Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty

[Bullneck 18744]

BONE CRUSHING.  

[Slacks 6712]

5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

They literally paid her to shut up nearing an impending election.  That's of material value to the campaign, and well above allowable limits.  How is that not a violation?

I didn't have the law in front of me, but I bet proving the intent to subvert / interfere with the election is not easy.

[atomheartbevo 89015]

3 hours ago, Born to Run said:

It's crazy all the career ending shit that Trump just stumbles through and it's considered NBD. Gary Hart, Howard Dean, Al Fraken, comedian, with an I'll advised tittie honk. Toast; career over. Trump- polls improve . Nutso.

it’s really fucking nuts when you think about what Gary Hart did on the Monkey Business.

[locodos 5247]

9 hours ago, Born to Run said:

It's crazy all the career ending shit that Trump just stumbles through and it's considered NBD. Gary Hart, Howard Dean, Al Fraken, comedian, with an I'll advised tittie honk. Toast; career over. Trump- polls improve . Nutso.

I read something about that guy somewhere...

Spoiler

RIP  Compleat Angler 

also nsfw

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 30 by locodos

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

Good morning from the Manhattan courthouse where the third week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, and the second week of testimony, is set to begin in less than an hour. Today’s first witness will be Gary Farro, a banker who worked with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, as Cohen initiated the series of transactions that would result in a hush money payment to a porn star just weeks before Election Day in 2016. Farro began testifying on Friday.

 

There are more pro-Trump protesters outside the courthouse than we’ve seen so far, a few dozen or so. But it’s still a relatively small gathering.

 

Several dozen raucous Trump supporters gathered in Collect Pond Park across the street from the courthouse, wearing red hats and waving big flags. They cheered for a small procession of vehicles flying Trump flags, led by a large pickup truck with a decal of a bound President Biden on the back gate. But the arrival of Trump’s motorcade just before 9 a.m., blocked from view by N.Y.P.D. vehicles, elicited no reaction.

 

The paralegals for the prosecution have arrived, wheeling their cartful of exhibits. It feels tense in here this morning, the start of a new week. Three sketch artists are arrayed on the bench in front of me, preparing the backdrops of their drawings now, before the main characters arrive.

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[Shut up Lou Holtz 1981]

4 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Good morning from the Manhattan courthouse where the third week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, and the second week of testimony, is set to begin in less than an hour. Today’s first witness will be Gary Farro, a banker who worked with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, as Cohen initiated the series of transactions that would result in a hush money payment to a porn star just weeks before Election Day in 2016. Farro began testifying on Friday.

 

There are more pro-Trump protesters outside the courthouse than we’ve seen so far, a few dozen or so. But it’s still a relatively small gathering.

So those protesters are ok, it’s the students and brown people that aren’t? Trying to understand conservative protesting rules 

[AnTiM 1634]

Let's just wait until a few heavily armed people show up determined to stop the trial and shoot a few dozen bystanders, cops, and legal staff.  Then maybe we can decide how to handle it...not!

[RomaVicta 29574]

10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

A good piece on Pecker's final day of testimony and an opinion that "standard operating procedure" is too sleazy to work on the jury. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/standard-operating-procedure-sure-seems-criminally-sleazy

Also contains something I think was missing from the day-by-day narrative posted by Francisco:  

All of which is why AMI consulted with an election law attorney before the McDougal agreement was finalized, Pecker explains. 

But as far as Pecker knows, the election law attorney only reviewed the plain text of McDougal’s contract, which didn’t mention anything about Pecker’s arrangement with Trump and Cohen or his expectation that he would be reimbursed for buying McDougal’s story.

Kaboom.

Also, a good piece, citing to Jack Balkin's (a real, live crit, by the way, meaning CLS scholar) and Steve Vladeck's blogs. on why the reportage of the immunity argument at SCOTUS was hysterical and catastrophizing.  https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/catastrophizing-the-oral-argument-in-trump-v.-u.s

The lawfare piece is very good. Thanks.

[Chad Fuck 17307]

So those protesters are ok, it’s the students and brown people that aren’t? Trying to understand conservative protesting rules 

Free speech is a-ok as long as it’s speech they agree with.

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

Gary Farro, the banker who testified Friday and is continuing today, is back on the stand. Farro is testifying about Michael Cohen’s efforts to set up a financial account that was used to pay Stormy Daniels. The jurors have just been let in.

 

Juan Merchan, the judge, begins by saying Trump can have May 17 to attend the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron. Trump had complained about not immediately being given permission. “I don’t think the May 17 date is a problem,” the judge says.

 

Trump had been upset about potentially missing the graduation, and had attacked the judge in the hallway after Justice Merchan put off a decision about it.

 

The judge had said from the beginning that Trump could attend the graduation ceremony if he felt the trial was moving ahead quickly. Clearly, he feels the trial is on schedule.

 

Justice Merchan says he has reached a ruling on whether Trump violated the gag order. We don’t know what it is yet.

 

The judge says the people have met their burden of proof on some violations and fines Trump $2,000 to begin with. There are more fines coming.

Justice Juan M. Merchan cruised over that quickly, but what just happened should not be overlooked. Trump has been found in contempt and fined what seems to be at least $5,000. The way it was presented was very hard to follow so we’ll confirm the number as soon as we can.

