspiracy to promote or prevent election. 
“The other crime here is the election law violation, when two or more people have conspired to promote an election by unlawful means,” Colangelo said. 
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche has argued there was insufficient evidence to support the charges because Cohen provided legitimate services, the relationship between Trump and Cohen was personal, and there was no conspiracy or underlying attempt to sway the election. 
For the first time Tuesday, Trump's eldest son, Donald&nbsp;Trump Jr., attended the trial. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up the reimbursements he paid to Cohen. 
The charges, which on their own are misdemeanors, have been upgraded to felony-level crimes because the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued they were part of a conspiracy to cover up another crime — conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Prosecutors argued in their opening statement that Trump, Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher&nbsp;David Pecker engaged in a criminal conspiracy to 'catch and kill' negative stories about Trump, including the Daniels allegations, and publish unflattering stories about Trump's political opponents.

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Defense rests in hush money trial of former President Donald Trump 

Defense rests without calling Trump to stand in hush money trial

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The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office rested its case on Monday against former President Donald Trump for allegedly falsifying business records in an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in an attempt to sway the 2016 presidential election. 
The most dramatic moment of the day, however, came when Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan dressed down defense witness Robert Costello, a high-profile Nassau County criminal lawyer, for making comments on the judge’s rulings. 
Trump’s legal defense team put Costello, who has represented Leona Helmsley, George Steinbrenner and Rudy Giuliani, on the witness stand to rebut testimony from the prosecution that he was part of the former president’s intimidation campaign. Prosecutors had submitted emails into evidence that they say showed Costello urging Michael Cohen, who testified he set up the hush money arrangement, not to cooperate with a federal investigation into campaign finance law violations related to the Daniels payment. 
During direct examination, Costello made his contempt for the judge clear when he muttered “ridiculous” after the judge sustained one objection and &quot;jeez&quot;&nbsp;after another. The Long Island lawyer also answered questions after the judge ordered him not to. 
Finally, Merchan, clearly annoyed&nbsp;with the witness, ordered the jury out of the room and said, “I wanted to discuss proper decorum in my courtroom. 
“If you don't like my ruling, you don't say 'Jeez,' you don't say 'Strike it,' because I'm the only one who can strike testimony in the court. If you don't like my ruling, you don't give me side-eye and you don't roll your eyes.” 
Costello, who seemed not to hear the judge though they were feet apart, finally turned to look at Merchan as he spoke. 
At that point, the judge exploded. 
“Are you staring me down right now?” Merchan said, raising his voice. 
The judge then ordered the courtroom cleared, though members of Trump’s entourage, including disgraced former New York City Correction Commissioner Bernie Kerik, actor and former Hell’s Angel leader Chuck Zito and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, were allowed to stay. 
After about five minutes, the media was allowed to return to the courtroom, and Costello continued his testimony without any gestures or asides. 
Transcripts released later showed the judge&nbsp;threatened to remove Costello&nbsp;from the courtroom. 
“Sir, your conduct is contemptuous, right now,” Merchan told Costello after he cleared the courtroom. “I'm putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous. If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.” 
Then, addressing defense lawyer Emil Bove, who was conducting the direct questioning, the judge said,&nbsp;“I will strike his entire testimony; do you understand me?” 
Bove said he understood. 
When Costello tried to speak, asking, “Can I say something, please?” Merchan replied, “No, no. This is not a conversation.”&nbsp; 
In his testimony, Costello, a former supervisor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, denied Cohen’s earlier testimony that Costello pressured the former fixer to hire him as a defense lawyer to act as a back channel to Trump, then president. 
Outside the courtroom, after testimony concluded for the day, Trump called the judge a “tyrant.” 
“The press, I imagine, is not happy they just got thrown out of a courthouse. Nobody's ever seen anything like it,” he said. “You saw what happened to a highly respected lawyer today, Bob Costello. Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that.” 
Earlier in the day, Cohen’s testimony capped weeks of the prosecution’s case in which prosecutors&nbsp;elicited testimony from National Enquirer publisher David Pecker,&nbsp;Daniels and Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who specialized in representing celebrities. 
The former president was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up reimbursements he paid to Cohen, a Lawrence native, who shelled out $130,000 to Daniels a month before the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about a tryst she had with the former president. 
The charges have been upgraded to felony-level crimes because the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office argued they were part of a conspiracy to cover up another crime — conspiracy to promote an election by unlawful means. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers filed their third motion on Monday to dismiss the case. 
Defense lawyer Todd Blanche argued that there was insufficient evidence to support the charges because Cohen provided legitimate services, the relationship between Trump and Cohen was personal and there was no conspiracy or underlying attempt to sway the election. 
“There’s no evidence that the business records were false,” Blanche said, adding, “The underlying predicate that makes this misdemeanor a felony — there’s simply no evidence of a conspiracy.” 
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo countered that the evidence was clear that the former president was part of the effort to hide his affair from the voting public ahead of the 2016 presidential election. 
“As a matter of law, it’s more than sufficiency that the defendant set in motion a series of events that led to the false business entries,” he said. 
Merchan said that he would rule on the defense motion on Tuesday. 
On Monday, Cohen’s fourth day of testimony, Blanche sought to further discredit the Manhattan district attorney’s star witness by painting him as a serial liar and perjurer. 
Additionally, Blanche got Cohen to admit that he stole $30,000 from the Trump Organization when he was reimbursed $50,000 for payments to a computer services company called Red Finch. 
What appeared to be a major blow to Cohen’s reputation was muted by the full explanation that Cohen gave for the payment. 
Trump had contracted with Red Finch to influence an online poll conducted by CNBC on the most famous business owners in the last century, according to Cohen. 
“At the beginning of the poll, he was polling at the bottom of the list and it upset him,” the former lawyer testified. “We reached out to Red Finch, who created an algorithm to make sure that Trump would rise through this poll. We discussed where he wanted to finish. He, of course, wanted to be Number&nbsp;1.” 
Ultimately, Cohen testified, Trump landed ninth in the polling and refused to pay the company. 
The trial will continue on Tuesday with Costello being cross-examined by prosecutors. Defense lawyers said they expect to rest their case on Tuesday as well. 
Closing arguments are not scheduled until after Memorial Day, meaning deliberations and the verdict will not come until next week.

NYTRUMP240521

Prosecution rests in former President Donald Trump's hush money case; defense calls witnesses

Nassau criminal lawyer is witness for Trump defense

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12 Jurors and one alternate were picked for Donald Trump&#39;s hush money trial.&nbsp;

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12 jurors picked for Trump's hush money trial 

Jurors picked for Trump's trial

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Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney and self-branded “fixer” for former President Donald Trump, consumed the entire fourth week of testimony in Trump’s hush-money trial, and is expected to return for more cross-examination on Monday, underscoring his significance as a witness. 
As a prosecution witness, Cohen has provided recordings of telephone calls and first-hand accounts of&nbsp;discussions with Trump relating to the alleged 2016 hush money deal at the center of the case. 
Trump’s legal defense team has portrayed Cohen as a witness with a history of lying under oath as they seek openings to attack the credibility of his assertions. 
“He’s a flawed individual;&nbsp;on the other hand, to get at the truth, and ‘Trumpworld’, you need to speak with some imperfect individuals,” Hofstra University Law School Professor James Sample told Newsday. 
Cohen, a Lawrence native&nbsp;who worked as Trump’s attorney for 10 years — with an office next to the&nbsp;former president at Trump Tower, testified that Trump was keenly aware of the $130,000 payment Cohen&nbsp;made to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence her from disclosing a tryst she said she had with Trump. Cohen asserted Trump was aware&nbsp;of the plan to repay Cohen the money&nbsp;he fronted Daniels&nbsp;by classifying the repayment as Trump Organization legal expenses. 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal the repayment to Cohen. 
Here are five takeaways from the fifth&nbsp;week of Trump’s trial: 
<h2>Making the campaign connection</h2> 
A key part of the prosecution’s case against Trump is convincing jurors that the hush money deal with&nbsp;Daniels was arranged to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election by suppressing potential negative coverage. 
Cohen repeatedly testified that the hush money deal was orchestrated out of concern for Trump’s standing in the 2016 race, and not concerns about how the allegations would impact Trump’s family, including wife Melania. 
“He wasn’t really thinking about Melania, he was thinking about the campaign,” Cohen told prosecutors on Monday. 
Cohen told prosecutors Trump was worried when the deal with Daniels seemed on the verge of collapsing. 
“He said to me, ‘This is really a disaster, women will hate me. Guys may think it’s cool, but this is going to be a disaster for the campaign,’ ” Cohen said. 
Cohen said he asked Trump about Melania’s response to the possibility of Daniels&nbsp;going public with her allegation, and Trump allegedly replied that he wasn’t worried: “How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long.” 
“He was not concerned. This was all about the campaign,” Cohen said. 
Sample said prosecutors needed Cohen’s testimony “because he’s the only individual in the entire narrative of their case who is present from start to finish.” 
<h2>Defense focuses on Cohen's past lies</h2> 
Trump’s legal team sought to portray Cohen as a revenge-seeking former aide, who was upset that Trump never offered him a White House job. 
Over the course of two&nbsp;days of cross-examination, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche&nbsp;questioned Cohen about the multiple previous instances that he lied under oath. 
Cohen admitted to lying under oath when he testified before a congressional panel in 2017 about his work on a purported Trump real estate deal in Russia. Cohen also acknowledged lying under oath when pleading guilty to federal tax fraud charges in 2018. 
Blanche also exposed other holes in Cohen’s record of public statements. 
Cohen in 2017 testified before Congress that he was not seeking a pardon from then-President Trump, but Blanche presented Cohen with copies of text messages he sent his former attorney, Robert Costello, where he appeared to be open to the possibility of a Trump pardon. 
“I reached out to my attorney to ask him whether or not this is legitimate,” Cohen said of news articles at the time that indicated others in Trump’s orbit were seeking pardons while he was in office. 
Cohen was represented at the time by Costello, who had ties to Trump, and also served as a personal attorney to former Trump attorney and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. 
Blanche also sought to discredit Cohen’s testimony from Tuesday, when he testified to prosecutors that he spoke to Trump about the&nbsp;hush money deal on Oct. 24, 2016, by calling Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller, who passed the phone to Trump. Blanche presented Cohen with text messages from that day, indicating Cohen had reached out to Schiller about harassing phone calls, prompting Schiller to direct Cohen to call him. 
Cohen said he addressed both the harassing calls and also briefly updated Trump that the hush money deal was complete in the 96-second call, but also noted he could not “recall telephone calls on a specific date going back to 2016.” 
<h2>Trump allies flock to court</h2> 
A parade of Trump political allies showed up at the lower Manhattan courthouse in the fifth week of the trial, providing the former president with surrogate voices who could rail against the trial. 
Those in attendance included Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who are reportedly on Trump’s shortlist for vice president. 
“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they are speaking very beautifully,” Trump said. “We have a lot of great people here to talk to you.” 
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) headlined a&nbsp;news conference ahead of the day’s proceedings on Tuesday, where he repeated some of Trump’s longstanding claims that the trial amounts to “election interference.” 
Other Republican lawmakers who appeared throughout the week included Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)&nbsp;and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). 
White-collar criminal defense attorney Sterling Marchand told Newsday it remains to be seen whether Trump’s entourage of political supporters will have any bearing on the jury, but their presence “is intended to convey the same message to the jury as it does to the public – that Trump has their support and the support of the Republican Party.” 
“In the jury’s case, [the lawmakers on hand] are serving as essentially silent character witnesses as a foil against another week of testimony on Trump’s personal conduct,” Marchand said. “Now whether that’s enough to rehabilitate Trump’s character and how the jury ends up weighing that against the factual evidence remains to be seen.” 
<h2>Long Island mentions</h2> 
Cohen’s testimony was peppered with some accounts of his ties to Long Island. 
Upon taking the stand, prosecutors asked Cohen to tell the jury about his upbringing. 
“I grew up in Lawrence, Long Island. It’s part of the Five Towns in Nassau County,” Cohen said, before noting his father was a Holocaust survivor&nbsp;who met his mother after moving from Canada to the United States. 
Cohen also noted that he first met tabloid executive David Pecker, the former head of the National Enquirer, at a function on Long Island. Pecker, the prosecution’s first witness, testified last month that he, Cohen and Trump met at Trump Tower in 2015 to devise a “catch and kill” scheme to suppress potential negative stories about Trump, including allegations by Playboy playmate Karen McDougal that she had an affair with Trump. Trump has denied her allegations. 
<h2>What’s Next</h2> 
The trial will resume on Monday after a shortened week. New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan scheduled a recess on Friday so Trump could attend his son Barron’s high school graduation. 
Trump’s defense is expected to resume its cross-examination of Cohen on Monday, and the prosecution will then have the opportunity to question Cohen once again. The prosecution is expected to rest its case in the coming week. Trump’s legal team is then permitted to call its own witnesses. Blanche indicated to Merchan that Trump’s team will likely call one expert witness, but they have not decided whether Trump will take the stand.

