Trump attorney asks judge for gag order on Michael Cohen – live
Donald Trump speaks to members of the media at Manhattan criminal court in New York on Friday.
LIVE – Updated at 18:35
Trump attorney Todd Blanche is complaining about Michael Cohen’s statements; Michael Cohen may take the stand on Monday.
Closing summary
18:35
Testimony in Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial has wrapped for the day. Court is expected resume on Monday morning, and the prosecution has said they expect to call two more witnesses. Here’s what happened today:
Donald Trump arrived at the courtroom with apparent frustration, after sitting through two days of testimony from the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The former president’s demeanor in the hallway suggested that his mood had soured since Daniels provided embarrassing details about their alleged sexual encounter.
Here’s a recap Daniels’ testimony on Tuesday of an alleged sexual liaison with Trump some 20 years ago as well as how Trump’s lawyers sought to discredit and undermine her testimony on Thursday.
Judge Juan Merchan denied a Trump team subpoena seeking records from Mark Pomerantz, a former Manhattan prosecutor who worked on the hush-money case until resigning in frustration.
The defense resumed cross-examination on Friday morning of Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s former executive assistant and director of Oval Office operations in the White House.
Westerhout testified that Trump was “very upset” about the Wall Street Journal’s 2018 story about the hush money deal with Daniels.
Several custodial witnesses – who testified about phone records and Trump’s social media posts – followed Westerhout’s testimony on Friday.
The jury was once again shown text messages between Daniels’ manager Gina Rodriguez and then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard about Daniels’ claim that she had had sex with Trump.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s consigliere-turned-key prosecution witness, is expected to take the stand on Monday.
Trump’s attorneys requested judge Merchan implement a gag order for Cohen, who has posted about Trump on social media in recent weeks. In response, Merchan told prosecutors to inform Cohen “that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements” about the case or about Trump.
18:16
Court has adjourned for the day and will resume on Monday morning, when Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen may take the witness stand.
Donald Trump, carrying papers, is walking out of the courtroom. He whispered something and did some sort of gesture greeting to Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in the gallery.
18:12
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass says in response to the defense team’s request for a gag order on Michael Cohen:
We’ve repeatedly, repeatedly asked the witnesses not to do that. The fact of the matter is, these witnesses are not subject to the gag oder and we have no remedy if they engage in those activity.
Judge Juan Merchan says:
I will direct the people to direct to Mr Cohen that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements about this case or Mr. Trump …that comes from the bench and you are communicating that on behalf of the bench.
Trump attorney asks judge for gag order on Michael Cohen
18:11
Judge Juan Merchan didn’t make a decision about the severance agreement.
Now, Trump attorney Todd Blanche is complaining about Michael Cohen’s statements.
Mr Cohen continues to speak publicly about this trial and President Trump as recently, I believe Wednesday night …he was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of President Trump behind bars in an orange jumpsuit …. he be prohibited from talking the same way President Trump is
Blanche continues:
It’s becoming a problem every single day that President Trump is not allowed to respond to this witness but this witness is allowed to talk… Our request is that the court order the government instruct the witness to not talk about President Trump or this case until the case is over.
18:06
Right now, both sides are arguing over admitting former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg’s settlement agreement into evidence.
The defense does not want it to be admitted, as it’s complicated given that he’s not testifying at trial.
The prosecution said they hadn’t tried to get him to testify, effectively saying it’d be a lesson in futility, as he’d invoke the fifth amendment and, perhaps more importantly, worry about his severance agreement.
This severance agreement seems to stipulate that Weisselberg’s payment would be at risk if he participated in the trial.
Rosecutor Joshua Steinglass said:
That agreement has a very palpable connection to why that could be an exercise in futility or strategically to put a witness on the stand who’s under an agreement like that.
18:05
Donald Trump has left the courtroom.
His dress is all-American businessman: he’s wearing a deep blue suit and red tie and white shirt.