 

 

Trump has arrived in court, with a much larger entourage than usual in tow, including his son Eric, the first family member to join him during this trial.

 

Trump is also joined by Susie Wiles, his top campaign adviser, and Dan Scavino, his longtime aide. Trump is now whispering to his son Eric.

 

This is the first time we’ve seen such a group of supportive people around Trump, and it adds to the tension in the room. Trump is whispering to his lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, while sitting at the defense table.

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[South Austin 51633]

Just now, Francisco 2.0 said:

The judge says the people have met their burden of proof on some violations and fines Trump $2,000 to begin with. There are more fines coming.

That'll teach him.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11536]

Still though it is awesome.  Trump will seethe.  

[4th&Five 41184]

He still won’t go to the graduation. 

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

During the break, the lawyers have continued to discuss the case with the judge. Now, a prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, rises and says that if Trump testifies, the prosecution would seek to cross-examine him about the judge’s ruling on the gag order. This issue will be argued at length sometime later — and possibly not even today — but Colangelo raises it now.

And we are on a break. The jurors are excused.

After briefly consulting with his defense team and leaning down to whisper to Trump, Todd Blanche asked Gary Farro directly if he ever had any communications with Michael Cohen about Trump and if he ever spoke with Trump himself. Farro said no.

 

We are done with Gary Farro and he steps down from the witness stand.

Todd Blanche has finished his cross-examination of Gary Farro, and Rebecca Mangold, a prosecutor, has returned for re-direct questioning.

And Blanche is back up for a quick re-cross-examination.

 

Todd Blanche has seemed most comfortable when attacking Michael Cohen. That was true of his opening statement, and it’s true here, too. It was really interesting to see the way he redirected Farro’s irritation toward Cohen. Now Farro himself seems a bit calmer, almost as if he understands it’s not his credibility the defense is challenging; it’s Cohen’s.

Todd Blanche offers up a term that's new to me: “PEP,” or “politically exposed person.”

Jurors are hearing a lot of bank lingo today. Todd Blanche isn’t asking Gary Farro to spelling out all the acronyms he is using.

 

Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, has now hit upon a clever line of questioning, harnessing Gary Farro’s irritation to the defense’s advantage. The lawyer suggests that Farro opened up a shell corporation, and Farro bites back: “I dont open up shell corporations. I open up L.L.C. accounts.” Blanche is directing jurors' focus to what Michael Cohen did -- that is, effectively start a shell corporation that was used to pay Stormy Daniels. This is a savvy way to attack Cohen through Farro, making the former fixer sound deceptive and potentially criminal.

One thing to underscore for readers: it is impossible to discern or know how the jurors are interpreting what they’ve heard in testimony over the last two weeks.

Trump nodded along affirmatively to this line of questioning.

Todd Blanche’s cross-examination of Gary Farro is a bit difficult to follow, as he tries to cast doubt on Michael Cohen but gets stuck in the weeds of the financial documents about which Farro testified. Other than casting doubt on Cohen here, it’s not always clear what Blanche is trying to accomplish. But he seems to have succeeded in irritating Farro, who is a bit punchy on the witness stand.

 

Blanche is now trying to separate Cohen's actions from Trump's, arguing that the account was never established as related to Trump. We are in many ways seeing the crux of the defense's argument laid out here: that Cohen was freelancing.

Eric Trump, in the courtroom today, is sitting directly behind his father (who has been listening to much of this morning’s testimony with his eyes closed). He has been following along, in part, by watching monitors in the room, which display some of the documents in the case.

 

Todd Blanche, in what I expect may be a short cross-examination, is trying to do a couple of different things -- both cast some doubt on Gary Farro’s testimony and use him to criticize Michael Cohen. He asks Farro to say again that Cohen was a “difficult client.” Farro agrees that he was.

In his cross-examination, Todd Blanche seems to be trying to plant in the jurors’ minds that Michael Cohen was a volatile, unreliable client, unworthy of the bank’s business.

 

Trump shook his head pointedly when the banker Gary Farro talked about a meeting with prosecutors he had in Washington ahead of his testimony today.

Gary Farro has been seemingly unfazed during his time on the stand, and even occasionally funny. For example, when Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, asked him about speaking with “the people,” i.e. the prosecutors, Farro said he didn't know what that term meant. The “people” at the prosecutors’ table smiled.

Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, will now cross-examine Gary Farro. It’s Blanche’s first cross-examination during this trial.

This is the first time we’ve seen Blanche speak since the hearing last week in which he sought to argue that Trump had not violated the judge’s gag order. Blanche lost that hearing, and though he got a small victory in the judge’s warning to potential witnesses, he ultimately failed: Trump was held in contempt.

 

Rebecca Mangold, one of the prosecutors, is walking the banker Gary Farro through a wire transfer that occurred immediately after Essential Consultants L.L.C. was created. The documents being displayed in court show that on Oct. 27, 2016, Michael Cohen and the L.L.C. wired $130,000 to Keith Davidson, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer at the time. Cohen wrote that the purpose of the wire transfer was for a “retainer.”

Farro’s testimony is a great reminder that moving money around always leaves an electronic footprint. There are wire transfers and so much other paperwork inside the bank. Doesn’t always stop a fraud from happening but sure comes in handy after the fact.

