The trial in New York of former US President Donald Trump will resume Tuesday with the court hearing arguments over whether Trump violated a gag order prohibiting him from disparaging witnesses and key figures in the case.
Testimony is also expected to resume with David Pecker, the former editor of the popular supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, returning to the witness stand after being the first person called to testify by the prosecution.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo on Monday described what he called a “Trump Tower conspiracy” involving Pecker, Trump and Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, conspiring to prevent damaging stories about Trump from being published before the 2016 presidential election. .
“We used checkbook journalism and paid for stories,” Pecker told jurors of his time at the National Enquirer. Pecker indicated that he had the “final say” on editorial decisions and that anything over $10,000 for a story had to be approved by him.
Prosecutors allege that the tabloid paid $150,000 to model Karen McDougal, who says she had a 10-month affair with Trump, to buy the rights to her story and then did not publish it.
In opening arguments Monday, Colangelo laid out a broad plot he says Trump orchestrated to prevent voters from learning, just days before the election, about Trump’s alleged affairs with McDougal and porn star Stormy. Daniels, which Trump has denied.
Colangelo said that from the evidence he plans to present, jurors would reach “one conclusion: Donald Trump is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree,” to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 he paid to Daniels to keep her quiet.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 charges.
Trump’s defense attorney, Todd Blanche, told jurors: “President Trump is innocent. President Trump committed no crime. He is wrapped in innocence.
Blanche dismissed the prosecutor’s account as misleading and false, telling the jury: “I have a spoiler alert: There is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election.”
“It’s called democracy,” said Blanche.
Blanche told jurors that the money paid to Cohen was not to reimburse him for the $130,000 in hush money Cohen claims he paid to Daniels, but rather for legal fees owed to Cohen. Cohen has turned against his former boss and he is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ruled Monday that if Trump decides to testify at the trial, prosecutors will be able to ask him questions about his previous civil cases in which he was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
Ultimately, it will be up to Trump to decide whether to take the witness stand after listening to his lawyers’ advice.
The New York case is one of four unprecedented criminal charges Trump faces, spanning 88 counts, all of which he has denied. However, the hush money trial could be the only one that occurs before the November election.
Two of the other indictments, one state and one federal, accuse him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 loss, while the third alleges that he illegally took hundreds of highly classified national security documents to his Florida estate when his presidential term ended. , and then refused researchers’ requests to return them.
No firm trial dates have been set in any of those three cases, and Trump has sought to push back the start dates until after the November election.
With Trump required to appear in court, the hush money case will almost certainly limit his time on the campaign trail as he runs for the second time against Biden.
Altering his company’s accounting books would be a misdemeanor, but to convict Trump of a more serious crime, prosecutors will have to convince jurors that he committed an underlying crime, such as trying to influence the outcome of the election. 2016 by hiding information about the alleged issues from voters.
It is not illegal to pay hush money, and Trump can claim that the payments were made simply to prevent disclosure of personally compromising moments in his life, not to try to influence the 2016 election.
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