NEW YORK – Testimony will begin Monday morning in the hush trial of former President Donald Trump, following heated and emotional testimony from key witnesses last week.
It was not immediately clear who Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office plans to call this Monday as the 10th witness. The district attorney’s office has kept that information confidential and told New York state Judge Juan Merchán that it is concerned that Trump might post about the witnesses on social media.
Merchan found Trump in criminal contempt last week for violating a gag order barring him from making “public statements about known or reasonably probable witnesses against him.” how he could participate in this investigation or criminal enterprise. The breaches included posts about two witnesses, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels, who are at the heart of the district attorney’s case.
Merchan fined Trump $9,000, which he paid Thursday, a source with direct knowledge of the situation said.
Last week came stunning testimony from Trump’s former senior adviser Hope Hicks and Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented Daniels and Karen McDougal, women who say they had sexual encounters with Married Trump in 2006. Trump has denied her claims. Both received six-figure payments to remain silent about their claims during the 2016 presidential campaign.
McDougal, a former Playboy model, received $150,000 through National Enquirer editor David Pecker, and Cohen paid Daniels $130,000. Trump eventually paid Cohen back through payments that the district attorney said were falsely labeled as legal fees. He pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of concealing business records.
Ricardo Villarini joins us from Lower Manhattan.
Hicks, a longtime Trump supporter, broke down in tears while answering a question about her first job at Trump’s company in 2014. She testified that Trump told her he didn’t know about the payment. Cohen because it was kept secret. She said she was skeptical of that claim.
“I didn’t know that Michael was a charitable or independent person. “He’s a credit seeker,” he said. When he was questioned, she also said that he would often try to insert himself into the campaign, which worried the campaign workers. “He liked to call himself ‘fixer’ or ‘Mr. Fix it,’ and it was only because it broke first that he was able to come and fix it,” he said.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in his opening statement that Trump, Cohen and Pecker conspired in an attempt to influence the 2016 election and that Trump “covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in the He has business records in New York over and over and over.”
Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, said in his opening statement that the nondisclosure agreements are legal and that there was nothing criminal about Trump’s payments to Cohen. Regarding the conspiracy allegations, Blanche said: “I have a spoiler alert: there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.”
2024-05-06 10:44:51
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