Michael Cohen set up Essential Consultants L.L.C. to pay Stormy Daniels, but after Trump became president he repurposed the company to trade on his purported access. He received hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees through the L.L.C. from clients including AT&T, Korea Aerospace, and Columbus Nova, an investment company run by the American cousin of a Russian oligarch. These transactions eventually caught the attention of federal investigators working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Most of these clients ultimately concluded Cohen couldn’t deliver the access to Trump he had promised.

 

Gary Farro’s testimony may be dry but it’s important. The government has to convince the jury that false financial entries were made in furtherance of another crime. Farro is walking the jury through some of that now.

We are now looking at an email from a First Republic banker to Michael Cohen, flagged as “high importance,” confirming his request to transfer $131,000 from his home equity line of credit account to the Essential Consultants L.L.C. account.

 

First Republic Bank did not do business with the porn industry, as Farro testified last week. If the paperwork Cohen submitted had made allusions to its actual purpose, “there would be a determination made by the second and third line of defense” at the bank. The payment would have been flagged by bank auditors, as “it is an industry that we do not work with,” said Farro.

Gary Farro, Michael Cohen’s former banker, is testifying. It's quite dry — he is talking about LLCs and know-your-client forms. The government lawyer questioning him has asked him to spell out what LLCs, limited liability companies, are. Know-your-client forms are used by banks to verify who a client is. 

“Everything was urgent with Michael Cohen,” Gary Farro testifies about Cohen’s interest in opening his account quickly. Cohen used the account to make the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.

This testimony from Farro is exceedingly dry. But he is establishing the subterfuge used by Cohen to set up this account, and noting that he did not make it clear that it would be used to pay a porn star.

 

Justice Merchan wrote that he was “keenly aware of, and protective of, Defendant’s First Amendment rights.” But nonetheless, he wrote that he would not tolerate continued violations of his orders and that if necessary and appropriate, he would “impose an incarceratory sentence.” In plain language, he is warning Trump that he will send him to jail if necessary.

 

It was very clear that Justice Merchan did not want to make a scene in court, and he breezed over his order so quickly that it was hard to tell just how much Trump had been fined. I did not hear him say that the former president had been held in contempt — though he was. But we zipped right over it and got back to the trial proper.

One note in the judge’s order that would be easy to miss pertains to witnesses using the gag order “as a sword instead of a shield.” This appears to be a reference mostly to Michael D. Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, who has attacked Trump online just as Trump has attacked him. The judge seems to be suggesting that, if necessary, he might consider adjusting the gag order to loosen restrictions on attacking Cohen if Cohen keeps up his own attacks.

Of note — Justice Merchan explicitly called Trump’s claim that reposts don’t count as violations of the gag order “counterintuitive and absurd.”

Justice Merchan rejected the defense’s claims that Trump had merely reposted the messages from others and that he had largely been acting in response to political attacks from two potential witnesses in the case: Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

In addition to fining Trump after finding him in contempt, Justice Merchan ordered him to remove the offending Truth Social posts today.

 

 

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[Jatrain 285]

9 hours ago, Slacks said:

I didn't have the law in front of me, but I bet proving the intent to subvert / interfere with the election is not easy.

Jesus Fucking Christ.  Just try to keep up a little man. 

[pacman 7238]

16 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

He still won’t go to the graduation. 

It will be a good day for golfing.

[Red Five 40357]

It’s going to be hilarious when he doesn’t go to that.

[locodos 5247]

Just now, Red Five said:

It’s going to be hilarious when he doesn’t go to that.

Judge called his bluff.  Nobody is madder about this than Trump, except possibly Barron. (what a fucking stupid name)

[TexArcher 37096]

13 hours ago, TheRealRonWeaver? said:

There’s a “smart one?”

Tallest guy at the midget convention.

[chainsaw 9656]

https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/D.O.motion4contempt-FINAL.pdf

[South Austin 51633]

$50 says he turns Baron's graduation into a fundraiser.

[The Dog 43408]

3 minutes ago, South Austin said:

$50 says he turns Baron's graduation into a fundraiser.

or go do a campaign stop and say he can't go the graduation because of the court case and needs to campaign instead.

[Native Horn 3465]

2 minutes ago, The Dog said:

or go do a campaign stop and say he can't go the graduation because of the court case and needs to campaign instead play golf.

Fixie

[The Dog 43408]

probably nothing yet, but an interesting point.

[wildcat09 28540]

It's always weird when Snacks pops in like once a year to explain why he thinks Trump can't he held accountable. I remember him arguing that convicting Trump following his second impeachment was unconstitutional, just based on his own vibes or something. 

[27-25 2030]

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Juan Merchan, the judge, begins by saying Trump can have May 17 to attend the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron. Trump had complained about not immediately being given permission. “I don’t think the May 17 date is a problem,” the judge says.

Oh great.  Now Trump HAS to go to Barron's graduation ceremony instead of playing golf.  That might be more punitive than the fines.

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

New witness:  Dr. Robert Browning

 

 

The third video shows Trump at a news conference in 2017 during the presidential transition, saying, “Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer, he’s a good lawyer.”

 

Next up in evidence is video of a campaign event Trump did in Gettysburg, Pa., in October 2016. He blasts media outlets and says, “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign.” He later vows to sue, saying "the events never happened, never."

