Trump trial live: Hush money case to resume after judge threatens ex-president with jail over gag order
Former president back in Manhattan Criminal Court for further witness testimony
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Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial will continue at Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday after Judge Juan Merchan found the former president in contempt of court for a tenth time during Monday’s session.
The justice fined the defendant another $1,000 and warned him the next violation of his gag order would result in jail time.
The jury then heard from two more witnesses, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, about the paper trail within the Trump Organization leading to Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about the sexual encounter she alleges she had with Mr Trump, which his inner circle feared could sink his presidential campaign in late 2016.
As the day drew to a close, the prosecution told Judge Merchan that they expect to be able to wrap up their case in about two weeks — an extensive list of witnesses remains to be called.
Yesterday’s hearing followed Friday’s emotional testimony from the former president’s one-time White House communication director Hope Hicks, who recounted the panic that set in when the notorious Access Hollywood tape first emerged.
The Independent’s Alex Woodward is covering the trial at Manhattan Criminal Court.
Watch: Trump says ‘he’ll do that sacrifice any day’ regarding threat of jail
Here’s Trump being big and tough yesterday, boasting he could do a jail stretch standing on his head.
Why am I not entirely convinced by that?
Not many chandeliers, plush pillows or solid gold bidets in New York’s prison cells, that’s for sure.
Here’s Jesse Watters, Alina Habba and Lara Trump trying to out-do each other on the same subject last night.
Watters’ “buff Trump” take is going to take some beating.
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 11:15
Watch: Trump claims he thought prosecution would finish on Monday
Despite all reporting to the contrary, Trump griped yesterday that he thought the prosecution would be wrapping up their case against him on Monday.
You know, without bringing their key witnesses like Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.
Which is odd, given that the defendant complained a week ago that the trial was moving too slowly!
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 10:45
Leaked audio reveals Trump discussing his VP picks
New audio recorded at a private lunch reveals Donald Trump’s thoughts about his potential picks for a running mate in the 2024 election.
The audio, obtained by Axios, was recorded during Trump’s high-profile GOP event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.
Attendees included major Republican donors and his many contenders for vice president.
Here’s Katie Hawkinson’s report.
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 10:15
New York hush money trial: Key takeaways from start of third week of testimony
Here’s Alex Woodward and Oliver O’Connell’s recap of yesterday’s testimony from Trump Organization insiders Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff.
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 09:45
New York hush money trial: Trump used personal checking account to pay back Michael Cohen
Jurors seated in Trump’s hush money trial on Monday finally got to see the paper trail of payments leading to Michael Cohen for buying Stormy Daniels’ silence, whose story about an alleged sexual encounter with the defendant threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
Those payments included cheques bearing the former president’s Sharpie-inked signature, according to documents shown in court.
A bulk of those cheques – sent to Cohen whilMr Trump was in his first year as president – came out of the then-president’s own personal checking account.
Alex Woodward reports.
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 09:15
New York hush money trial: Trump threatened with jail over gag order violations
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial will consider putting the former president in jail if he continues to violate a gag order intended to protect witnesses, jurors, court staff and their families.
New York Justice Juan Merchan warned Trump at the start of Monday’s session at Manhattan Criminal Court that jail remains “truly a last resort” that would disrupt the proceedings, court staff and law enforcement but which could yet become necessary.
“The magnitude of such a decision is not lost on me,” the judge told Trump, but insisted he was more than prepared to take action to uphold “the dignity of the justice system” and prevent “a direct attack on the rule of law”.
He also fined the defendant another $1,000 – meaning he has wracked up $10,000 in fines so far – the judge siding with the prosecution on 10 of the 14 potential violations of the order they have raised while acknowledging that the sum was proving insufficient as a deterrent.
Alex Woodward reports.
Joe Sommerlad7 May 2024 08:45
How Donald Trump plans to turn his legal woes to his advantage
Donald Trump has been forced to adapt his campaign to his first criminal trial in New York. Prosecutors allege he committed financial fraud to hide hush money payments to a porn actor, Stormy Daniels, who says she had a sexual encounter with Trump. He denies her claim and has pleaded not guilty.
For now, Mr Trump is forced to attend the trial most weekdays. A verdict is likely still weeks away. And after that, he faces the prospect of more trials related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents. The Supreme Court is weighing whether Trump should be granted immunity, or partial immunity, for the actions he took while in office.
The former US president over the past week wedged in campaign stops around his court schedule, rallying voters in Wisconsin and Michigan, where the abortion debate is raging.
He seemed to be searching for a way to lessen the political sting from the upheaval over the Supreme Court’s overturning of national abortion rights. The former president suggested the issue will ultimately bring the country together as states carve out differing laws.
“A lot of bad things will happen beyond the abortion issue if you don’t win elections, with your taxes and everything else,” he told Michigan voters.
Mr Trump’s camp privately maintains that his unprecedented trial in New York will dominate the news — and voters’ attention — for the foreseeable future. His campaign has largely stopped trying to roll out unrelated news during the trial.
Even if Mr Trump were to be convicted by the New York jury, his advisers insist the fundamentals of the election will not change. He has worked aggressively to undermine public confidence in the charges against him. Meanwhile, more traditional issues work in his favour, including stubbornly high inflation and the situation at the US-Mexico border, in the view of the Trump team.
Arpan Rai7 May 2024 07:45
Analysis: Does the quashing of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction spell hope for Trump?
Read on…
Oliver O’Connell7 May 2024 06:45
Trump fined $1,000 for gag order violation in hush money case
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial fined him $1,000 on Monday and, in his sternest warning yet, told the former president that future gag order violations could send him to jail.
The reprimand opened a revelatory day of testimony, as jurors for the first time heard the details of the financial transactions at the centre of the case and saw payment checks bearing Trump’s signature.
The testimony from former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney provided a mechanical but vital recitation of how the company reimbursed payments that were allegedly meant to suppress embarrassing stories from surfacing during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and then logged them as legal expenses in a manner that Manhattan prosecutors say broke the law.
McConney’s appearance on the witness stand came as the first criminal trial of a former US president entered its third week of testimony. His account lacked the human drama offered Friday by longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, but it nonetheless yielded an important building block for prosecutors trying to pull back the curtain on what they say was a corporate records cover-up of transactions designed to protect Trump’s presidential bid during a pivotal stretch of the race.
At the centre of the testimony was a $130,000 payment Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen made to porn actor Stormy Daniels in October 2016 to stifle her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.
The 34 felony counts of falsifying business records accuse Trump of labelling the money paid to Cohen in his company’s records as legal fees.
Prosecutors contend that by paying him income and giving him extra to account for taxes in monthly instalments for a year, the Trump executives were able to conceal the reimbursement.
McConney and another witness testified that all but two of the monthly checks were drawn from Trump’s personal account. Yet even as jurors saw the checks and other documentary evidence, prosecutors did not elicit testimony Monday showing that Trump himself dictated that the payments would be logged as legal expenses — a designation that prosecutors contend was intentionally deceptive.
McConney acknowledged during cross-examination that Trump never asked him to log the reimbursements as legal expenses and never discussed the matter with him at all.
Another witness, Deborah Tarasoff, a Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor, said under questioning that she did not get permission to cut the checks in question from Trump himself. “You never had any reason to believe that President Trump was hiding anything or anything like that?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked. “Correct,” Tarasoff replied.
The testimony followed Judge Juan M Merchan’s sober warning to Trump that additional violations of a gag order barring inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case could land the former president behind bars.
The $1,000 fine imposed Monday marks the second time since the trial began last month that Trump has been sanctioned for violating the gag order.
Arpan Rai7 May 2024 05:30
ICYMI: Hope Hicks breaks down at Trump trial
The emotional moment from Hope Hicks inside a Manhattan criminal court on Friday followed revealing testimony about her damage control in the weeks before Election Day, and her behind-the-scenes public relations efforts to salvage Mr Trump’s campaign while stories about his alleged affairs and vulgar comments about women were piling up.
Alex Woodward reports:
Oliver O’Connell7 May 2024 04:45