USTAKEAWAYS240519

Week 4 of Donald Trump trial: Michael Cohen confronted about past lies

Takeaways from Week 4 of Trump's criminal trial

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Michael Cohen, the former personal attorney for ex-President Donald Trump turned star witness against his ex-boss, admitted previously lying under oath and to a federal judge, under cross-examination Thursday at Trump's historic hush money trial in Manhattan. 
Cohen, 57, a Lawrence native, repeatedly admitted making false statements, concealing financial information from his wife and covertly recording conversations with various people, under questioning by Trump lead defense attorney Todd Blanche, who stressed to the jury Cohen's documented history of not telling the truth. 
But Cohen, a felon and disbarred attorney, maintained his composure under hours of sometimes meandering questioning from Blanche. The cross examination of Cohen, the prosecution's final witness, is expected to continue Monday. 
The former Trump &quot;fixer&quot; has pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump's real estate dealings in Russia prior to his presidency. Cohen also has testified that he lied to a federal judge in 2018 when he pleaded guilty to crimes including tax fraud. 
A cadre of congressional lawmakers made the trek to the downtown Manhattan courthouse Thursday to hear Cohen testify, including Reps. Matt Gaetz, of Florida, and Lauren Boebert, of Colorado — both fervent Trump supporters. 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, appeared to close his eyes during some of Cohen's testimony. Trump shook his fist in the air as he entered and exited the courtroom during breaks in testimony and lodged a series of complaints after testimony ended for the day, including that the courtroom was an “ice box” and “they're trying to rush to get it done before the election so that they can harm me.” 
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. 
Prosecutors have said Trump, 77, directed the hush money payment to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 presidential election to prevent the story of their liaison from going public — and hurting his chances at becoming president. 
The payment was made to Daniels, as well as a $150,000 payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump following the October 2016 release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording, prosecutors said. Trump is heard on the recording bragging about grabbing women by the genitals. A $30,000 payment was also made to a door attendant who falsely said Trump had fathered a child outside his marriage. 
Prosecutors say Trump, Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker formed a “criminal conspiracy” to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump as he ran for president, and to publish unfavorable pieces about his opponents, all in an effort to help his presidential campaign. 
Blanche, during Thursday's cross-examination, also accused Cohen of lying about a key phone conversation he testified to earlier in the trial. Cohen had testified for the government that he told Trump that the Daniels payment had been finalized during an Oct. 24, 2016, phone call he had with then-Trump bodyguard Keith Schiller, who had passed the phone to Trump. 
But Blanche presented Cohen with text messages he had exchanged with Schiller minutes before the 90-second call in which they discussed a 14-year-old who had allegedly been prank-calling Cohen, attempting to call into question whether he had actually spoken to Trump about the Daniels payment during the very brief phone call. 
“When you testified on Tuesday that was your specific recollection that you called Keith Schiller, who passed the phone to President Trump to talk about making the payment to Stormy Daniels — that wasn't true, was it?” an animated Blanche pressed Cohen. 
Cohen said that he talked to Schiller about harassing calls and Trump about Daniels. 
“Everything is taken care of,” Cohen said he told Trump. “It’s going to get resolved.” 
Blanche, feigning disbelief, told Cohen: “That was a lie. You talked to Keith Schiller about what you had been through.” 
Schiller, who was the director of Oval Office&nbsp;Operations during the Trump presidency, was not called by the prosecution. But prosecutors are expected to attempt to clarify the phone call during their redirect examination of Cohen. 
Blanche also attempted to show that Cohen's animus toward Trump — and testimony against him — stemmed from his anger that Trump had not given him a White House job. Cohen denied that and had testified on direct questioning that he only wanted to be considered, to feed his ego. 
“I wanted the hybrid position — where I had access to President Trump, but I did not work in the White House,” Cohen said Thursday. 
The trial was off Friday so Trump could attend his son's high school graduation. Testimony resumes Monday.

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Michael Cohen, star witness in Trump hush money trial, grilled on his record of lying

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Michael Cohen, ex-President Trump&#39;s former fixer, testifies over payments he allegedly made to Stormi Daniels to&nbsp;conceal an alleged 2006&nbsp;encounter between her and Trump.

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Michael Cohen's second day of testimony in Trump hush money trial