 

Recall that Justice Merchan precluded the prosecution from introducing direct evidence that many women, near the end of the 2016 campaign, accused Trump of sexual assault. They seem to be getting some flavor of that evidence into the trial, however, with these videos of Trump attacking the women on the campaign trail.

That was quite a contrast — the witness, Robert Browning, answering incredibly dry questions involving exhibit numbers and an explanation of what C-SPAN is, followed by Trump, years ago, attacking women who had accused him of assault.

 

Prosecutors are now playing C-SPAN clips, starting with one from a Trump campaign rally in North Carolina in October 2016, where he talks about two women who said Trump touched them inappropriately. “I have no idea who these women are,” Trump said at the time. “These are lies being pushed by the media and the Clinton campaign to try and keep their grip on our country. They’re all false, totally invented, fiction.”

You can hear a pin drop in the courtroom as this video is playing.

It is interesting to note that this is the first time that the jury is hearing Donald Trump’s voice in the courtroom being broadcast through this video. Certainly they’ve heard it before this trial, but he has not had any opportunity to speak in their presence in the courtroom

Trump seems to be watching himself as the C-SPAN clip plays on the monitor in front of him. He’s spent much of the morning with his eyes closed.

This appears to be the prosecution starting to build up its narrative that the Trump campaign was increasingly concerned about its electoral vulnerabilities with women voters. That concern ultimately played a central role, prosecutors argue, in Trump's decision to quash the sexual scandal story being shopped around by Stormy Daniels.

 

 

 

In most trials, you might not get too many witnesses like Robert Browning, who is what’s called a custodial witness, or records custodian. These witnesses certify the truth of records presented at trial. But in this trial, the defense did not agree on certain facts that the prosecution sought to stipulate were true. Thus, the prosecutors need these sorts of witnesses to help the jury understand the basic truth of the episodes they want to talk about at trial.

 

This witness, Dr. Robert Browning, works for C-SPAN as an executive director of their archives. We just had the treat of listening to a trial witness explain in extremely plain language what C-SPAN is. Browning called it a “public television network that telecasts events in their entirety.”

The next witness is being called, and it’s not someone we’re familiar with. He is identified as Dr. Robert Browning. An older, balding man with a crown of silver hair is taking the stand.

 

Some laughter in the courtroom as Dr. Browning says he’s a “little bit” nervous about testifying for the first time.

The judge returned to the bench but Trump took some extra time to return to the courtroom, which is unusual in this case. Now Trump is back and Merchan has warned Todd Blanche, his lawyer: “Let’s try to keep the breaks short.”

Trump is joined by his son Eric again, although Susie Wiles and Dan Scavino, two of his aides, have not re-entered the courtroom.

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[jimmyjazz 45192]

5 minutes ago, 27-25 said:

Oh great.  Now Trump HAS to go to Barron's graduation ceremony instead of playing golf.  That might be more punitive than the fines.

Most boys would be devastated if their Dad blew off attending graduation.  In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if Barron were relieved.

[grazinhorn 472]

12 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

This witness, Dr. Robert Browning, works for C-SPAN as an executive director of their archives.

Most exhilarating job ever?

[C-Man 26697]

1 hour ago, 4th&Five said:

He still won’t go to the graduation. 

And that will be hilarious.

@Francisco 2.0, mucho gusto for posting the NYT blog entries. Remind me, though. Don't they read from the bottom up from how you're copying/pasting? I think that's how they were last week but a few seem like they could be read "normally." Again, thanks for doing God's work on this.

[BamaATL 16209]

So apparently ya'll's super clean AG Ken Paxton is there.  I'm sure on your dime.  

[The Dog 43408]

16 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Most boys would be devastated if their Dad blew off attending graduation.  In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if Barron were relieved.

"Poor Barron" is trending. 

[Shut up Lou Holtz 1981]

2 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

So apparently ya'll's super clean AG Ken Paxton is there.  I'm sure on your dime.  

Fuck that guy

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

2 minutes ago, C-Man said:

And that will be hilarious.

@Francisco 2.0, mucho gusto for posting the NYT blog entries. Remind me, though. Don't they read from the bottom up from how you're copying/pasting? I think that's how they were last week but a few seem like they could be read "normally." Again, thanks for doing God's work on this.

I do try to keep them in roughly the same order as they appear on the Times site; oldest at the bottom.  But from time to time, one of their reporters will expand on something and it throws off the timeline, so to speak.

Sometimes in my haste to copy this over, I don't always place an entry in the correct order; it might be chronologically correct, but it doesn't point back to the original post that the reporter was following up on.

 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

 

New witness:  Phillip Thompson

This witness, Phillip Thompson, works for a company that takes down transcripts and records video during civil proceedings, specifically depositions. He is relevant to this case — as another custodial witness — because his company was involved in a deposition of Trump that stemmed from one of E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits against him.

 

And now is the portion of the deposition in which Trump was asked by E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer if he was familiar with the infamous "Access Hollywood” tape. Trump confirmed in the deposition that it was him speaking on that video.

There will be no questions from the defense, again. Phillip Thompson is done.

 

Prosecutors are now playing video, and having Thompson verify the corresponding transcript, of Trump describing when he married his wife Melania (it was 2005).