He didn’t look particularly enthused while leaving. He carried papers once again.
18:05
17:56
Judge Juan Merchan asked about scheduling. The prosecution said:
We expect to call two witnesses and it’s entirely possible that we will rest by the end of next week.
17:47
Jaden Jarmel-Schneider is off the witness stand.
Judge Juan Merchan is now addressing the jury.
17:44
Donald Trump has turned to look at his attorney Emil Bove as he conducts his re-cross.
He’s turned back around now, in the direction of the witness stand.
17:44
We’re now on re-direct of Jaden Jarmel-Schneider. Another moment of humor. The prosecution asks:
Do you know whether people sometimes get a new phone and keep the same phone number?
“I do,” he said with a smile.
17:32
When cross started, Trump attorney Emil Bove asked some general questions about Jaden Jarmel-Schneider’s preparation of evidence, including whether some of it was “tedious work.”
Then came a moment of humor.
“Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it,” Jarmel-Schneider said, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Bove’s cross continues.
17:29
Jaden Jarmel-Schneider was asked about a chart generated by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The chart lists dollar amounts over the specific counts in the indictment. So, it will list an amount and under that amount it might say Count 1, Count 2, Count 3, etc.
On one side of the chart, there is a column; “11 invoices,” “12 vouchers,” and “11 checks.” The bottom says BUSINESS RECORDS: 34.
This chart is very important to prosecutors, as it shows jurors in clear, specific detail, which falsified document corresponds to which count – and the amount and category.
Indeed, the prosecution drilled it down further right before wrapping its direct.
And is this number of records the number of counts in the indictment?
Jarmel-Schneider replied: “Yes.”
17:17
Jaden Jarmel-Schneider is the prosecution’s last witness for today.
There may be some legal arguments afterward, but Judge Juan Merchan has said that court will end early today.
17:13
Jaden Jarmel-Schneider is talking about how he reviewed text messages as part as his work on the case.
Donald Trump, just now, could be seen flipping through papers.
17:07
Georgia Longstreet’s direct ended and defense attorney Todd Blanche is doing cross.
He asked whether she just read the text of text messages – but noted, through questioning, that she didn’t have direct knowledge about the veracity of things in them, nor other meanings behind the missives.
Blanche asks about whether she’s continuing to review social media posts during the trial. She said yes. If she sees social media posts that might be interesting, how does she alert the team? She said she calls them.
Blanche is done. No redirect.
17:01
The prosecution is now calling Jaden Jarmel-Schneider.
He works at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He’s a paralegal there.
16:57
Georgia Longstreet is still reading out text exchanges between Stormy Daniels’ former publicist, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan Howard, the former National Enquirer editor.
While the texts have been admitted into evidence before, they serve an important purpose at this part of the trial – they’re firming up the chronology of the alleged Daniels payoff.
Recall: prosecutors contend that Daniels received the hush-money payment right before the 2016 election.
Texts are showing that in late October, Daniels still hadn’t been paid and Rodriguez was telling Howard that she was poised to go public at a press conference.
This was on 26 October 2016. Michael Cohen allegedly paid Daniels’ attorney on 27 October 2016.
‘Is she ready to talk?’ Jury shown messages about Stormy Daniels coming forward
16:54
Georgia Longstreet is now reading texts between Stormy Daniels’ former publicist, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan Howard, the former National Enquirer editor.
In these exchanges, they talk about Daniels coming forward. On 28 June 2016, Howard asked, “Is she ready to talk?”, and followed it up with a message that reads: “I though[t] she denounced it previously.”
Rodriguez replied: “She said she will do it under 2 conditions.”
She added:
She doesn’t want to go on record about it but will tell the story through a source … She’s had sex with him. She wants 100K.
Howard asks: “Once or ongoing relationship?”
Rodriguez replies:
A couple times and he promised her a condo, a spot on apprentice. She went to the miss America pageant he got her in.