Trump trial: Michael Cohen takes the stand, Day 2

Ex-President Donald Trump's lead defense attorney attempted to paint star prosecution witness Michael Cohen as a vengeful liar who has used his prior business relationship with the 45th president to stay relevant and enrich himself during a biting but slow-moving cross-examination at Trump's hush money trial Tuesday. 
Cohen, a Lawrence native who prosecutors say helped broker his real estate tycoon boss' hush money payments to women to help ensure he would&nbsp;win the 2016 presidential election, admitted on the stand during cross-examination by lead Trump attorney Todd Blanche that he wanted to see Trump convicted, had called him a “boorish cartoon misogynist” and a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” and had made $3.2 million by writing books that trashed Trump. 
“He goes right into that little cage where he belongs, in a little cage like a [expletive] animal — did you say that on TikTok?” Blanche asked Cohen, who responded: “Yeah, that’s right.” 
Cohen, 57, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer and current anti-Trump provocateur, who prosecutors say paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money weeks before the 2016 presidential election, maintained a calm demeanor as Blanche attempted to draw the jury's attention to the witness' prior criminal convictions and negative statements about his client. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Lead Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche cross examines Michael Cohen in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/1665df14-f7e2-451e-bebc-3f0eb918b47b" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/1665df14-f7e2-451e-bebc-3f0eb918b47b', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/1665df14-f7e2-451e-bebc-3f0eb918b47b"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/1665df14-f7e2-451e-bebc-3f0eb918b47b/be24c2f27a0b479880910d3a7.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Lead Trump defense attorney Todd Blanche cross examines Michael Cohen in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday. </a> 
Trump, for his part, appeared attentive during the cross-examination of Cohen, sometimes writing notes to his team of lawyers as Blanche questioned his once-loyal soldier, whose testimony could determine whether Trump is the first ex-president in history to be convicted of a crime, or if he walks free. 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, is on trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 payment made to Daniels, who testified earlier last week that she had a sexual encounter with Trump and later signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibited her from speaking about it. 
Prosecutors have said Trump, 77, directed the hush money payment to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 presidential election in order to prevent the story of their liaison from going public — and hurting his chances at becoming president. 
The payment was made to Daniels, as well as a $150,000 payment to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said she had an affair with Trump following the October 2016 release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals. A $30,000 payment was also made to a door attendant who falsely said Trump had fathered a child outside his marriage. 
Prosecutors say Trump, Cohen and former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker formed a “criminal conspiracy” to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump as he ran for president, and to publish unfavorable pieces about his opponents, all in an effort to help his presidential campaign. 
Cohen will be the prosecution's final witness, a prosecutor told State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan during a side bar conference Tuesday. 
<h2>Admiring Trump</h2> 
During a several-hourslong cross-examination that is expected to continue for much of Thursday when Trump's trial resumes, Blanche tried to paint Cohen as being obsessed with Trump, who was then a reality show star with his hits “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice.” 
“I don’t know if I would use the word ‘obsessed,’” said Cohen. “I admired him tremendously.” 
Cohen admitting admiring Trump before he went to work for him, having read Trump's “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” twice and calling it “excellent” and a “masterpiece.” 
He confirmed he had called Trump “a man who cares deeply about this country” and “a man who tells it straight” but with language that Blanche was probably not keen to hear. 
“At that time I was knee-deep in the cult of Donald Trump, yes,” said Cohen. 
Cohen is the prosecution's star witness because of his direct line to Trump, including conversations in which the ex-president expressed knowledge of the hush money scheme — in a recorded conversation played for the jury, Trump directs Cohen to pay in cash — and Trump's $420,000 reimbursement of the payments to Cohen, he testified. 
Cohen testified earlier that Trump never denied bedding the women, but called them “beautiful” when he inquired about their allegations. Cohen testified that Trump directed him to “take care of it” when he was negotiating the payment with a lawyer for the women. 
Earlier Tuesday on direct examination by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Cohen recalled taking a trip to the White House soon after Trump was inaugurated as president in January 2017. 
“He asked me if I was OK, he asked me if I needed money,” said Cohen, who added that Trump told him: “Make sure that you deal with Allen. He said there would be a check for January and February.” 
Trump was referring to Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, the Manhattan-based real estate company where Cohen was employed before Trump became president, Cohen said. 
So, Cohen testified, on Feb. 14, 2017, he created an invoice requesting that Weisselberg “kindly remit payment for services rendered … pursuant to the retainer agreement.” 
Cohen admitted&nbsp;from the stand that there was no retainer agreement. 
“The reimbursement to me of the hush money fee as well as the redfinch and the bonus,” said Cohen. 
Hoffinger presented Cohen with each of the invoices he created and the check stubs resulting from the payments and Cohen said they were false, a key statement to the charges facing Trump. 
Hoffinger also talked Cohen through his myriad legal troubles, including pleading guilty to federal tax crimes, lying to Congress and being sentenced to 36 months in an upstate prison;&nbsp;topics Blanche is sure to emphasize when he resumes&nbsp;his cross-examination Thursday. 
The trial, which began on April 15,&nbsp;is off on Wednesdays. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Former President Donald Trump appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for his hush money trial on Tuesday.
" data-attr-credit="AP" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/104b37a4-a20c-4866-ab17-fd7c295ea0c5" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/104b37a4-a20c-4866-ab17-fd7c295ea0c5', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/104b37a4-a20c-4866-ab17-fd7c295ea0c5"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/104b37a4-a20c-4866-ab17-fd7c295ea0c5/332628c22a0a4a5d89a2e7fc4.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Former President Donald Trump appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for his hush money trial on Tuesday. </a> 
<h2>'Really sketchy and wrong'</h2> 
Cohen told the jury how in July 2018, the FBI raided his home and office, and he called Trump. 
“I received a phone call from President Donald Trump in response to a message I left for him,” said Cohen. “He said to me, ‘Don’t worry, I’m the president of the United States. There’s nothing here. Stay tough, you’re going to be OK.’” 
Why did he call the president? 
“I was scared and I wanted some reassurance that Mr. Trump had my back, especially since this dealt with issues that concerned him,” said Cohen. 
That was the last time he spoke&nbsp;to Trump, Cohen testified. 
Cohen testified that defense attorney Robert Costello, a close friend of former New York City mayor and Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani, gave him a high-pressure pitch to become his lawyer so he could maintain a back channel to Trump. 
“There was something really sketchy and wrong,” Cohen said about Costello, who he said came ready with a retainer agreement. “I told him that I was still speaking with other lawyers.” 
Cohen told the jury that he felt the president was communicating with him via Twitter when he posted messages days after the raid. 
“Most people will flip if the Government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media!” one&nbsp;post from 2018 read. 
“It let me know that I was still important to the team. To stay the course and the president still had my back,” Cohen said. 
But Cohen’s mistrust grew the harder Costello pushed. At one point, Giuliani suggested Cohen had already decided to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
“I was also concerned when he started talking about his incredibly close relationship with Rudy Giuliani. I felt that anything that I said would get back to Rudy Giuliani. And considering the proximity of Rudy Giuliani to the president that it would get back to him,” Cohen testified&nbsp; 
At that point, Cohen said he began to question his loyalty to the president. He also sat down with his family, who had confronted him over where his allegiance should be. 
“My wife, my family, my son, asked me: ‘Why are you holding onto this loyalty? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty,’” Cohen said on the witness stand. 
He said that he had made up his mind to break from the president. 
“I made a decision based on the conversation I had with my family that I would not lie on behalf of Mr. Trump anymore,” he said. 
A parade of Republican Congressmen and Vivek Ramaswamy made their loyalty to the former president known on Tuesday, by showing up to sit in on the testimony. 
Florida representatives Cory Mills and Byron Donalds sat through both the morning and afternoon testimony. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson heard testimony in the morning and held a press conference across the street from the courthouse, calling Cohen a man “clearly on a mission for personal revenge.” North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum sat in the front row next to Laura and Eric Trump.&nbsp;

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Long Island native Michael Cohen faces grilling by defense at former President Donald Trump's historic trial

Trump's former attorney faces biting questioning from ex-president's defense attorney at hush money trial

Michael Cohen&nbsp;testified about&nbsp;hatching&nbsp;what prosecutors said was a &ldquo;criminal conspiracy&rdquo; with Trump and the National Enquirer editor to kill stories that could damage Trump&#39;s prospects for winning the&nbsp;presidency.

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Michael Cohen testifies at Donald Trump's hush money trial 