 

Rebecca Mangold, one of the prosecutors, had Phillip Thompson walk through the validity of the transcript of Trump’s deposition in one of the E. Jean Carroll cases. We are now seeing video clips of Trump in that deposition verifying that Truth Social is his social media site and what his handle is.

 

Asked to describe Truth Social, Trump answers, “It’s a platform that’s been opened by me as an alternative to Twitter.”

Trump, who has largely appeared tired during some of the duller testimony this morning, seems on alert now. He has whispered to both of the lawyers sitting on either side of him.

 

 

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[4th&Five 41184]

 

[Horn Dog 9473]

1 hour ago, locodos said:

Judge called his bluff.  Nobody is madder about this than Trump, except possibly Barron. (what a fucking stupid name)

It's kinda like in GOT, where when you impregnate your whore, you give the offspring a stupid name. 

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

New witness:  Keith Davidson

 

We are breaking for lunch, almost exactly on time. Keith Davidson will continue to testify in the afternoon, and may even start talking about his other client, Stormy Daniels.

 

At the time these text exchanges were taking place, in July 2016, Trump was becoming the official Republican presidential nominee and beginning a long, hostile takeover of the party.

Just stepping back here for a moment: The gossip industrial complex that Keith Davidson is describing is remarkable — and remarkably crass. He’s out there leveraging his client’s sexual liaisons for money and employment opportunities in a way that resembles a Mafia shakedown.

 

We are looking at records showing that Keith Davidson sent a text to Dylan Howard where he said, “Don’t forget about Cohen. Time is of the essence. The girl is being cornered by the estrogen mafia.” Davidson addresses this term in court, calling it an “a very unfortunate regrettable text,” and adding that he thinks it was a term that Karen McDougal’s associates used during the first meeting. He continued that several women were leaning on  McDougal to sign a deal with ABC.

Prosecutors are having Keith Davidson corroborate David Pecker’s testimony from last week about the catch-and-kill deal reached with Karen McDougal. This allows jurors to see that deal from two different angles — like getting a peek at separate people gossiping about the same thing — and also boosts Davidson’s credibility as he gears up to talk about his other client, Stormy Daniels.

 

We are still looking at the texts between Dylan Howard, then the editor of The National Enquirer, and Keith Davidson. Davidson tells Howard , that Karen McDougal’s story “should be told” and Howard responds “I agree.” The Enquirer, as the jurors already know, had no intention of telling the story — instead it sought to bury it. So not only does this evidence remind us of David Pecker’s testimony last week, it also helps prosecutors double down on the idea that The National Enquirer was involved in a secret plot to help Trump. It’s a reasonable explanation for why Howard was lying.

Eric Trump is looking up at a screen on the lefthand wall of the court, reading the texts.

 

We are six witnesses in, and while all manner of unseemly behavior has been introduced, prosecutors have so far spent little time describing the business-records crime involved. Instead, they’ve established the bona fides of the witnesses and the elements of a conspiracy.

These text messages are remarkable to see on screen as Trump sits at the defense table looking on. Jurors already understand, from last week,  the basics of Karen McDougal’s account of an affair with Trump. But now they are seeing it corroborated with incredibly damning texts, right after they were reminded Trump was married to Melania at the time. It’s not clear how the jurors are reacting — some are watching the speakers and others are looking at their notes or their screens. But this is another big moment.

 

On a purely technical level, it’s fascinating to watch how prosecutors are stitching their case together with lots of different types of evidence. This morning there’s been live testimony from witnesses, videos of Trump campaign events, excerpts of a deposition he gave in a separate trial and text messages — all woven together to advance the prosecution’s story.

 

Prosecutors are walking Keith Davidson through his text messages with Dylan Howard, who was editor of The National Enquirer, in which Davidson tells Howard: “I have blockbuster Trump story.” In his reply, Howard asked, "did he cheat" on Melania.

 

Keith Davidson also represented Karen McDougal — she was dating a friend of his, he says, when he first met her decades ago. McDougal, as a reminder, is another woman who claimed to have an affair with Trump who his campaign tried to silence in 2016. David Pecker spoke at length about that hush-money deal, which was engineered by his publication, last week.

 

Davidson is testifying about his agreement with McDougal, a former Playboy model. Davidson was hired to negotiate a confidentiality or “life-rights” agreement related to her interactions with Trump and also negotiate press opportunities.

We just saw Davidson’s contract with McDougal. Remarkably, the arrangement consisted of an agreement to either make a claim against Trump, negotiate a confidentiality agreement with Trump, sell her life rights as related to her story of an affair with Trump, promote herself in an “exclusive” press opportunity, or some or all of the above. What a menu of options.

 

 

Trump has been sitting with his eyes closed for significant portions of testimony this morning. It is unclear how the jurors, who have to sit through this same testimony, will feel about a defendant closing their eyes so much.

Joshua Steinglass asks Keith Davidson if he knows two key witnesses: David Pecker, who the jurors already have heard from, and Michael Cohen, who they’ve heard a lot about. Steinglass is tying Davidson into the case, helping the courtroom understand where he’s situated. Davidson just said that he represented Stormy Daniels as her lawyer — Daniels, whose name has been dangled in front of jurors several times, is of course another key player and potential witness.