16:53
Georgia Longstreet is now answering questions about a May 2018 Twitter thread by Donald Trump on the NDA payoff with Stormy Daniels.
Lead compliance analyst for AT&T called to testify
16:47
The next witness called to the stand is Daniel Dixon, who works as a lead compliance analyst for AT&T.
Dixon is testifying under subpoena to AT&T as a records custodian.
Prosecution recalls paralegal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office to testify
16:47
The prosecution has recalled Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, to the stand. The prosecutor questioning Longstreet is Rebecca Mangold.
Recall: Longstreet locates and saves social media relevant to the case. She says that she also has “many other duties and responsibilities”, not just social media.
Longstreet says that there are other paralegals on the case working on social.
I like to think that we all work as one, we all kind of do the same things.
She says that her other duties for this case have been matching text and call records to things relevant to the case.
16:30
Georgia Longstreet is being asked about Donald Trump’s tweets, in particular this one from August 2018.
16:17
Judge Juan Merchan sides with the defense and says he won’t let in the Larry King interview.
16:14
Daniel Dixon has left the stand.
The next witness, Jennie Tomalin, has taken the witness stand. Tomalin is another custodial witness. She works at Verizon, as a senior analyst in executive relations.
Generally speaking, custodial witnesses are often used to present data to juries that touches on testimony or evidence, but is far more granular – like sheets with dates and lengths of phone calls, records of text exchanges, persons on contracts, etc.
Phone records can obviously bolster a lawyer’s case that people were or were not in communication with one another.
When Dixon was on the stand, defense attorney Emil Bove tried to chip away at the importance of this data. Bove asked:
These records, there’s a lot of data here, but the data has limits?
The AT&T analyst answered in the affirmative.
16:14
The court is taking a short break.
Before the break, Jennie Tomalin was asked about call logs for former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Judge denies Trump subpoena of ex-prosecutor Mark Pomerantz’s records
16:13
Judge Juan Merchan began the day by rejecting a Trump team subpoena seeking records from Mark Pomerantz, the former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who worked on the hush-money case before resigning in frustration.
Trump’s team had sought documents from Pomerantz’s time at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and some dated after his departure.
Prosecutors asked the judge to reject the subpoena, and Merchan agreed, finding the defendant’s request for a subpoena “impermissibly broad” and “amount to an improper fishing expedition”.
16:11
Donald Trump has returned to the courtroom, papers in hand once again. He dropped them on the table, and they make a soft thwack.
16:10
After jurors left the courtroom for a short morning break, the defense team raised an issue about a prosecution exhibit.
“It’s an excerpt of an interview” with Donald Trump and Larry King in 1999 on campaign finance law, Trump attorney Emil Bove said.
Our position is that that is not relevant with respect to President Trump’s state of mind in 2016 and 2017 …There was substantive revisions to campaign finance laws… Whatever President Trump said in 1999 about campaign finance laws is not probative of his state of mind in 2016.
Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold said:
The corporate contribution ban, which is the one that’s relevant here, has been part of campaign finance law since 1907.
Judge Juan Merchan said he’d decide after the break.
15:52
Madeleine Westerhout, the former Trump White House director of Oval Office operations, also testified on Thursday about Donald Trump’s day-to-day frugality and how Rhona Graff, his assistant at the Trump Organization, once asked if he wanted to approve a roughly $6,500 annual dues payment to a golf club.
Trump’s handwritten note saying “Pay – ASAP, D” showed he paid attention to the minutiae.
Prosecutors effectively suggested to the jury it was implausible that Trump did not closely follow what 12 $35,000 checks, issued to his fixer Michael Cohen, were for.
15:41
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who is bringing this unprecedented case, has just entered the courtroom.
15:33
Madeleine Westerhout, on the witness stand yesterday, testified that Donald Trump closely scrutinized checks he signed while he was president, and that he would call Trump Organization employees if he had questions about the checks.