LI native Michael Cohen testifies at Trump's hush money trial  

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Donald Trump worried about the damage to his election prospects when his then-personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen informed him that their plan to pay hush money to an adult film star to conceal a sexual encounter with the billionaire candidate was on the verge of collapse just weeks before the 2016 presidential election. 
“This is a disaster,” proclaimed Trump in an October 2016 phone call with Cohen, who took the stand Monday&nbsp;against his former boss at Trump's historic trial in Manhattan.&nbsp;“This is a total disaster. Women will hate me. Guys will think it’s cool but women will hate me. This is a total disaster for the campaign.” 
Cohen, a Long Island native and the star witness in Trump's hush money trial because of his integral role in executing the payments and his near singular existence in Trump's pre-presidency orbit, said the damning “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women had been recently released and Trump was “really angry” the sexual encounter between himself and actress Stormy Daniels could go public. 
“Just push it out past the election, because if I win, I’ll be president and it will no longer have any relevance and if I lose, I don’t care,” said Trump, according to Cohen, who for years was Trump's attorney. 
Cohen, 57, now a disbarred lawyer who grew up in Lawrence, appeared steady as he answered questions from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger. Cohen briefly rose from his seat when Hoffinger asked Cohen to identify the ex-president, who Cohen noted was wearing a blue and white necktie. 
Trump, 77, a former one-term president, closed his eyes at times as he listened to his once-loyal employee recount their private interactions from the witness stand. 
<a class="p-smartembed" data-attr-caption="Former President Donald Trump appears at his criminal trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday.
" data-attr-credit="POOL/AFP via Getty Images" data-attr-f="3x2" data-attr-has-caption="true" data-attr-has-credit="true" data-attr-q="0.3" data-attr-w="400" data-onecms-id="contentid/6f8cafa3-9ad0-4551-aff6-9a0a50a41ea9" data-onecms-type="image" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/6f8cafa3-9ad0-4551-aff6-9a0a50a41ea9', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/6f8cafa3-9ad0-4551-aff6-9a0a50a41ea9"><img src="/image-service/alias/contentid/6f8cafa3-9ad0-4551-aff6-9a0a50a41ea9/nyTRUMP240514_2.jpg?f=3x2&amp;w=400&amp;q=0.3" />Former President Donald Trump appears at his criminal trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday. </a> 
Cohen's account of Trump's focus on how the Daniels' allegations would affect the election, coupled with a surreptitiously recorded phone conversation that was played for the jury Monday in which Trump and Cohen discuss a hush money payment to another woman, could prove damning evidence for the prosecution. According to Cohen's testimony, Trump was aware of the payments and directed Cohen to make them for the express purpose of impacting the presidential election in his favor. 
The prosecutor played the 2 minute, 31 second voice recording, made on June 16, between Cohen and Trump during which they discussed paying off Playboy model Karen McDougal, another woman who claims to have had an affair with Trump. 
Trump is heard suggesting paying in “cash,” said Cohen, who said he recorded the call with his then-client without his knowledge to convince then-former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker that he would be reimbursed if he made the $150,000 payment to McDougal. 
“I wanted him to be loyal to Mr. Trump,&quot; Cohen explained to the jury. Paying in cash was not an option, Cohen said. 
“To pay in green would be one way to avoid any type of paper trail for this transaction, but that was not the best way to do it,” Cohen said. “I believed the proper way to do it was by check, to make it appear to be a proper transaction.” 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, is on trial facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 payment made to Daniels, who testified last&nbsp;week she had a sexual encounter with Trump and later signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibited her from speaking about it. 
Prosecutors have said Trump directed the hush money payment to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 presidential election&nbsp;to prevent the story of their liaison from going public — and hurting his chances at becoming president. 
&nbsp;Cohen's courtroom presence on Monday brought out some of Trump's political allies, including U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance, of Ohio, and Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama. Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis was also present. 
Trump's son Eric Trump was also in court, as well as some of his campaign and legal aides, including Boris Epshteyn, Jason Miller and lawyer Alina Habba, who unsuccessfully defended Trump in his civil fraud trial in which he was hit with a $455 million penalty.&nbsp; 
When Cohen first approached Trump about Daniels' story of a sexual encounter, which he had been alerted to by then-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard, Trump didn't deny it, Cohen testified. 
“He told me that he was playing golf with [former NFL player] 'Big' Ben Roethlisberger and they had met Stormy Daniels there,” Cohen said. “And he said women prefer Trump even over Big Ben. … He told me that she’s a beautiful woman.” 
Daniels testified&nbsp;last week she had unprotected sex with Trump in his Lake Tahoe, Nevada, hotel suite after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006 and later signed a nondisclosure agreement and was paid $130,000. 
One person who Trump was not concerned about if the Daniels' sexual encounter became public, according to Cohen, was Melania Trump — a direct contradiction of Trump's defense, which has argued Trump was only concerned with protecting his wife and children. 
“How’s things going to go upstairs?” Cohen said he asked Trump, referring to Trump's wife. 
“He said, 'Don’t worry. How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long.'” 
Cohen testified: “He was not concerned. This was all about the campaign.” 
Cohen detailed how for years before Trump announced his candidacy for president, he ran the legal operations at Trump's Manhattan-based real estate company with an iron fist, much to the satisfaction of Trump. Cohen described how he forced vendors to take an 80% loss when the penny-pinching Trump balked at paying his bills. Cohen also said he bullied journalists with threats to sue over unflattering stories. 
And later, as Trump in 2015 launched his presidential campaign, Cohen testified how he helped hatch what prosecutors said was a “criminal conspiracy” with Trump and the National Enquirer editor, eventually paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep women quiet. 
Cohen described how he began working for Trump. While living in Trump World Tower, Cohen said, he successfully settled co-op board issues and also assisted him with other legal matters. 
After sending Trump a $100,000 bill for legal work he did for Trump Entertainment Resorts, Trump asked to meet with him and asked if he wanted to come work for him, Cohen testified. 
“I was honored,” Cohen said. “I was taken by surprise. I agreed.” 
Cohen was not to ask about the $100,000 bill again. 
“He asked me if I wanted to get fired on the first day if I asked about the bill,” said Cohen, who said he was never paid. 
Cohen was named executive vice president and special counsel at the Trump Organization, the Manhattan-based real estate company, and paid a base salary of $375,000 annually, plus a bonus. Cohen said it amounted to $525,000 annually. 
His job responsibilities were “whatever he [Trump] wanted,” Cohen said. 
He frequently negotiated bills presented to the Trump Organization by various companies and vendors, he said. 
Cohen recalled Trump's now-failed Trump University being short on cash, with just $2 million in the bank, which exceeded the amount the company owed vendors. Cohen offered each of about 50 vendors to take about 20% of what they were owed. Two of the vendors were never paid, Cohen said. 
“They just went away,” he said. 
Trump was pleased with his work. 
“That's fantastic,” Trump told Cohen, adding that it made him feel valued. “I was on top of the world.” Cohen described his pit bull tactics in dealing with any entity that had angered Trump, acknowledging he sometimes threatened to sue various entities on Trump's behalf, including the press. 
“I would reach out to them and ask them to redact or take the offending part down or threaten that we would sue them,” Cohen said of his dealings with members of the news media. 
The two were close, speaking “multiple times a day, every day,” said Cohen, whose office, which formerly belonged to daughter Ivanka Trump, was right next to Trump's office. “I would call him 'Boss,' Mr. Trump,” said Cohen, who recalled the glory days of working for Trump. 
“It was fantastic,” Cohen said. “Working for him, especially during those 10 years was an amazing experience. There were great times, there were not so great times, but for the most part, I enjoyed the responsibility that was given to me. I enjoyed working with other executives. I enjoyed working with the Trump children.” 
Asked about Pecker, Cohen said: “We had mutual friends and we met at a function in Long Island many, many years ago.” 
At an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower after Trump announced his presidential candidacy, Cohen said the three discussed the “catch and kill” scheme. 
“What was discussed was the power of the National Enquirer being located at the cash register of so many supermarkets and bodegas,” Cohen said. “If we could place positive stories about Mr. Trump, that would be beneficial. And if we could place negative stories, that would be beneficial.” 
Cohen, who said he communicated with Pecker on an encrypted application, added: “Pecker said he would let us know in advance what was coming out and if he could stop it.” 
Cohen noted Trump never used email. 
“He knows too many people who have gone down as a result of email,” said Cohen, adding the prosecutors can get access to emails. 
Cohen corroborated earlier testimony about his dealings with Pecker and&nbsp;Howard, whom he conversed with as part of the “catch and kill” schemes to silence Daniels and McDougal, as well as a door attendant who falsely said Trump had fathered a child outside of his marriage. 
“I went to him immediately to advise him that there was a negative story about him and get his direction of what he wanted me to do,” Cohen said, referring to the door attendant story. 
“Make sure the story doesn’t get out,” Cohen said Trump told him. “You handle it.” 
Cohen worked with Pecker and Howard to squash the story and ultimately obtained the lifetime rights to the story, in exchange for $30,000, which was paid to the door attendant, Cohen said. 
In what he said was an attempt to “get credit for accomplishing the task,” Cohen showed the signed agreement to Trump, he said. 
Trump responded, according to Cohen: “That's great. That's great.” 
Cohen said sometime later he got a call from Pecker and Howard alerting him to McDougal's allegations. 
“She’s a Playboy playmate and there’s a story that’s looking to be sold to news outlets about a relationship that she had with Mr. Trump,” Cohen said, recounting the conversation. 
Cohen, who said those allegations would have “significantly” impacted Trump's presidential campaign, said he summoned Trump, asking him if he knew McDougal. 
“His response was, ‘She’s really beautiful,' “ Cohen said. “I said. OK, but there’s a story that’s being shopped.” 
Trump replied: “Make sure that it doesn’t get released. We need to acquire the story.” 
The prosecutor presented Cohen with a series of text messages in which he communicated with Pecker and Howard. 
About a week later, Trump spoke to Pecker by phone, a conversation Cohen said he was present for. 
Pecker told Trump that he would “take care of this,” but it would cost $150,000. 
“To which Mr. Trump responded, 'No problem. I’ll take care of it,'” Cohen said. 
&nbsp;Cohen, confirming what Pecker testified to earlier in the trial, said they were concerned McDougal was going to tell her story publicly to ABC News. 
“We were worried about the impact on the campaign,” Cohen said. “We were concerned that this story was going to find its way to ABC.” 
Ultimately, McDougal inked the deal with the National Enquirer. 
“It was locked down,” Cohen said. “We prevented it from being on ABC and that effectively the story was caught.”&nbsp; 
After the McDougal deal was finalized Trump said, according to Cohen: “Fantastic. Great job.” 
Cohen, who acknowledged his title of Trump fixer is “fair,” said Trump talked to him about running for president as early as 2011. 
&nbsp;“I wasn’t going to be part of it, I was just going to be a surrogate, someone who defends him in the press, an outside person to give the impression that it's unbiased,” Cohen said of the campaign. 
When asked if he was considered for various White House jobs, Cohen replied: “I would have liked to have been considered, again, It was solely for my ego.” 
Cohen said he provided advice as well, reaching out to Black evangelical Christians when he noticed Trump's support was overwhelmingly white. “While watching the rallies, I went to Mr. Trump and said, 'One thing that I notice is that it’s very white. We’re going to need diversity. If we’re going to win, we’re going to need diversity.' “&nbsp; 
According to Cohen, Trump told him that once he announced his candidacy for president, it would open the floodgates for women claiming to have had affairs with Trump. 
“You know that when this comes out, the announcement, just be prepared because there are going to be a lot of women coming forward,” Trump said, according to Cohen.

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Long Island native Michael Cohen testifies of orchestrating hush money payments with Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election

Trump's ex-lawyer testifies of orchestrating hush money payments ahead of 2016 presidential election