 

Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, asks Keith Davidson if he was given immunity from prosecution in this case. Davidson says, despite not having wanted to be here, that he did not seek immunity. This is a way for prosecutors to show that he is not simply cooperating to avoid prosecution himself.

Given the unseemliness surrounding so much of this case, prosecutors have to work hard to show that witnesses don’t have ulterior motives for helping them.

 

The rhythms of trials can be unpredictable and the sequencing today illustrates that pretty nicely. Last week, our first witness, David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, testified over the course of four days, and on Friday, we suddenly got witnesses two and three. Today, we’ve already seen three more witnesses.

 

Keith Davidson is now explaining for the jurors what a non-disclosure agreement is. Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyer, had sought to paint such agreements as routine.

 

Prosecutors call Keith Davidson, who was a lawyer to Stormy Daniels during the hush-money transaction, to the stand.

 

Keith Davidson is the first witness since David Pecker finished last week who we expect to be questioned for a significant portion of time. He will likely speak about the hush-money deal between Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels. This is a key moment for the prosecution and Joshua Steinglass, their lead, is back running the show.

 

 

The next witness in the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump is Keith Davidson, a lawyer who negotiated two deals before the 2016 election that paid women from Mr. Trump’s past in exchange for their silence about sexual or romantic relationships with him.

Mr. Davidson, who practiced in Beverly Hills, Calif., represented Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who was paid $150,000 by The National Enquirer’s parent company for the rights to her story about a 10-month affair with Mr. Trump starting in 2006.

He also represented Stormy Daniels, a former porn star who was paid $130,000 by Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, to remain silent about her account of having sex with Mr. Trump, also in 2006. Mr. Davidson drafted the hush-money agreement that used the pseudonyms “Peggy Peterson” for Ms. Daniels and “David Dennison” for Mr. Trump.

The payments for both women were initially wired to Mr. Davidson, who no longer represents either Ms. Daniels or Ms. McDougal.

Mr. Trump is charged with falsifying records at his company to disguise his repayment of the hush money to Mr. Cohen as legal fees. He has denied wrongdoing, and said he did not have sex with Ms. Daniels or an affair with Ms. McDougal.

Mr. Davidson could be a useful witness to the Manhattan district attorney’s office because he was directly involved in both deals, which prosecutors have cast as the products of a conspiracy to suppress negative news about Mr. Trump before the 2016 election.

In court, a prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, read a text that Mr. Davidson wrote to the former editor of The Enquirer, Dylan Howard, on election night as it became clear Mr. Trump would win.

“What have we done?” Mr. Davidson wrote, according to Mr. Colangelo.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are likely to try to discredit Mr. Davidson, whom the former Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified last week was a “major source” of information for Mr. Howard. The lawyer, Emil Bove, also mentioned that Mr. Davidson had a prior relationship with Mr. Cohen, suggesting he may try to convince jurors that Mr. Davidson, Mr. Howard and Mr. Cohen were pursuing their own agenda, not protecting Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump has also said the deal with Ms. Daniels was “extortion,” and it is possible that his lawyers will make a similar suggestion when questioning Mr. Davidson.

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[tx ind 6897]

40 minutes ago, BamaATL said:

So apparently ya'll's super clean AG Ken Paxton is there.  I'm sure on your dime.  

Is he taking a page from Trump and watching with his eye closed?

[Gatorubet 29665]

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

It's always weird when Snacks pops in like once a year to explain why he thinks Trump can't he held accountable. I remember him arguing that convicting Trump following his second impeachment was unconstitutional, just based on his own vibes or something. 

I do know that Trump‘s goofy lawyers were arguing that you cannot bring a criminal charge against a president unless he is first impeached and successfully convicted for the same events.

 If Snacks was selling that spin he likely heard it on Fox News or somewhere like that.  24/7 on Fox News they are saying that paying off Stormy is not a crime and not election interference - the granular legal explanation being  - it’s Trump - so he did nothing wrong.    if you do not listen to the libtard fake news sources you never really have a clue what is going on in the country or the world.  which is why the country is failing.

Edited April 30 by Gatorubet

[Shut up Lou Holtz 1981]

2 minutes ago, tx ind said:

Is he taking a page from Trump and watching with his eye closed?

This is solid!

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11536]

25 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

In court, a prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, read a text that Mr. Davidson wrote to the former editor of The Enquirer, Dylan Howard, on election night as it became clear Mr. Trump would win.

“What have we done?” Mr. Davidson wrote, according to Mr. Colangelo.

Lol

[jw4381 3044]

All this talk about Barron makes me think Melania has taken her Soviet style honeypottin to a whole nother level. Par for this simulation, I must say. 

[BamaATL 16209]

20 minutes ago, jw4381 said:

All this talk about Barron makes me think Melania has taken her Soviet style honeypottin to a whole nother level. Par for this simulation, I must say. 

It would be amazing if it came out that she was a sparrow, but alas, she's just a run of the mill whore.  

[Blotto 23286]

15 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Holy fuck! It doesn’t? What in the fuck does if that doesn’t?

I can’t believe anyone would say what you just said.

There's like 75 million people in this country wearing a red hat that would absolutely agree with Snacks on that one. 

[Sawbonz 26871]

Y'all are surprised that a black man in America is skeptical that a rich white man is going to face any real consequences for his behavior?

[Brisketexan 103602]

6 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Y'all are surprised that a black man in America is skeptical that a rich white man is going to face any real consequences for his behavior?

Bingo.  Snacks is a regular attendee at the Church of Ain't Nothin' Gonna Happen.  I would know, we share a pew.  

[Dnaguy 11592]

1 hour ago, tx ind said:

Is he taking a page from Trump and watching with his eye closed?

 

1 hour ago, Shut up Lou Holtz said:

This is solid!

I can't take credit for this as I believe it's been posted before, but......

[Francisco 2.0 32176]

Keith Davidson still is the witness

As we prepare to take a short afternoon break, Keith Davidson provides one last telling quote about Michael Cohen’s finagling of the Stormy Daniels story: “I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after the election,” Davidson says. This drives home, again, prosecutors’ stated motivation for the hush-money payment: to silence Stormy and smooth Trump’s road to the White House.

Trump is slumped back in his chair after Davidson is led off the stand.

 

Joshua Steinglass gets Keith Davidson to recount how Michael Cohen told him “my guy” was in several different states, on the campaign trail, and that Cohen could not make decisions in his absence. Davidson says it meant to him that “Michael Cohen didn’t have the authority to actually spend money.”

Steinglass has made a habit of getting witnesses to explain who these coded references are describing. In this case, “my guy,” in another, “the boss.” It’s always Trump. But Steinglass emphasizing that point reinforces the notion that Trump is the hidden hand operating Cohen on the chessboard. It’s a refrain that may stick with the jury.

Keith Davidson is now reading an expletive-laden email from Cohen, and seems pained to be cursing this much.

 

The prosecution brings up an email in which Keith Davidson told Michael Cohen that unless he paid the $130,000 by the end of the day — he was already past deadline — Stormy Daniels would consider the hush-money deal canceled. Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, makes a point of getting Davidson to confirm that he sent the email to Michael Cohen’s Trump Organization email address — another way of reinforcing for the jury that Cohen was acting as Trump’s agent.

 

So much about this case is unusual, but we’re seeing one example right now: jurors look hyper-focused as Davidson goes over the details of the hush-money deal reached with Stormy Daniels. In most criminal cases as complex as this one, some jurors might have a hard time following what exactly is important. But here, in this case which the public has been familiar with for years, the name Stormy Daniels is an immediate tip-off that the most important deal of all is under discussion.

 

Davidson is now being asked about the settlement agreement with Daniels. A lot of evidence is mounting that cuts against the idea Trump would have been unaware of all this.

Emails and text messages are repeatedly being brought up as corroborating evidence. For decades, Trump didn’t want his lawyers taking notes and didn’t use email or text himself.

 

Keith Davidson, who was Stormy Daniels’s lawyer, just explained that he used pseudonyms for Daniels and Trump in the written deal he drew up, and that Trump’s pseudonym, as has been reported, was David Dennison. Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, asks Davidson if David Dennison was a real person and Davidson responds that he was, and that they were hockey teammates. “How’s he feel about you now?” Steinglass asks. “He’s very upset,” Davidson responds to general laughter.

 

Another bruising quote directed toward Michael Cohen, as Keith Davidson talks about how no one wanted to call him about the Stormy Daniels story. “The moral of the story is that no one wanted to talk to Cohen,” Davidson says.

Prosecutors seem to be betting that jurors are not going to believe that Cohen was operating on his own, that Trump wasn’t aware of what was happening.

Davidson, asked what Cohen’s interest in the Stormy Daniels story was, says, “I believe that Michael Cohen was the personal attorney or general counsel for Donald Trump and that this story involved his client, that that was his interest in the story.”

Davidson said he ultimately finalized the Stormy Daniels deal with Michael Cohen for $130,000.

 

“It could get a lot worse.”
Prosecutors are arguing in sum that the “Access Hollywood” tape put immense pressure on the Trump campaign, which was floundering after the tape was released. Thus, they say, Michael D. Cohen was pressured to pay hush money for the Stormy Daniels story. Davidson is a perfect witness for them right now, as he is testifying that he conveyed that things were bad for Trump but — if the Daniels story was public — could get worse.

After the "Access Hollywood" tape became public, Davidson texted Dylan Howard, the editor of The National Enquirer, that Trump's campaign was doomed, using an expletive. Howard responded: “Wave the white flag. It’s over people!”

Howard, by the way, is a witness everyone would love to hear from. He is a main player in almost every twist and turn of this trial. But it doesn’t look like he will ever take the stand. David Pecker testified he had heard Howard is in Australia and can’t travel because of a spinal condition.

Keith Davidson, speaking about the deal reached with Stormy Daniels, brings up another episode that has been raised multiple times and is key to the timeline here: The “Access Hollywood” tape on which Trump described assaulting women. Davidson calls the remarks, in a euphemism, “troublesome” — and then he says they had “tremendous influence” in raising interest in Daniels’s story.

Davidson, as expected, links the “Access Hollywood” tape directly to the Trump campaign’s heightened desire to purchase Stormy Daniels’s story. It wasn’t until the tape came out, Davidson testifies, that “interest reached a crescendo” in her story.

Keith Davidson says that when he talked to Cohen, he was met with a “hostile barrage” of “insults,” “insinuations” and “allegations” and that went on for quite a while.

Trump’s lead defense counsel, Todd Blanche, looks delighted as Davidson describes Michael Cohen screaming expletives at him. Blanche laughs and smiles at Trump, who is seated next to him. (Blanche has been very focused on destroying Cohen’s credibility with the jury).

 

As I mentioned a bit earlier, Michael Cohen has been insulted by three witnesses, and jurors are not getting a complimentary portrait of him. But Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, just leaned into the witness characterizations of Cohen: Davidson referred to a “jerk” without using his name and Steinglass asked, with some humor in his tone, “Who was that jerk?” Prosecutors were expecting to elicit this testimony and Steinglass playing into it signals that they’re somewhat comfortable with it.

Prosecutors are not shying away from Cohen's behavior, questioning witnesses about his hostile or intense interactions with them.

This definitely has the feeling of the prosecution fronting negative information about Cohen so as to take the sting out of it when the defense goes after him on the stand.

 

“Mr. Davidson, do you know someone named Stormy Daniels?” Joshua Steinglass, the prosecutor, asks. Trump, keeping his eyes closed, reaches inside his suit jacket's inner pocket as Davidson describes Daniels.

 

We have had several brief mentions of Stormy Daniels, Davidson’s client, for whom he helped negotiate the hush-money deal at the heart of the case. But I would be surprised if this is not, finally, our real introduction to her, and to that $130,000 deal, which prosecutors have accused Trump of seeking to cover up once he was elected.

 

The courtroom is not small, but it is uncharacteristically warm in here today, and there’s a bit of a sense of everyone being right on top of one another, prosecution and defense team included.

Keith Davidson’s testimony about the Karen McDougal deal backs up, in granular detail, David Pecker's testimony from last week: this was a deal to not publish a story, and that is what the $150,000 was paying for, despite the other perks McDougal was offered.

 

The jury this afternoon is hearing, over and over again, that Trump was married when the hush money deal with Karen McDougal was being negotiated. The judge has not permitted much of the potential evidence that would paint Trump in the most harshly negative light. But it is really difficult — given the context of the charges and the trio of hush-money deals in question — for the witnesses to avoid making him look dishonest, if not worse. No wonder it’s so rare to see a witness make eye contact with the former president while on the stand.

Keith Davidson says that as a professional courtesy, he called Michael Cohen and let him know that Karen McDougal’s deal had closed. Davidson said that Cohen was “pleased.”

Davidson testifies that at the time of the agreement, he did not believe American Media Inc., The Enquirer's parent company, was going to publish the story, because they stated they weren’t going to.

Today’s testimony and the text messages being shared on screens here in the courtroom provide a real-time look at the sleazy negotiations that were occurring behind the scenes in early August 2016, while Trump was the Republican nominee and only a few months out from being elected. Publicly, at this time, Trump was consolidating a skeptical G.O.P. establishment behind his candidacy. Privately, his fixer, Michael Cohen, was discussing the finer points of a hush-money deal that was closing with Karen McDougal and the owner of The National Enquirer.

Trump is posed exactly as he was for much of this morning: eyes closed, leaning back in his seat.

Davidson tells a long story about dealing with Cohen for the first time in 2011. The interaction he says, was “not pleasant or constructive, and I didn’t particularly like dealing with him, and that’s why I was trying like hell to avoid talking to him.”

This is the third witness, by my count, who has conveyed that Michael Cohen could be unpleasant to deal with him. Gary Farro, Cohen’s former banker, said that he had been assigned to work with Cohen because he was known for dealing with difficult clients, while David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, made Cohen sound extremely anxious and exhausting. As the defense seeks to discredit Cohen at every turn, it is not unhelpful to them to hear so much dislike from these earlier witnesses. But the prosecution may eventually use this to draw a more complex portrait of the former fixer.

 

Keith Davidson is speaking directly to the jurors as he testifies, just like David Pecker did.

The jurors are looking back at him, quite attentively.

 

One of the things Trump likes to do is roll heavy with an entourage, as we're seeing today. It’s been striking how light his entourage was during the first two weeks of the trial, and how alone he looked at the defense table during sidebars.

Once again, nearly all of the jurors look away from Trump as they walk past the defense table, save for one who may have been looking toward the well of the court.

Court is resuming shortly. After being admonished for taking long breaks, Trump has come back in early, with his son Eric, adviser Susie Wiles, and the former Texas attorney general Ken Paxton in tow, among others.

Prosecutors are heading to their table, and Justice Merchan has returned to the bench.

Keith Davidson has been called back to the stand. The jurors are being brought in momentarily.

 

The Trump campaign has removed two posts from its campaign website that Justice Merchan determined were violations of a gag order preventing Trump from attacking potential witnesses. Both posts involved Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer.

It appears that the seven social media posts that were also found to be violations of the gag order have been deleted as well. Justice Merchan ordered the posts' removal by this afternoon.

Edited April 30 by Francisco 2.0

[Brisketexan 103602]

1 minute ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Trump has come back in early, with his son Eric, adviser Susie Wiles, and the former Texas attorney general Ken Paxton in tow, among others.

Man....that's some wishcasting there.