The testimony on Thursday could be damaging for Trump insofar as it undercut the defense argument that Trump was detached from the scheme to reimburse his then fixer, Michael Cohen, for the hush money, and was not directly aware what the checks to Cohen were for.
Under cross-examination this morning, Westerhout testified that Trump would sometimes sign checks without reviewing them while he was juggling other tasks.
Rebecca Manochio, a junior Trump Organization bookkeeper, testified on Thursday that she would sent checks Trump needed to sign not to the White House, but to Trump’s longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller at his home.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles tried to portray this as routine, asking Westerhout this morning if the arrangement for Trump to receive personal mail through Schiller was so that he could receive them “promptly”. “I can’t imagine it would have been any different [in previous administrations],” Westerhout said.
Westerhout looks at Trump as she leaves the stand
15:22
And we’re done with re-direct, Trump attorney Susan Necheles is returning to the lectern to conduct more cross of Madeleine Westerhout.
“Did you meet the prosecutor before this?” Westerhout says: “I did.”
How many times? Three. When did you last? “Wednesday morning.” Necheles asks:
Just to reiterate, President Trump was very close to his family, right?
The prosecution objected, it was sustained.
Westerhout just left the stand. As she walked out of the gallery to exit, she looked to Donald Trump and raised her eyebrows, as a sort of greeting.
15:20
The prosecutor questioning Madeleine Westerhout, Rebecca Mangold, asked whether she’d spoken to Trump attorney Susan Necheles before.
Westerhout said yes, once, two nights ago.
It’s legal for lawyers to do that, but the prosecution is trying to suggest that anything nice Westerhout might have said about Donald Trump was influenced by the defense.
Westerhout says Trump was ‘very upset’ by Stormy Daniels story
15:20
Trump attorney Susan Necheles just asked Madeleine Westerhout about her time at the White House when the Stormy Daniels story came up.
“Did you have a conversation with President Trump about that?” Uh, yes I did.
Based on your conversation, Necheles asked, “what was your impression of his reaction? Westerhout said:
That he was very upset by it.
“And why?” Necheles pressed. Westerhout says:
In my understanding he knew it would be hurtful to his family.
Necheles asked: “That was based on what was said to you?” Westerhout said:
Uhm, I don’t believe he specifically said that, but I could just tell that the whole situation was very unpleasant.
Necheles’ cross has wrapped.
15:17
Trump attorney Susan Necheles is now showing Madeleine Westerhout an invoice that she’d sent to longtime Trump assistant Rhona Graff.
In your experience, Rhona Graff was very careful about not wanting to spend President Trump’s money without his approval. Right? She wanted to check with him — it was his money, right?”
Westerhout answered in the affirmative. “He answered with one word – Pay.” Yes.
“One word, it was off his desk?” Westerhout said yes.
All of the testimony that Necheles is eliciting is to bolster the defense argument that Donald Trump was a slammed, distracted multitasker who signed things without paying attention.
Westerhout testifies that Trump signed documents and checks without reviewing them
15:15
Trump attorney Susan Necheles is asking Madeleine Westerhout about Donald Trump’s habits on signing and reviewing documents.
Westerhout answers in the affirmative when Necheles asks if Trump would sign a “tremendous amount” of items that would “take up many hours of his days”.
Necheles asks:
Would you say it was hundreds of documents a day he was signing?
Westerhout answers:
Not every day but sometimes.
Necheles asks if she would see Trump signing things without reviewing them, and Westerhout replies: “Yes.”
“Would you see him signing checks without reviewing them?” Yes.
“Would you see him signing checks when he was on the phone?” Yes.
“When he was meeting with people?” Yes.
15:10
Trump attorney Susan Necheles, on her cross, is asking about Keith Schiller, the longtime Trump bodyguard, receiving Trump’s personal mail when he got into the White House.
Necheles asks:
It was a way that items could be sent them to you and you could get them to President Trump?