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After weeks of hearing about behind-the-scenes efforts by allies of former President Donald Trump&nbsp;to negotiate hush money deals on his behalf, jurors in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial last week heard directly from Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress&nbsp;at the heart of the 2016 election-year deal. 
Over the course of two days, Daniels recalled a one-night tryst she said she had with Trump in 2006. She provided details that prosecutors argued were necessary to establish the credibility of her assertions&nbsp;but that&nbsp;Trump’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully were so graphic that a mistrial should be declared. 
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, denies the affair and has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents. Prosecutors say&nbsp;Trump concealed payments from the Trump Organization to his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, that ultimately were used to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence ahead of the 2016 election. 
“This is a disgraceful trial,” Trump told reporters before entering Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom on Friday. 
Prosecutors on Friday indicated they likely could rest their case by the end this&nbsp;week. 
Here are five takeaways from the third week of testimony: 
<h2>Daniels&nbsp;on the witness stand</h2> 
Daniels’ testimony — including assertions&nbsp;that Trump did not use a condom during their alleged affair — prompted Trump to curse audibly in the courtroom on Tuesday. 
How Daniels’ testimony will play with jurors remains to be seen. 
Mitchell Epner, a white-collar criminal defense attorney&nbsp;and former federal prosecutor who handled&nbsp;sex crimes cases, said the challenge for prosecutors in bringing in Daniels as a witness is that jurors tend to view sex industry workers as untrustworthy. 
But Trump lawyer Susan Necheles’ heated cross-examination of Daniels&nbsp;may have worked against Trump&nbsp;and provided the prosecution some points&nbsp;by humanizing Daniels, Epner told Newsday. Necheles questioned why Daniels&nbsp;as a porn actress would have been so upset by the alleged sight of Trump in his underwear. Daniels said she was not anticipating Trump would be in his underwear when she returned from a brief bathroom break. 
“By cross-examining her for a day, so that she spends more than seven hours on the witness stand, the jurors actually are likely to have gotten an impression of who Stormy Daniels is as a human being beyond the label of pornography actress,” Epner said. “Humanizing Stormy Daniels makes it more difficult to ask the jurors to just dismiss her testimony because she is a sex worker.” 
Randy Zelin, a Cornell Law School professor and longtime criminal defense attorney, said he believed Daniels’ testimony would ultimately hurt prosecutors&nbsp;because her account about the night in question with Trump&nbsp;strayed far from a case about falsified business documents. 
Zelin told Newsday: “If I'm sitting there in the jury box, I'm saying to myself, ‘Well, [the prosecution] is supposed to come here and show me where the false entries were being made in his books and records … that those false entries were made to influence the election. That's it. I don't need to know anything about … whether the president had his underwear on or off.' ” 
<h2>Mistrial motions denied</h2> 
Trump’s legal team tried twice to get the case dismissed last week by filing motions for a mistrial, but Merchan&nbsp;denied both requests. 
On both occasions, Trump’s team argued that the explicit nature of Daniels’ testimony was unfair to Trump. But&nbsp;prosecutors argued that their initial line of questioning about her alleged tryst with Trump was needed to establish the credibility of her account. 
Trump attorney Todd Blanche on Thursday told Merchan: “This is not a case about sex. This is extremely prejudicial testimony.” 
Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that Trump’s defense team was “trying to have their cake and eat it, too,” by attacking Daniels&nbsp;during opening statements and seeking a mistrial after she delivered her account. 
Zelin&nbsp;said Trump’s team likely is filing mistrial motions to establish a record of all their objections should they eventually need to appeal if he is convicted. 
“They can ask for a mistrial 200 times if they deem it necessary,” Zelin said. “You must make that record if you have to ever argue to an appellate court that the conviction was wrong.” 
<h2>New York-to-D.C.&nbsp;checks pipeline</h2> 
While Daniels’ testimony took up the bulk of last week’s proceedings, prosecutors also called lesser-known witnesses who worked for Trump. Prosecutors were trying to establish how even as president he continued to sign off on Trump Organization checks and expenses. 
Trump’s attorneys have argued he was so consumed by his job as president&nbsp;that he paid little attention to Cohen&nbsp;and the hush money payments Cohen facilitated to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Prosecutors said Trump was completely aware of&nbsp;the checks and documents he signed. 
Trump’s former White House aide, Madeleine Westerhout, recounted that FedEx envelopes containing&nbsp;checks were mailed from New York to the home address of Trump’s bodyguard in Washington, D.C., who then would deliver the checks to Westerhout to give to Trump to sign at the White House. 
“I don’t recall how frequently, but it was consistent. Maybe twice a month,” Westerhout&nbsp;told prosecutors. 
Westerhout testified&nbsp;that Trump was “attentive” when it came to signing the checks before him, and he often called the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, if he had questions. 
Trump attorney Necheles pushed back on Friday,&nbsp;asking Westerhout if Trump was sometimes distracted and on the phone when signing checks. 
“He was a person who multitasked, right?” Necheles asked. “Yes,” Westerhout replied. 
<h2>Trump’s books cited as evidence</h2> 
Prosecutors turned to the series of books Trump published about his life and business dealings before he became president&nbsp;to establish that he was deeply involved and aware of all the transactions involving the Trump Organization. 
“I always sign my checks, so I know where my money is going,” Trump wrote in “Think Like a Billionaire.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;In the same spirit, I try always to read my bills.” 
Blanche&nbsp;noted that Trump worked with a ghostwriter on most of his books&nbsp;and suggested material for the excerpts in question did not always come directly from Trump. 
<h2>Next week: Cohen testifies</h2> 
Cohen is expected to take the stand on Monday as the final&nbsp;key witness for the prosecution. 
Throughout the trial, Trump’s lawyers have sought to portray Cohen as a flawed witness, a one-time&nbsp;member of Trump’s inner circle who later turned against the former president when he was not offered a White House job. Prosecutors&nbsp;in opening arguments&nbsp;acknowledged Cohen's&nbsp;past&nbsp;but urged jurors to “keep an open mind” and consider “all the evidence” corroborating&nbsp;his testimony. 
On Friday, Merchan urged prosecutors to tell Cohen not to weigh in on the trial or Trump, as he has done recently on social media.

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Week 4 of Donald Trump's trial: Stormy Daniels takes the witness stand

Week 4 of the Trump trial: Stormy Daniels on the witness stand

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NEW YORK — Donald Trump isn’t known for letting slights pass.
Yet for weeks, the famously combative presumptive Republican nominee has sat silently — to the point of sometimes seeming asleep — in a sterile Manhattan courtroom amid a barrage of accusations and insults. 
There were the times his former fixer-turned-chief prosecution witness was quoted calling him a “boorish cartoon misogynist&quot; and a “Cheeto-dusted” villain who belonged in a “cage, like an animal.” There were the graphic details relayed by a porn actor about the night she claims they had sex. And there were lengthy descriptions of what the prosecution argues was an illegal scheme to conceal hush money payments to salvage his then-flailing 2016 campaign.
Through it all, even as he and his allies attacked the case outside the courtroom, Trump has spent the majority of his time as a criminal defendant sitting nearly motionless for hours, leaning back in his burgundy leather chair with his eyes closed. He ultimately chose not to testify in a case that made him the first former president in the nation’s history to stand trial on criminal charges.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Tuesday, after which a jury will decide whether to make him the first former president and major party nominee convicted of felony charges. 
Trump’s demeanor inside the courtroom has been a notable departure from the fight-at-all-costs persona that has defined him through decades of public life, fueling his transformation from a New York tabloid fixture to a onetime – and possible future – president.
And it has been at least partially strategic, according to people familiar with Trump's approach who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case. Trump’s attorneys have warned him that behaving as he did in his previous trials — where he tangled with judges and stormed out — could damage his standing with a jury that is likely watching his every move and will determine his fate.
Acting out, he appears to have concluded, is not in his best interest, particularly as he faces the risk of imprisonment if he's convicted.
Trump has also been able to speak several times a day to a gaggle of media camped outside the courtroom, giving him an outlet to vent his frustrations and get his message out. Facing a gag order that prohibits him from criticizing witnesses, his campaign has assembled a host of supporters — from vice presidential contenders to the House speaker — to deliver those attacks instead.
But the approach comes with its own risks. Some former prosecutors and attorneys who have been closely following the case said that while disruptive behavior could prove detrimental to the jury, there’s also a risk of Trump appearing too disengaged.
“What you want is for your client to look attentive, respectful and look like nothing is bothering him — but also not falling asleep,” said Randall D. Eliason, a former assistant U.S. attorney who for years specialized in white-collar crime.
EYES WIDE SHUT
Trump has repeatedly denied reports from journalists watching him via closed-circuit television that he is sleeping in court, insisting on his social media site that he simply closes “my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”
“No, I don’t fall asleep,” he told Telemundo Miami. “I sometimes will sit back, close my eyes. I hear everything perfectly. At some point I may fall asleep. But I will let you know when that is.”
Eliason said Trump’s demeanor was “definitely” something jurors would notice and could potentially perceive as disrespectful if they feel ”he's acting like it’s not even worth his attention&quot; or think he's taking a nap.
“If it’s a tactic to try to make it look like he’s not concerned about the testimony, I don’t think that would play well,” he said. “I guess if he’s really just sort of listening with eyes closed, meditating or whatever, that doesn’t seem so bad. But I think falling asleep, the jury would find quite disrespectful.&quot;
On the other hand, he added, “You don’t want him to get really agitated&quot; as he did during previous trials.
Actually, sleeping in court would be highly unusual for a defendant.
“I have witnessed lawyers fall asleep, but never a defendant in a criminal case. Their lives are at stake and they don’t sleep in my experience,” said Stephen A. Saltzburg, a professor at the George Washington University Law School who has been writing about the case. 
“It’s possible it’s all an act to show: ‘Hey, this is bogus, I’m not going to pay attention to it,’” he added, but that would also be unhelpful. “Since the jury has to pay attention, that doesn’t send a message that you respect this whole jury process.”
‘YOUR CLIENT IS UPSET’
Trump hasn't been entirely sedated. During jury selection, he appeared alert and engaged, and was at one point reprimanded by the judge for his visible reactions to one juror's answers.
“(W)hile the juror was at the podium maybe 12 feet from your client, your client was audibly uttering something ... he was audibly gesturing,” Judge Juan Merchan warned one of his lawyers in April.
“I won’t tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom,&quot; he went on. &quot;I want to make that crystal clear.”
Later, when Stormy Daniels was on the stand, Trump’s reaction to her testimony once again prompted Merchan to summon his lawyers to the bench.
“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” Merchan said, according to the transcript.
But as the trial dragged on, and particularly during his ex-attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony, Trump most often sat in repose, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes closed, his lips pursed and his head tilted back or to the side. He shifted from time to time — sometimes to scratch an itch. Sometimes he appeared to doze off, his mouth falling agape as he sat for hours in the fluorescent-lit courtroom.
Other times, he re-engaged, sitting upright, chatting with his lawyers or scribbling and passing notes. He often leafed through stacks of papers, looked around the courtroom or sat upright, with his arms folded across his chest. He appeared especially alert and engaged during defense witness Robert Costello’s combative testimony, during which the judge threatened to remove Costello from the stand.
But afterward, he returned to the eyes-closed, head-back position that became his default.
PAST OUTBURSTS
It's been a marked contrast from his demeanor at his earlier civil trials, when Trump stormed out of the courtroom, actively sparred with judges and made no effort to shield his disdain.
During his business fraud civil trial, during which Cohen also testified, Trump blasted a court clerk from the stand, lashed out at the judge and, at one point, marched out of the courtroom. The judge in that case issued Trump a $355 million penalty. 
And in his E. Jean Carroll defamation case, he was reprimanded for muttering while she spoke, told the judge he would love it if he were removed from the courtroom, and stood up and walked out during Carroll’s closing argument, in front of the jury.
Saltzburg said he believes Trump’s behavior in that case is one of the reasons the jury awarded her a whopping $83.3 million.
“They wanted to send a clear message to him and they thought it would take a lot of money to do it,” he said.
In this case, said Jeffrey S. Jacobovitz, a trial attorney with extensive experience in white-collar criminal defense, Trump's demeanor is &quot;something that a jury would certainly notice.&quot;
The perception that he's been sleeping “is likely to have a negative effect on the jury,” he said, adding, “I think I would prefer angry Trump.”