Madeleine Westerhout answered in the affirmative.
Didn’t other presidents have trouble receiving important mail at The White House? Westerhout replies:
I don’t have any knowledge of what it was like in previous administrations, but I can’t imagine it would have been any different.
15:09
Trump attorney Susan Necheles is trying to suggest there were things happening in the process of mail sent to Donald Trump that would have been out of Madeleine Westerhout’s view.
Necheles asks Westerhout if she knows how Trump or his wife, Melania, got personal items. Westerhout replies in the negative.
Necheles, through cross, elicited testimony that getting important mail to Trump and Melania at the White House got held up in moving through various layers.
“President Trump told you that friends of his felt he was being disrespectful of them?” Necheles asked.
Wasn’t that a problem, getting mail to President Trump through the White House?
Westerhout responds: “Yes.”
President Trump liked to return calls promptly, you testified yesterday.
“Yes.”
And you testified yesterday that President Trump thought it was disrespectful not to return calls promptly?
Westerhout responds in the affirmative.
Was this the same mail issue with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka? Westerhout said she didn’t have direct knowledge but, “probably.”
15:04Maya Yang
As Madeleine Westerhout is testifying on the stand, Donald Trump can be seen scowling and looking annoyed.
It also looks as if he closed his eyes for a bit and seemed to be dozing off for a few minutes.
15:02
Trump attorney Susan Necheles then tried to use Donald Trump’s request for news clippings, and the fact that he or his underlings sent them any or all of the contacts on his list, to suggest that correspondence with former Trump Organization CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was not indicative of wrongdoing.
“That was something that President Trump did a lot … sending newspaper clippings?” Necheles asked.
You saw him probably do this thousands of times?
Madeleine Westerhout said “yes.”
So, once he sent one to Allen Weisselberg, right?
Again, Westerhout answered in the affirmative.
15:00
Trump attorney Susan Necheles asks Madeleine Westerhout about a list of contacts that Donald Trump’s former longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, had furnished to her.
She’s now showing an email to Graff from January 2017, asking for a newspaper clipping. Necheles shows the clipping in question: It’s a New York Times front page with a photo of Trump saluting military members en route to Air Force One.
Westerhout said:
It’s a picture of the president boarding Air Force One for the first time.
“He was proud?” Necheles asked. Westerhout said:
He was proud, yeah.
It was an exciting moment, Trump boarding Air Force One for the first time? Westerhout answered in the affirmative.
14:55
Juan Merchan castigated Donald Trump’s lawyers on Thursday and denied their second request for a mistrial this week.
The judge indicated that the former president’s lawyers were to blame for allowing Stormy Daniels to describe lurid details about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, including testimony that Daniels nearly blacked out and that Trump did not wear a condom.
Trump’s attorneys have now twice used the testimony to request a mistrial, saying it biases the jury and is irrelevant to whether Trump committed the felony of falsifying business records. “It’s a dog-whistle for rape,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said on Thursday.
But Merchan said Blanche and Trump’s legal team had invited the salacious details to be made public in the case. In his opening statement, Blanche had said the sexual affair never happened, effectively asking the jury to believe either Trump or Daniels, Merchan said. The details Daniels could offer, Merchan said, spoke to the credibility. Merchan said:
Your denial puts the jury in a position of having to choose who they believe: Donald Trump, who denies there was an encounter, or Stormy Daniels, who says that there was … These details add a sense of credibility if the jury chooses to believe them.
Merchan also criticized Trump attorney Susan Necheles for not objecting when Daniels was asked whether Trump used a condom.
Why on earth she wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom, I don’t understand.
14:54
Juan Merchan also declined on Thursday to modify a gag order that prohibits Donald Trump from attacking witnesses, including Stormy Daniels, and jurors.
Trump attorney Todd Blanche said it was unfair that Trump was not going to be given a chance to respond to attacks against him. Blanche said:
As we’ve said repeatedly, he needs an opportunity to respond to the American people.