AP-US-Election-2024-Trump-Hush-Money

Trump swaps bluster for silence, and possibly sleep, in his hush money trial

Election 2024 Trump Hush Money

Key witness Michael Cohen is one of two final people expected to testify for the prosecution at the hush money trial of ex-President Donald Trump next week, prosecutors said Friday, signaling that the end of the historic trial is in sight. 
Trump's personal attorney and fixer turned sworn enemy, Cohen, a Lawrence native, is expected to take the jury inside what prosecutors have said was a conspiracy between the men and a tabloid publisher to pay off women who allegedly had sexual encounters with Trump in order to keep the stories of his affairs from hurting his chances at winning the 2016 presidential election. 
The prosecution told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan Friday it could rest its case as early as the end of next week. 
Trump's lead defense attorney Todd Blanche asked Merchan to order Cohen, who has been vocally critical of Trump on social media — including Cohen wearing a T-shirt depicting Trump behind bars on the social media application TikTok recent, according to Blanche — to keep quiet about the case until he completes his testimony. 
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said he has repeatedly asked witnesses in the case to refrain from commenting on the trial, but has little power to force the issue. 
“I would direct the people [prosecutors] to tell Cohen that the judge asks that he not comment,” Merchan said from the bench Friday after testimony concluded for the day in the early afternoon. 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, is on trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress&nbsp;Stormy Daniels, who testified earlier this week that she had a sexual encounter with Trump and later signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibited her from speaking about it. 
Prosecutors have said Trump directed the hush money payment to Daniels just weeks before the 2016 presidential election in order to prevent the story of their liaison from going public — and hurting his chances at becoming president. 
It was amid the backdrop of the October 2016 release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, that Trump acted to silence Daniels, who could have dealt his campaign a death blow if her story came out before voters began casting ballots, prosecutors have alleged. 
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and called the case a politically-motivated witch hunt. His lawyers have said he is innocent. 
Prosecutors also said Trump directed hush money payments to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who said she had an affair with Trump, and a door attendant who peddled a false story about Trump having a baby outside of his marriage. Trump is only charged with respect to the Daniels payment. 
Earlier Friday, former White House aide Madeleine Westerhout finished her testimony. She had testified about an email she sent to Cohen on Feb. 5, 2017, to confirm an upcoming meeting at the White House. Prosecutors have said Trump and Cohen finalized the repayment plan for the hush money payments at that meeting. 
The jury also heard from a pair of record custodians, Daniel Dixon of AT&amp;T and Jennie Tomalin of Verizon, who confirmed the authenticity of various phone calls and electronic messages, which are part of the prosecution's case. 
Cohen's testimony would come&nbsp;at the tail end of the trial, which has heard from a series of characters including Daniels; her attorney Keith Davidson;&nbsp;David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher; and Hope Hicks, who was White House communications director and press secretary under Trump. 
Those witnesses testified about their dealings with Cohen, apparently part of a prosecution strategy to corroborate his testimony before he even takes the stand. 
Lambasted as a liar by Trump, his former right-hand man was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison in 2018 after pleading guilty to taking part in the efforts to payoff Daniels, McDougal and a door attendant in an effort to help Trump win the presidency. 
Cohen also pleaded guilty in 2018 to perjury before Congress. 
Trump's defense is expected to conduct a prolonged cross-examination of Cohen in an attempt to paint him as a liar and serial perjurer whose account cannot be believed. 
Cohen set up two shell companies — Essential Consultants LLC and Resolution Consultants LLC — and funded the companies through a home equity line of credit to launder the payments to the women, according to trial testimony.

nyTRUMP240511

Michael Cohen, former President Donald Trump's lawyer and fixer, expected to take the witness stand against the former president next week

Trump's former lawyer-fixer expected to testify at his hush money trial next week, prosecutors say

nyTRUMP240511_photos

The jury in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial got a look for the first time Monday at the documents at the center of the charges facing Trump — the series of $35,000 checks, which prosecutors said were hush money reimbursements, bearing Trump's black Sharpie signature — as the former president was held in contempt of court for a second time. 
The reimbursement checks to former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen — for paying adult film star Stormy Daniels hush money to cover up the alleged affair&nbsp;— went all the way to the White House via FedEx so that Trump could sign off on them personally, a former Trump accountant and a clerk testified Monday. 
Prosecutors attempted to show, through the testimony of Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney and accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff, the level of control Trump still exerted over his company even after he had set up a revocable trust and turned control of The Trump Organization over to his sons during his presidency. McConney did not provide any testimony to indicate that Trump directed Cohen to make the payments and for his employees to falsify business records to that end. 
“Michael was complaining that his bonus wasn’t big enough from the previous year,” said McConney. “I guess this was to make up what he was owed.” 
McConney, who took the stand Monday morning as the 10th witness to testify against Trump, talked the jury through the paper trail of documents that were part of the payments from Trump to Cohen that prosecutors said were reimbursements for Cohen paying hush money to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. Both women have said they had sexual encounters with Trump while he was married to former first lady Melania Trump, which he has denied. 
Trump's revocable trust paid $105,000 and another $315,000 came from his personal account — totaling $420,000 to Cohen, documents show. 
The money was doled out in monthly payments of $35,000, McConney testified, confirming copies of the checks, emails, notes and other documents that prosecutors presented him with. 
Testimony from McConney and Tarasoff plodded along as Manhattan prosecutor Matthew Colangelo&nbsp;went line by line over invoices, vouchers and receipts, leading the jury through what the Manhattan district attorney charges are fake business records aimed at covering up the former president's extramarital affairs. 
Like any other account payable, Tarasoff told the jury, she would print out the invoice with the voucher and the blank check and then FedEx them to the White House, where Trump would sign them. 
Prosecutors have said the payments to Cohen were reimbursements for the $130,000 hush money to Daniels, the $150,000 to McDougal, extra funds to cover taxes and a bonus. 
Before testimony began Monday, state Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan announced that he had held Trump in contempt of court for a second time and again threatened him with potential jail time if he continues to violate the limited gag order. 
Merchan, who announced his finding from the bench just before the third week of testimony began, fined Trump another $1,000 — the highest penalty under the law — which he must pay by Friday. The judge also ordered Trump to remove the offending post from Truth Social, Trump's social media site. 
“It appears that the $1,000 fine is not working as a deterrent, therefore I must consider a jail sanction,” Merchan told Trump, adding that he worried about the stress on the system, including to jail personnel and the Secret Service, if he were to incarcerate the former president. 
“The magnitude of such a sanction is not lost on me,” said Merchan. “But at the end of the day, I have a job to do. Your continued and willful violations of the gag order constitute a direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.” 
Merchan added: “As much as I don’t want to institute a jail sanction,&nbsp;I want you to know that I can and I will.” 
Merchan made clear that Trump would not face jail for his latest violation because it occurred before he was held in contempt on April 30 for nine violations of the gag order and warned that if he continued to violate the order, he could be incarcerated. 
In the latest instance, Merchan found that Trump violated the gag order during an interview that aired on April 22, during which he mentioned the jury that was picked for his criminal trial. The gag order prohibits Trump from speaking publicly about court staff, potential witnesses or the jury. 
“That jury was picked so fast — 95% Democrats,” said Trump. “The area's mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a — just a purely Democrat area. It's a very unfair situation that I can tell you.” 
Trump was first found in criminal contempt last week and fined $9,000 for a string of comments and social media posts he made in violation of the gag order. 
Trump, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, is on trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records with respect to how the alleged payment to Daniels was recorded in business records maintained by The Trump Organization, the ex-president's Manhattan-based real estate company. Prosecutors said the payment was falsely claimed as “legal services” and amounted to election interference. 
His attorneys have said he is innocent. Trump has called the case against him a politically-motivated “witch hunt.” 
Prosecutors have said Trump entered into a conspiracy with Cohen, a Lawrence native, and David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid to “catch and kill” negative stories about Trump as he ran for president and to publish negative stories about his political opponents. 
On cross-examination, McConney confirmed that Trump never directed him to process the payments,&nbsp;but once again the jurors heard from yet another witness who testified that the former president controlled every aspect of his business down to the last decimal point. 
The controller told the jury that Trump once noticed that the cash balance in his bank account had dipped from the previous week. 
“Jeff, you’re fired,” Trump told him, using his signature catchphrase that he popularized on “The Apprentice.” 
Stunned, McConney said he waited for his boss to finish his phone call and then he took the accountant to task for not being a tougher negotiator when it came to paying bills. 
“It was a teaching moment,” McConney said. 
McConney sighed audibly as his testimony concluded. He smiled at Trump and his son Eric Trump, who attended the trial as a spectator for the second time Monday. 
After the trial stopped for the day&nbsp;Monday afternoon, the prosecution told the judge it expected to wrap up its case at the end of next week. 
Trump, in comments outside the courtroom, railed against the gag order and suggested he would&nbsp;be willing to go to jail. 
“I have to watch every word I tell you people,” Trump said to reporters. “Yes, we have questions, a simple question — I’d like to give it, but I can’t talk about it because this judge has given me a gag order and said you’ll go to jail if you violate. And frankly, you know what, our Constitution is much more important than jail. It’s not even close. I’ll do that sacrifice any day.”

NYTRUMP240507

Jurors in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial see alleged hush money checks, as judge threatens him with jail again

Trump jury sees alleged hush money payments as ex-president held in contempt again

NYTRUMP240507_photos

WILDWOOD, N.J. — Sandwiched between his appearances in court, Donald Trump headed on Saturday to the Jersey Shore, where he repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden for the criminal charges he’s facing as the presumptive nominees prepare to face off in the November election and called his New York hush money case “a Biden show trial.”
Blasting the Democratic president “a total moron,” Trump before a crowd of tens of thousands repeatedly characterized the cases against him as politically motivated and timed to harm his ability to campaign.
“He’s a fool. He’s not a smart man,” Trump said of Biden. “I talk about him differently now because now the gloves are off.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, drew what his team called a “mega crowd” to a Saturday evening rally in the southern New Jersey resort town of Wildwood, 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of the New York City courthouse where he has been forced to spend most weekdays sitting silently through his felony hush money trial.
Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood, told The Associated Press that she estimated a crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 attendees, based off her own observations on the scene Saturday, having seen “dozens” of other events in the same space.
Trump was joined on stage by several high-level endorsers including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who is still listed as a registered sex offender after pleading guilty in New York in 2011 to misdemeanor criminal charges of sexual misconduct and patronizing an underage prostitute. 
The beachfront gathering, described by Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., as the largest political gathering in state history, was designed to serve as a show of force at a critical moment for Trump, who is facing dozens of felony charges in four separate criminal cases with the election less than six months away. 
Hours before he was scheduled to take the stage, thousands of Trump loyalists donning “Never Surrender” T-shirts and red “Make America Great Again” hats crowded onto the sand between the boardwalk and carnival rides to greet the former Republican president.
“The everyday American people are 100% behind him,” said Doreen O’Neill, a 62-year-old nurse from Philadelphia.
“They have to cheat and smear him and humiliate him in that courtroom every single day,” O’Neill said. “This country is going to go insane if they steal the election again.”
Trump’s extraordinary legal woes, which include three other unrelated criminal cases, have emerged as a central issue in the campaign.
Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration and Democratic officials in New York of using the legal system to block his return to the White House. Prosecutors allege the former president broke the law to conceal an affair with a porn actor that would have hurt his first presidential bid.
The hush money case was filed by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any 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.
On Saturday, Trump posited that even those whom he accuses of politically motivated prosecutions didn’t bring every case they could have, pointing to the boosts his campaign has sustained with each wave of charges.
“I heard they were going to do a couple of other things and they said from Washington ... ‘we’re indicting him into the White House,’” Trump said. “They said, ‘Don’t do it.’”
While Trump seized on his legal woes Saturday, a judge's gag order — and the threat of jail — limit Trump's ability to comment publicly on witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the New York trial, which is expected to consume much of the month. The judge in the case already has fined Trump $9,000 for violating the order and warned that jail could follow if he doesn’t comply.
The order doesn't include references to Judge Juan M. Merchan, whom Trump called “highly conflicted” or District Attorney Alvin Bragg, both of whom Trump said are “doing the bidding for crooked Joe Biden.”
Trump's responsibilities as a defendant have limited his ability to win over voters on the campaign trail. 
He spent last week's off-day from court in the general election battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Michigan. And he was campaigning with tens of thousands of voters Saturday in New Jersey, a reliably Democratic state. Parts of New Jersey have deep-red enclaves and the southern shoreline in particular draws tourists and summer homeowners from neighboring Pennsylvania, a key swing state.
Biden, meanwhile, opened his weekend with a series of fundraising events on the West Coast.
He avoided Trump’s legal challenges — as he has done consistently — while addressing donors in Seattle. Instead, the Democratic president focused on Trump’s recent interview with Time magazine in which the Republican former president said states should be left to determine whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor their pregnancies.
Saturday’s visit to the New Jersey Shore resort wasn't Trump’s first. 
While president, Trump held a rally there in January 2020 to thank Van Drew, the New Jersey congressman who had just left the Democratic Party for the GOP as a rebuke for the former president’s first impeachment. 
Trump drew a crowd at the time that lined the streets, filled bars and supported numerous vendors in what is usually a sleepy city in the winter. This time, the summer season is around the corner for the resort known for its wide beaches and boardwalk games and shops.
Wildwood is in New Jersey’s 2nd District, which Van Drew has represented for three terms and covers all or part of six counties in southern New Jersey. It went for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020 after earlier backing Barack Obama.
Trump is set to return to the courtroom next week, when key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump's fixer-turned-foe, is expected to take the witness stand. Last week, he was visibly angry at times as he was forced to sit through testimony from former porn actor Stormy Daniels, who described a sexual encounter with the former president in shocking detail. 
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 company records. Prosecutors say those payments largely were reimbursements to Cohen, Trump's attorney, who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. 
The prosecution could rest its case by the end of the week. It's unclear if Trump himself will take the stand when the defense presents its case.
Back on the Jersey Shore, 65-year-old Pat Day said she felt some urgency to see Trump in person on Saturday.
“We want to see Trump before they take him out,” said Day, who was visiting from the Florida Keys. “I'm worried. They're going to do everything they can so he doesn't get elected again.”

AP-US-Election-2024-Trump, 8th Ld-Writethru

Trump tells Jersey Shore crowd he's being forced to endure 'Biden show trial' in hush money case

Election 2024 Trump

Former President Donald Trump told White House aide Hope Hicks that his personal attorney Michael Cohen had paid off adult film star Stormy Daniels “out of the kindness of his heart,” and without Trump's knowledge,&nbsp;Hicks testified Friday at Trump's hush money trial. 
Hicks, on the stand at the end of the second week of testimony in Trump's historic criminal trial, recalled that Trump had initially denied any payment, as did Cohen, a Lawrence native. But months later, when Cohen gave a public statement admitting he made the $130,000 payment to Daniels — and said he did so without telling Trump&nbsp;— the then-president confided in Hicks, she said. 
“He said Michael had paid this woman to protect him from a false allegation” of a sexual encounter with Trump, Hicks testified after spending much of Friday on the witness stand of the Manhattan courthouse in key testimony for the prosecution. “That he made this payment and he didn’t tell anyone. And he did it out of the kindness of his heart and out of obligation. … He said he was appreciative of the loyalty.” 
Hicks, under questioning by prosecutor Michael Colangelo, said she didn't quite buy the story. 
“I would say it would be out of character for Michael,” Hicks said. “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or a selfless person. He’s the kind of person who seeks credit.” 
Hicks, 35, who was White House communications director and press secretary under Trump and now works as a strategic communications consultant, took the stand under subpoena at the end of the second week of testimony in Trump's trial. While her testimony bolstered the prosecution's contention that Trump was aware of the hush money payment when he falsified business records to conceal it, to help his chances at winning the 2016 presidential election, she also made statements that helped the defense. 
Hicks, who worked closely with Trump for years, suddenly became emotional at the outset of cross-examination, when asked about Trump creating a job for her many years earlier at the Trump Organization, his Manhattan real estate company. State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan briefly paused testimony after Hicks began crying&nbsp;and dabbed her eye with a tissue. 
Hicks expressed disdain for Cohen, supporting the&nbsp;defense contention that Cohen acted independently. 
“I used to say that he liked to call himself a fixer or 'Mr. Fix-it' and I would say, because he first broke it,” said Hicks, who said Cohen often frustrated campaign staff. 
Earlier, Hicks had also described for the jury how Trump was upset and “a little stunned” when The Washington Post asked his presidential campaign for comment in October 2016 on the “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump discussing groping women. 
“He said that didn’t sound like something that he would say,” Hicks said. 
She said she interrupted Trump's debate preparation with a cadre of aides and advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, on the 26th floor of Trump Tower&nbsp;to alert Trump that a Post reporter had emailed her a transcript of the recording in a request for comment. 
Trump's reaction was “a little stunned,” said Hicks, who said she assessed it as “a damaging development. … There was consensus among us all that the tape was damaging and this was a crisis.” 
Hicks' recollection of the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape provided the prosecution's backdrop to what was happening prior to Trump allegedly directing the hush money be paid to Daniels. 
After the tape went public about a month before voters were set to cast their ballots, there was intense&nbsp;media coverage, Hicks testified. And scores of his fellow Republican officials denounced Trump, as evidenced by a slew of written statements from officials such as then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, that Colangelo showed to Hicks while she testified. 
Prosecutors say Trump falsified business records in processing the hush money payment&nbsp;by describing it as “legal services” in official paperwork for the Trump Organization, Trump's real estate company, to protect his chances at winning the 2016 presidential election.&nbsp;He faces a maximum of four years in prison if convicted. 
Hicks described her initial political naivet&eacute; while working for the Trump Organization when Trump began his presidential campaign, in earnest, in January 2015. “Mr. Trump one day said we’re going to Iowa and I didn’t understand why,” Hicks said. “And after that day I began to understand that he was running for president.” 
She eventually became the press secretary for Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign in which he bested Hillary Clinton. 
But in a series of compliments she paid to her former boss while testifying, Hicks said Trump was the brains behind their communication shop, which was just the two of them. “No, it was just me and Mr. Trump, who is better than anyone else with communications and branding,” said Hicks, gently laughing as she spoke. 
And the campaign's press strategy? 
“Mr. Trump was responsible,” Hicks said. “He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it. He took the lead. So he deserves the credit for the messages on the campaign.” 
Prosecutors have also said Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model&nbsp;who has alleged she had an affair with Trump, was paid $150,000 in hush money. 
A few weeks after the Access Hollywood tape became public, the Trump campaign had a new problem, Hicks testified. 
On Nov. 4, 2016, Hicks received an inquiry from a Wall Street Journal reporter about an alleged scheme that involved the National Enquirer buying negative stories about Trump detailing affairs with Daniels and McDougal and burying them, what prosecutors have called a “catch and kill.” 
“I think it outlined that there was a woman … McDougal, that there was a story purchased by the National Enquirer, but it was never published, asking if we knew anything about that,” said Hicks, describing the email from a WSJ reporter seeking comment. 
She was just landing in Ohio with the campaign for a rally and she alerted Trump, she said. She also forwarded the email to then-senior adviser Jared Kushner, who “had a good relationship with Rupert Murdoch and I was hoping that we could buy a little extra time.” Murdoch, through his company News Corp., owns the Wall Street Journal. Kushner told her he wouldn't be able to reach Murdoch. 
Hicks said she next called David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who she said was “friends” with Trump. 
Pecker previously testified at the trial that he approved deals to “catch and kill” the stories of McDougal and Daniels to avoid hurting Trump's presidential campaign. 
“There was a reason that I called Mr. Pecker next,” Hicks said. “He feigned that he didn’t know what I was talking about and I was trying to get more information. … I asked what was going on. Why was I receiving this email. He explained that Karen McDougal was paid for magazine covers and fitness column and it was all very legitimate.” 
Hicks said she drafted a response, denying the allegations. On a conference call with Trump, Cohen and Pecker, Hicks said Trump changed the statement to say “that they were totally untrue and we didn’t know anything about that deal.” 
After the story published, Hicks and Cohen texted, according to messages displayed for the jury. Cohen wrote: “Lots of innuendo with little fact. I don’t see it getting much play” 
Hicks replied: “I agree.” 
Cohen noted in another text: “Story is getting little to no traction” 
Hicks replied that she agreed, adding, “Keep praying. It’s working.” 
Cohen was almost celebratory in another text: “Even CNN is not talking about it. No one believes it and if necessary, I have a statement by Stormy denying everything and contradicting the other porn star's statement. I wouldn’t use it now or even discuss with him as no one is talking about this or cares?&quot; 
Hicks agreed and explained to the jury: “The election was taking place in three days, we were doing a lot of rallies. We were doing a lot. This story wasn’t consuming the news cycle. I was hoping that we would blow past it and keep going.” 
Trump, according to Hicks, was concerned about his wife Melania’s reaction, which could offer the defense an alternative motive, outside of the election, for Trump to direct the payment. 
“He wanted me to make sure that the newspapers weren’t delivered to his home that morning,” Hicks said. 
Meanwhile, Trump paid a $9,000 fine for being held in contempt for violating a gag order imposed by Merchan&nbsp;by making public statements about witnesses&nbsp;or the jury in the case. .

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Hope Hicks, former Trump aide, testifies he told her Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels without his knowledge

Ex-aide Hope Hicks testifies Trump told her about payment to Daniels, saying sexual encounter claim was 'false allegation'

Trump Hush Money Who's Who

As Keith Davidson, the lawyer who brokered the alleged hush money deals for&nbsp;Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, watched the 2016 presidential election results roll in,&nbsp;he texted the tabloid editor who had worked with him on the payments&nbsp;in apparent shock. 
“What have we done?” Davidson wrote&nbsp;in a 3 a.m. text message following election night on Nov. 8, 2016, to Dylan Howard, then&nbsp;National Enquirer editor-in-chief. 
Howard deadpanned: “Oh my God.” 
That text was introduced Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court as Los Angeles-based Davidson testified for a&nbsp;third day at former President Donald Trump's historic criminal trial. Under direct examination by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass, he explained to the jury his mindset during the text exchange. 
“This was sort of gallows humor,” Davidson testified. “It was on election night as results were coming in. There was surprise among the broadcasters that Donald Trump was leading in the polls, and folks were about to call the election.” 
Davidson said he thought: “Our activities may have somehow assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.” 
That alleged election interference is a central tenet&nbsp;in the prosecution's theory of the case against Trump, who is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to the payment to Daniels, an adult film star who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump. 
Prosecutors have said Trump committed the alleged business fraud, falsely recording the payment to keep Daniels&nbsp;quiet about an alleged affair&nbsp;as “legal services,” to protect his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election — a factor that&nbsp;elevates&nbsp;the charges to felonies. Trump faces up to 4 years in prison if convicted. 
Prosecutors have also said McDougal, a former Playboy model, who has alleged she had an affair with Trump, was paid $150,000 in hush money.&nbsp; 
Trump, 77, is the first president or ex-president to go on trial on criminal charges. On his Truth Social&nbsp;site Thursday afternoon, Trump denied claims by reporters that he's appeared to sleep at times during his trial, though he admitted closing his eyes.&nbsp; 
“Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don't fall asleep during the Crooked DA's Witch Hunt, especially not today,” Trump's account posted. “I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”&nbsp; 
Trump's attorneys have said the GOP's 2024 presumptive presidential nominee is innocent and impacting an election is simply the goal of candidates&nbsp;in a democracy. Trump has called the trial a “scam” and a “witch hunt” and has said his Democratic opponent in the upcoming election, President Joe Biden, is behind his prosecution. 
As he continued testifying Thursday, Davidson said that following the election, in mid-December, he got a call from Trump's personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, with whom he had worked to arrange&nbsp;the hush money deals. 
“He was despondent,” Davidson said of Cohen, who he said was Christmas shopping at a department store. “He said something to the effect of ‘Jesus Christ, can you [expletive] believe that I'm not going to Washington after everything I've done for that guy? I’ve saved that guy's [expletive] so many times. You don’t even know. That guy isn't even paying me the $130,000 back.’&nbsp;” 
Davidson said the Dec. 9 call, a video call, was lengthy. 
He called Cohen “desperate” and later, during the cross-examination, Davidson said that Trump's fixer sounded suicidal.&nbsp; 
“I thought he was going to kill himself,” Davidson said. 
Just months before the election, Cohen had started recording conversations with Trump, according to testimony. 
During testimony from one of the Manhattan District Attorney's&nbsp;forensic investigators of computer devices, prosecutors played an audio file of Cohen telling Trump about setting up a shell company to make the hush money payments. 
“I need to open up the company for the transfer of all that info for our friend David. I'm going to do that right away.&nbsp;I’ve spoken to [then Trump's chief financial officer] Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up,” Cohen tells Trump. 
“We'll pay cash,” the former president said on the recording. 
On cross-examination by defense lawyer&nbsp;Emil Bove, Davidson admitted that the&nbsp;first time he was in the same room as Trump was when he began testifying at the trial earlier this week. 
“I’ve had no personal interactions with Donald Trump,” Davidson testified. 
Bove has framed the hush money payments as extortion, attempting&nbsp;to tarnish&nbsp;Davidson's credibility in the eyes of the jury while casting Trump as the victim. He&nbsp;grilled Davidson on his past dealings with nondisclosure agreements such as the ones he constructed for the Daniels and McDougal payments. 
Davidson admitted he had been investigated by both state and local authorities in 2013 for extortion in relation to the famous wrestler known as Hulk Hogan.&nbsp;But he noted no criminal charges&nbsp;had been brought against him.&nbsp; 
“I did everything I could to make sure that my actions were lawful,” Davidson said. 
Bove grilled Davidson about his involvement in a series of tawdry tabloid deals&nbsp;born of celebrity scandal. Davidson had represented a client that had allegedly been paid by celebrity news website TMZ in 2010 for information about actor and Long Island native Lindsay Lohan spending time in a drug rehabilitation facility, he admitted.&nbsp; 
In another recording also played Thursday, this time a conversation with Cohen, Davidson suggested that Daniels push&nbsp;for the settlement before the election because that was when she would have the most leverage over the former president. 
Before testimony began Thursday, state Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan heard arguments on four instances in which Trump is alleged to have violated the gag order prohibiting him from speaking publicly about witnesses or the jury in the case. 
Merchan already held Trump in contempt of court Tuesday,&nbsp;ruling that Trump violated the judge's gag order in the case nine times and fined him $9,000 for the offenses. 
The judge also warned Trump he would consider putting him in jail if he continues to violate the protective order. But the four alleged violations occurred before the judge's contempt ruling, so Trump is not expected to face potential jail time. 
“His statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice,” said prosecutor Christopher Conroy. 
The four statements in question&nbsp;include Trump speaking ill of Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness at his ongoing trial. Trump also said in an interview that the jury comprises&nbsp;Democrats, and called former National Enquirer editor David Pecker “a nice guy,” in what prosecutors said was a calculated message to the witness, who was testifying at the time. 
“The defendant knows what he's doing,” said Conroy. 
But Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, seized on Merchan’s earlier contempt order, saying Cohen has repeatedly mocked his client, attacking his character, and mocking him for being on trial and also his presidential candidacy. 
Merchan said in his prior contempt order that “it is of utmost importance to this Court that the Expanded Order not be used as a sword instead of a shield by potential witnesses,” adding that he'll consider “the propriety of continuing the limitation on extrajudicial speech as it relates to certain individuals” when deciding future claims of gag order violations. 
Cohen has made comments critical of Trump during live chats he's been hosting on TikTok during the trial. 
“Mr. Cohen has been inviting and almost daring President Trump to respond to the things that he’s been saying,” Blanche argued. 
But the judge appeared unmoved by Blanche's arguments with respect to comments made by Trump in the hallway outside the courtroom, during which Trump called Cohen a liar. 
“No one forced your client to stand where he went that day,” said Merchan. “His exit is to the right, he went left.” 
Trump has apparently heeded the judge's threat of jail time if he violates the gag order again, sticking to criticism of the prosecutor and the case at large, all permitted under the limited gag order. 
“That [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg didn't want to bring it until the election happened,” said Trump, wearing a yellow tie and speaking in the court hallway before proceedings began Thursday.&nbsp;“And then he brought it. You just do know that this case could have been brought eight years ago. It could have been brought eight years ago. Instead, they wait and wait and wait. They know it's not a good case,” he said.

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