But the judge denied that request, saying that even if he lifted the gag order with respect to Daniels, who has now finished testifying, he was concerned about the message it would send to other witnesses.
“Other witnesses, including not only Michael Cohen, will see your client doing whatever it is he intends to do,” he said.
The reason the gag order is in place to begin with is precisely because of the nature of these attacks. The nature, the vitriol … your client’s track record speaks for itself here.
Trump enters courtroom
14:53
Donald Trump arrived to the courtroom for his hush-money criminal trial about 9.30am ET on Friday, with apparent frustration, after sitting through two days of testimony from adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who provided a salacious account of an alleged sexual liaison with him some 20 years ago.
He carried a thin stack of papers in his hand and, after getting to the defense table, dropped them on to the table, so that they landed with a clack that reverberated into the gallery.
14:53
A new pool report suggests that Donald Trump’s demeanor is a bit sour.
Trump walked into the hallway outside Juan Merchan’s courtroom at 9.22am and spoke for six minutes. He stood next to defense lawyer Todd Blanche, with the rest of his lawyers hanging back down the hall, per a pool report.
Trump ignored questions about whether he’d take up Stormy Daniels on her challenge to take the stand.
And, once again, Trump played the victim, complaining about a gag order that bars him from commenting about witnesses. “Certain words I’m not allowed to read,” Trump said, reading from news articles, the pool report said.
“If I put one wrong word in, they’re gonna put me on jail,” Trump said, reading from a Byron York piece.
“They don’t like it when I talk during the day because they don’t want me talking at all,” he claimed, also saying Thursday was “incredible” and that the proceedings were “so horrible”. He reportedly also said:
I’ll go now sit in that freezing courtroom for eight or nine hours and think about being on the campaign all day.
14:53
Trump attorney Susan Necheles asks Madeleine Westerhout if the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Trump’s campaign were “basically one unit”. Westerhout says “yes.”
Necheles asks:
Am I correct that everyday, the RNC and the campaign would jointly create a travel schedule, a document that was a travel schedule?
Westerhout responds:
Whenever the president-elect was traveling, yes.
14:52
Madeleine Westerhout was working at the Republican National Committee (RNC) when Donald Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape leaked right before the 2016 presidential election.
Westerhout, who went on to serve as Trump’s personal secretary, told jurors on Thursday that the release of the Access Hollywood tape rattled RNC leadership so much that “there were conversations about how it would be possible to replace him as the candidate, if it came to that”.
Former White House aide Madeleine Westerhout back on the stand
14:40
The jury is seated. The trial resumes with continued testimony from Madeleine Westerhout.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles is asking Westerhout about the RNC and Trump campaign’s work together.
14:07
Donald Trump’s motorcade has arrived at the Manhattan courthouse.
Court proceedings are scheduled to begin at about 9.30am ET.
Michael Cohen testimony could begin Monday, reports say
14:01Fran Lawther
Michael Cohen is expected to begin testifying in the hush-money trial on Monday, according to NBC News reports.
Cohen was once a lawyer for Trump and one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants and enforcers. He facilitated the payment to Daniels, funnelling the $130,000 to her through a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC. Trump later arranged to pay him back in monthly payment installments of $35,000.
13:57Fran Lawther
One of the things that emerged from yesterday’s court session was a list of Trump’s most famous contacts after it was shown to the jury.
Politico reports that some surprising names on that list included Serena Williams, who joined an event at the Trump National Golf Club in 2015, two months before Trump declared he was running for president. Former star NFL quarterback Tom Brady was also on the list.
The ex-president’s contact list was revealed when his former personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout told the court about reaching out to another Trump assistant, Rhona Graff, for an up-to-date version.
The contacts were shown to the jury as Westerhout explained how she used it, according to Politico.
13:55Fran Lawther
Stormy Daniels took a swipe at Trump on social media after finishing her testimony yesterday.
Hours after leaving the stand, the adult film star wrote on X:
Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh…wait. Nevermind.
Hush-money trial to resume after Stormy Daniels’ detailed testimony
13:46
Good morning,
Donald Trump is set to return to the Manhattan courthouse today as the fourth week of his hush money criminal trial comes to an end.
This week, jurors saw adult film star Stormy Daniels take the stand as she divulged details on her sexual affair with Trump. In response, Trump’s lawyers attempted to discredit her over her motivations of agreeing to a hush money payment. On Thursday, Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles pointedly asked Daniels, “You wanted money, right?” In response, Daniels said, “I wanted the truth to come out.”
Trump’s former personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, was also called to the witness stand. Westerhout, who was Trump’s personal secretary from 2017 to 2019, testified that the Republican National Committee was rattled by the Access Hollywood tape and that there were “conversations” about replacing Trump as a presidential candidate.
Other developments in court this week include Juan Merchan’s denial on Thursday of Trump’s request to modify a gag order to allow the former president to respond to Daniels. “My concern is not just with protecting Ms Daniels or a witness who has already testified. My concern is with protecting the integrity of these proceedings as a whole,” Merchan said.
Stay tuned as we bring you today’s latest updates.
13:45
With Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial underway, Eric Adams remains reassured that Rikers Island jail stands “ready” to receive the former president, if he is found guilty.
Speaking to reporters earlier this week, the New York City mayor, a moderate Democrat, said:
“You know, in this business, particularly around law enforcement, we have to adjust whatever comes our way, but you know, we don’t want to deal with a hypothetical…
But they’re professionals. They’ll be ready.”
For Adams’ full remarks, click here:
13:44
Here are some images of the Manhattan courthouse from the newswires this week:
Analysis: Trump’s strategy to delay cases before the election is working
13:37Sam Levine
Despite some dismal days spent in the courtroom, Donald Trump earned two significant legal victories this week with separate decisions that make it all but certain two of the pending criminal trials against him will take place after the 2024 election.
As had been expected for months, Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday scrapped a 20 May trial date that had been set in south Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents. The delay was almost entirely the doing of Cannon, a Trump appointee, who allowed far-fetched legal arguments into the case and let preliminary legal matters pile up on her docket to the point where a May trial was not a possibility.
Key takeaways from yesterday’s testimony
13:03Hugo Lowell
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Thursday sought to discredit and undermine testimony from Stormy Daniels, who gave combative testimony about her alleged sexual encounter with the former president and the $130,000 hush-money payment at the heart of the criminal case.
Here are three major takeaways from the day:
Daniels’s story remains mostly consistent and intact
Trump’s former personal assistant confirms he scrutinized finances
Judge again denies Trump mistrial motion
12:03
Here is a reminder of the key players by the Guardian’s Sam Levine:
Donald Trump, defendant: The Republican nominee for president is the defendant in the case. Prosecutors allege that he orchestrated a $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels when she threatened to go public with allegations of an affair on the eve of the 2016 election, and then conspired with others to cover up the payment.
David Pecker, key witness: Pecker was a key Trump ally who served as the CEO of American Media Inc (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker helped Trump by purchasing the rights to potentially damaging stories and then never publishing them, a practice known as “catch and kill”.
Stormy Daniels, key witness: Daniels, an adult film star, says she met Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament. Daniels was 27 at the time and Trump was 60 and Daniels has always said the sex was consensual. Just before the 2016 election, Daniels said she was approached by Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer at the time, and offered $130,000 not to disclose the alleged affair.
Michael Cohen, key witness: Cohen was once a lawyer for Trump and one of the former president’s most loyal lieutenants and enforcers. He facilitated the payment to Daniels, funnelling the $130,000 to her through a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC. Trump later arranged to pay him back in monthly payment installments of $35,000.
For other key figures, click here: