A New York judge partially lifted a gag order on Donald Trump following his conviction on criminal charges stemming from an effort to influence the 2016 election by buying a porn star’s silence. File
| Photo Credit: AFP

A New York judge partially lifted a gag order on Donald Trump on Tuesday following the Republican presidential candidate’s conviction on criminal charges stemming from an effort to influence the 2016 election by buying a porn star’s silence. The revised order now allows Trump to speak publicly about witnesses in the case and removes a prohibition on his commenting about the jury, but keeps in place restrictions on his statements about individual prosecutors and others involved in the case.

A separate order restricting Trump or anyone else from identifying members of the anonymous jury remains in effect, according to Tuesday’s order from Justice Juan Merchan. Trump’s lawyers argued the gag order was stifling his campaign speech and said it might limit his ability to respond to attacks from Democratic President Joe Biden during their forthcoming debate on Thursday.

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said limits on Trump’s speech about trial witnesses were no longer needed. But they urged Merchan to keep in place restrictions on his comments about jurors, court staff and individual prosecutors, citing risks to their safety.

In the first criminal trial of a U.S. president, a Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of covering up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who was threatening to go public before the 2016 election with her story of a sexual encounter with Trump. Trump, elected to a four-year term that year, denies the alleged 2006 encounter and has vowed to appeal his conviction. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11, four days before his party convenes to formally nominate him to challenge Biden for president ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Merchan imposed the gag order before the trial began in April, finding that Trump’s history of threatening statements posed a risk of derailing the proceedings. The judge fined Trump $10,000 for violations of the order during the seven-week trial and warned him on May 6 that he would be jailed if he ran afoul of the order again.

In arguing some restrictions were still needed, prosecutors said Trump’s supporters had attempted to identify members of the anonymous jury and threatened violence against them. “There thus remains a critical need to protect the jurors in this case from attacks by defendant and those he inspires to action,” they wrote in a June 20 court filing.

Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove in a June 11 court filing argued that holding Trump accountable for “harassing communications” by “independent third parties” violated his right to free speech.

They said Trump’s political opponents were using the restrictions as a “political sword.” They also said Trump was unable to respond to public attacks from Cohen and Daniels, who testified on behalf of the prosecution at trial.

The order does not prevent Trump from criticizing the case or from speaking about Merchan and Bragg.

Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor and director, has never been shy in her public battles with Donald Trump.

But ever since her starring role in the New York trial that made him the first former US president to be a felon, she’s not said a word.

It’s a relationship that could come from the pages of a bad novel — the playboy billionaire who wanted to be president and the porn actress who says they had a brief fling before she was sucked into illegal machinations intended to keep her quiet during an election.

A jury of 12 ordinary New Yorkers found Trump guilty on 34 counts of business fraud while attempting to cover up a hush money payment to Daniels on the eve of the tight 2016 election — which the Republican went on to win against Hillary Clinton.

After years of exchanging insults with Trump over social media, including during his four years in the White House, Stormy Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — suddenly found she was the one with the power.

Her testimony, including graphic descriptions of what she says was a 2006 bout of casual sex, was crucial in the prosecution case, which needed to show that Trump was afraid any leak of the story would doom his campaign.

In the aftermath, though, the 45-year-old has kept uncharacteristically quiet.

Her husband Barrett Blade told CNN that “she’s still processing.”

He suggested there could be more to her silence.

“You know, all the MAGA idiots are going to be coming after her,” he said, referring to Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

In a bitterly divided country, those fears may not be far-fetched.

Daniels was wearing a bulletproof vest when she went to the New York courthouse, her lawyer Clark Brewster confirmed in an interview with a local ABC News channel.

“It’s so vicious and threatening and so I think from the standpoint of just the fear of what somebody might do,” he said of the atmosphere for Daniels.

“It was really fear.”

Asked if this apprehension has increased in the wake of the Trump guilty verdict, Brewster said: “That would be a logical conclusion.”

– ‘Weight on her shoulders’ –

Despite the emotional toll, Daniels feels “a little vindicated that you know, she was telling the truth,” Blade said.

He said Daniels had not sought to face Trump across the courtroom in a case brought by Manhattan prosecutors.

The end of the trial is a relief — “a big weight off her shoulders” — Blade said.

The stress, though, is hardly over.

“It brings another weight upon her shoulders of what happens next,” Blade said. “We take it day by day.”

Daniels is a self-made woman who rose from a difficult childhood and through the challenging world of adult movies to become a successful businesswoman.

But in a recent documentary, she revealed that behind her outwardly tough, humorous persona on social media, she has been hurt by the constant insults from Trump and his supporters.

“Back in 2018 that was stuff like ‘liar,’ ‘slut,’ ‘gold digger,” she said in the film, “Stormy.”

“This time around, it is very different. It is direct threats, it is, ‘I’m going to come to your house and slit your throat,’ ‘your daughter should be euthanized.'”

By contrast, the other main prosecution witness in the trial, Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, has been eagerly telling his story in the wake of the trial.

The disgraced lawyer, who testified that he was at the heart of the former president’s scheme to silence Daniels, has appeared on MSNBC and other major media.

“It was emotionally draining,” Cohen told ABC News, adding that he was glad to have gone through the ordeal.

“I want people to also remember, I take responsibility for what I did,” he said. “I accepted it and in part went to prison for it.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

In an unprecedented verdict, a New York jury on May 30 unanimously convicted Donald J. Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign. The trial, that led to the first-ever criminal conviction of a former U.S. President, could have a significant bearing on Mr. Trump’s voter support barely five months ahead of the U.S Presidential election where he seeks to recapture the White House.

The judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, set his sentencing for July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention is set to convene to formally declare Mr. Trump as the presidential nominee. The conviction on 34 Class E felonies carries a potential penalty of four years of imprisonment for each count, although the judge may also consider probation or home confinement as possible alternatives. However, the conviction will not deter him from running for president for another term in the absence of any explicit constitutional bar.

The real estate tycoon faces three other felony indictments, but the Manhatten case — often criticised by legal experts as the weakest of the four prosecutions— is undoubtedly significant since it is the only one to conclude before the November election. The other three cases — two involving accusations in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election, and a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are currently mired in delays and appeals.

Also read: Trump hush money trial LIVE updates

Reacting to the verdict, Mr. Trump said that he would be appealing the conviction while downplaying the allegations underlying the case. “It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said. Addressing reporters at the Trump Tower in New York, the former president further claimed that the trial was “rigged” and a tactic of the Democratic party to derail his electoral bid.

The felony charges

The historic trial involved charges that Mr. Trump falsified business records in an attempt to cover up payments made to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who claimed that she had a sexual liaison with the married former president in 2006. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen to buy Ms. Daniel’s silence during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race — an attempt to interfere in the elections according to the prosecution. When Mr. Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses in an “unlawful attempt” to disguise the true purpose of the transactions, the prosecution contended. However, the defense argued that they were legitimate legal retainer fees.

The trial, which featured more than four weeks of riveting testimonies, finally persuaded the 12-member jury that Mr. Trump had hatched a conspiracy with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, to buy and suppress claims that could have jeopardised his candidacy. Jury deliberations are, however, confidential and the reasoning behind the ruling will remain unclear unless any of the jurors decides to speak publicly.

The 34 counts were divided into three categories — 11 related to invoices from Mr. Cohen showing payments made to Ms. Daniels, 11 related to checks signed by Trump or using his funds to reimburse Mr. Cohen and 12 related to accounting entries documenting these reimbursements in Mr. Trump’s financial records.

Editorial | In the dock: On Donald Trump and his legal challenge

From the moment Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced charges against the real estate tycoon more than a year ago, legal analysts questioned his unconventional strategy — it is not illegal to pay hush money and the misdemeanour counts were all barred by the statute of limitations. However, Mr. Bragg contended that the case was fundamentally about an attempt to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, not merely about past sexual encounters. He argued that this constituted a crime involving the violation ofSstate election laws aimed “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.”

Prosecutors were “successful at reframing this as essentially a disinformation operation on the 2016 election, not just the coverup of an affair,” Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and a former FBI agent told Time Magazine.

The trial

A major challenge for the prosecution was to establish Mr. Cohen’s credibility — the star witness of the trial whose loyalty Mr. Trump had lost. In 2018, he had pleaded guilty to multiple crimes involving the hush-money scheme, including lying to Congress and federal investigators. During the proceedings, the defense lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury about Mr. Cohen’s previous deceitful conduct, including an instance in which he allegedly stole from Mr. Trump’s company. However, prosecutors retorted by saying that Mr. Cohen was hired “because he was willing to lie and cheat on Mr. Trump’s behalf.”

Over the last couple of months, Mr. Trump has repeatedly targeted Mr. Cohen and the jurors in the case, despite a court-issued gag order that prohibits him from making such public statements. This resulted in Judge Juan M. Merchan holding him guilty of contempt of court and even warning that he might place the former president behind bars.

In the courtroom, the jurors were presented with a recording secretly captured by Mr. Cohen in September 2016. In it, Mr. Trump could be heard discussing a hush money payment to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have had a year-long affair with him. The evidence was further bolstered by Mr. Pecker’s testimony that he had agreed to ensure that unflattering stories which could damage the Trump campaign were never made public. This included having his company buy Ms. McDougal’s silence.

Notably, Ms. Daniels herself testified, offering a detailed account of her affair with the former president which began during a celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe in 2006. In some of his most incriminating testimony, Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump and the then Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg had discussed Ms. Daniel’s payment plan in a January 2017 meeting shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration as the president. 

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Mr. Cohen told the jury in a candid confession.

Although Mr. Trump did not take the stand during the proceedings, his lawyers denied the sexual encounters and argued that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him susceptible to extortion attempts. They claimed that the hush money deals were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and his business, and not political ones.

What happens next?

With Mr. Trump set to appeal his conviction, the American electorate will be left with two distinct choices — a convicted felon or an unpopular incumbent. Although he remains highly competitive in polls, a poll from Bloomberg and Morning Consult earlier this year found that 53% of voters in key swing states would refuse to vote for the Republican if he were convicted. Concurring with this, former prosecutor and government ethics expert Melanie Sloan told Al Jazeera the conviction could “drive a wedge” between Mr. Trump and more moderate constituencies.

The sentencing, set for July 11, will be preceded by the submission of a pre-sentencing report with recommendations based on the defendant’s criminal history. Given that Mr. Trump has no prior convictions, this is likely to work in his favour.

The ruling is also unlikely to dampen his chances of contesting the presidential elections. The U.S. Constitution sets very few eligibility criteria for presidents — they must be at least 35 years old, be a “natural born” citizen and should have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. While some States prohibit felons from running for sState and local offices, these laws do not apply to federal offices.

However, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment arguably sets out another criterion — it bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding federal offices. Activists have pointed out that the then-president’s actions in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol constitute participation in an insurrection. However, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition before it can bar Mr. Trump from Colorado’s ballot.

As a convicted felon in New York but a resident of Florida, Mr. Trump’s ability to exercise his franchise depends on the sentence that is imposed on him — and when or if he completes it. Under Florida law, a person with a felony conviction from another State is ineligible to vote only “if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the State where the person was convicted.” New York is one of 23 states where people convicted of a felony can vote, even if they are on parole or probation, as long as they are not incarcerated.

“After New York goes through their process, whether President Trump can vote with a felony conviction will depend on what the State of Florida does,” Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition told The Guardian. “Our belief is that no one should be above the law or below the law when it comes to voter eligibility for people with convictions and that everyone should operate under the same set of standards,” he added.

Washington:

Republicans rallied behind former US president Donald Trump who on Thursday was convicted of a felony as a grand jury in New York found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. This made him the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

The jury found that the 77-year-old presumptive Republican presidential candidate falsified the records in a scheme to influence his 2016 presidential election through hush money payments to a porn actor, Stormy Daniels, who had said she had sex with Trump.

Cutting across internal party divisions, the Republicans rallied around Trump as the jurors unanimously reached a verdict in the hush money criminal case.

“This will backfire,” said Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy, who over the past few months has emerged as a close aide and confidant of Trump.

“The prosecutor is a politician who promised to nail Trump. The judge’s daughter is a Democrat operative who literally *raised dollars from the trial* while her father presided over it. The jury instructions said they didn’t have to agree on the crime to convict,” he said.

The prosecutor is a politician who promised to nail Trump.

The judge’s daughter is a Democrat operative who literally *raised $$ from the trial* while her father presided over it.

The jury instructions said they didn’t have to agree on the crime to convict.

This will backfire.

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) May 30, 2024

“Dems could have saved a lot of time by announcing the verdict first, and then having the trial,” said former Indian-American Governor Bobby Jindal from Louisiana.

“Pretty neat trick that the same Dem DA who makes violent felonies disappear conjured up these felonies,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson described it as a shameful day in American history. “Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon,” he said.

“This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one. The weaponisation of our justice system has been a hallmark of the Biden administration, and the decision today is further evidence that Democrats will stop at nothing to silence dissent and crush their political opponents,” Johnson said.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said extremist Democrats have undermined democracy by weaponising the courts to operate like a banana republic that targets their political opponents.

“Today’s verdict is a defeat for Americans who believe in the critical legal tenet that justice is blind. It was clear from the start that Biden teamed up with heavily biased DA Alvin Bragg to go after his political opponent regardless of wrongdoing – while hardened criminals are set free in New York to commit more violent crimes against innocent citizens,” he said.

He alleged that this is nothing more than an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election. “The radical Democrats behind this abuse of our justice system will not prevail. The voters will settle this on November 5th,” he said.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America – all in an effort to ‘get’ Donald Trump.

“That this case – involving alleged misdemeanour business records violations from nearly a decade ago – was even brought is a testament to the political debasement of the justice system in places like New York City. This is especially true considering this same district attorney routinely excuses criminal conduct in a way that has endangered law-abiding citizens in his jurisdiction,” he said.

“Absolute injustice. This erodes our justice system. Hear me clearly: You cannot silence the American people. You cannot stop us from voting for change. Joe Biden – you’re fired. We the People stand with Donald J. Trump,” said Senator Tim Scott.

“This is a politically-motivated sham trial. The American people decide our elections. Donald Trump will be our next president,” said Sarah Huckbee Sanders, the Governor of Arkansas.

“This was a sham show trial. The Kangaroo Court will never stand on appeal. Americans deserve better than a sitting US President weaponising our justice system against a political opponent – all to win an election,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

“This verdict is a disgrace, and this trial should have never happened. Now more than ever, we need to rally around [President Donald Trump], take back the White House and Senate, and get this country back on track. The real verdict will be Election Day,” said Senator John Cornyn.

Senator Ted Cruz said that this is a dark day for America. “This entire trial has been a sham, and it is nothing more than political persecution. The only reason they prosecuted Donald Trump is because Democrats are terrified that he will win reelection,” he said.

“This disgraceful decision is legally baseless and should be overturned promptly on appeal. Any judge with a modicum of integrity would recognise that this entire trial has been utterly fraudulent,” Cruz said.

“This verdict is the corrupt result of a corrupt trial, a corrupt judge, and a corrupt DA. We will stand with President Trump now more than ever to save the country,” said Congressman Matt Gaetz. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

Adult film star Stormy Daniels says Donald Trump told her in 2006 that having sex with him was the only way she would get out of the “trailer park.” Nearly two decades later, she testified against Trump as a crucial witness for the prosecutors who won the first-ever criminal conviction of a former U.S. president.

A Manhattan jury on Thursday found Trump, 77, guilty of covering up his reimbursement to former lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payment to Daniels to buy her silence before the 2016 election about the alleged sexual encounter, which took place while he was married to his third wife, Melania.

Trump, the Republican challenger to Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, had pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment, and denies the encounter.

Daniels, 45, was sharp-witted and confident on cross-examination in response to probing questions designed to undermine her credibility. At one point, defense lawyer Susan Necheles sought to draw a parallel between her work writing and directing porn films and her story of the encounter with Trump.

“If that story was untrue, I would have written it to be a lot better,” Daniels replied.

Daniels testified in vivid detail about her alleged encounter with Trump in a hotel penthouse in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where the two met at a celebrity golf tournament. She said Trump invited her to his hotel suite for dinner, and during their conversation he suggested she appear on his reality television show, “The Apprentice.” She said she went to the bathroom at one point, and emerged to find Trump on the bed in his boxer shorts.

“He said … ‘I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park,'” Daniels recounted.

She said she “blacked out” and did not remember how she got into bed with her clothes off, but emphasized that she had not consumed any drugs or alcohol. She made it clear she did not enjoy the sex that followed – but also did not turn down Trump’s advances.

“I was trying to think about anything other than what was happening there,” she said.

TOP STUDENT, EXOTIC DANCER

Daniels, whose given name is Stephanie Clifford, testified that she grew up with a single, neglectful mother in Louisiana on a low income. She said she graduated in the top 10% of her high school class, edited the school newspaper, and was accepted to a university in Texas to study veterinary medicine, but could not afford to attend.

She said she was working as an exotic dancer on the weekends at the age of 17 to support herself, and later moved on to nude modeling and adult films. She said she became one of the youngest female porn directors, won many industry awards, and has landed roles in TV shows and films such as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.”

The year after the payoff, Daniels testified, was the best of her life; she was writing and directing successful films, riding horses, and raising her daughter to be a straight-A student. But she said her life turned into “chaos” when the Wall Street Journal in 2018 published an article revealing the alleged tryst and payoff.

“It blew my cover,” she told prosecutor Susan Hoffinger. “We were ostracized from her playgroups, from the riding stable.”

Trump’s lawyers sought to portray Daniels as having benefited from the publicity that resulted from the story of the alleged encounter, part of an effort to lay the groundwork to argue that she lied to make money. They displayed for jurors merchandise on her website, including a candle with her picture reading “Stormy, Saint of Indictments,” and showed jurors posters from the “Make America Horny Again” strip club tour she went on after news of the alleged encounter broke.

Despite the lurid details, Necheles sought to highlight that Daniels’ testimony was ultimately tangential to the case.

When the defense attorney asked Daniels whether she knew about the business records at the heart of the case, Daniels replied, “I know nothing about his business records, no. Why would I?”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

The historic trial of Donald Trump enters its final act Tuesday, with closing arguments to the jury who must then decide whether to hand down the first-ever criminal conviction of a former US president.
Less than six months before American voters choose whether to return Trump to the White House, the stakes riding on the verdict are hard to overstate — for the 77-year-old personally, but also for the country as a whole.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records to buy the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels about a 2006 sexual encounter between them that could have damaged his 2016 presidential bid.

If convicted, he faces up to four years in prison on each of 34 counts, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender he is unlikely to get jail time.

Crucially, a conviction would not bar Trump from appearing on the ballot in November as the Republican presidential challenger to Democrat Joe Biden.

It has taken nearly five weeks, the testimony of more than 20 witnesses and a few courtroom fireworks to reach closing arguments — the last chance for the prosecution and defense to impress their case on the anonymous, 12-member jury.

As expected, Trump chose not to testify in his defense — a move that would have exposed him to unnecessary legal jeopardy and forensic cross-examination.

For a man who has always prided himself on being in charge and in control, the role of silent, passive defendant did not come easily.

At times it has been downright excruciating, especially when Trump was forced to sit and listen while Daniels recounted their alleged encounter in sometimes graphic detail.

Speaking to reporters before and after each day in court, Trump launched regular tirades against Judge Juan Merchan — calling him “corrupt” and a “tyrant” — and condemned the whole trial as “election interference” by Democrats intent on keeping him off the campaign trail.

The politics of the case were in full view in the final days when a coterie of leading Republicans — including several vice-presidential hopefuls — came to the court and stood behind Trump in a gesture of support as he spoke to the press.

In all, he was cited 10 times for contempt of court and fined $10,000 by Merchan for failing to heed a gag order prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses, the jury, court staff or their relatives.

The judge has said he expects closing arguments to take up all of Tuesday.

He will then give his final instructions to the jury, who will likely begin their deliberations on Wednesday.

To return a guilty or not guilty verdict requires unanimity. Just one holdout means a hung jury and a mistrial.

Other cases

Aside from Daniels, the key prosecution witness was Michael Cohen, Trump’s former “fixer” turned bitter foe who arranged the $130,000 hush money payment.

Walking jurors through the reasoning behind the payments, Cohen said they were made “to ensure that the story would not come out, would not affect Mr Trump’s chances of becoming president of the United States.”

Trump’s defense team devoted most of their questioning trying to discredit Cohen, recalling that he had admitted lying to Congress and spent time in prison for tax fraud.

The defense called only two witnesses of their own before resting.

In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

He also faces charges in Florida of allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.

None of those trials are expected to take place before the November election.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Donald Trump’s lawyers rested their defence on May 21 without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money criminal trial, moving the case closer to the moment when the jury will begin deciding his fate.

“Your honor, the defence rests,” Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Mr. Trump’s team concluded with testimony from a former federal prosecutor who had been called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defence. The Manhattan district attorney’s office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.

The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys planned to return to the courtroom later Tuesday to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations. Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not stop to speak as he left the courthouse and ignored a question about why he did not testify.

Political twist to the proceedings

Mr. Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defence, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Mr. Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defence strategy because the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing.

Yet even as the Mr. Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalised on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticise President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his political supporters.

Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It’s the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.

“They have no case,” Mr. Trump said May 21 morning before court adjourned. “There’s no crime.”

The prosecution’s case

Jurors have been given a lesson on the underbelly of the tabloid business world, where Trump allies at the National Enquirer launched a plan to keep seamy, sometimes outrageous stories about Mr. Trump out of the public eye by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, recounted in discomfiting detail an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in a hotel room. He says nothing sexual happened between them.

And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump’s former-lawyer-turned-foe Michel Cohen placed the former president in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels’ story to keep it from going public as Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

But the crux of the prosecution’s case centres not on the spectacle, but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were falsely labelled legal expenses.

Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Mr. Trump’s behalf to keep Ms. Daniels quiet. Mr. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

As he left a news conference Tuesday with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse, Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify. “There’d be absolutely no reason, no justification to do that whatsoever. Everyone sees it for the sham that it is,” he said.

Rival testimonies

The final witness was Robert Costello, called in to undermine Cohen’s credibility. The two had a professional relationship that splintered in spectacular fashion. During his testimony Monday, he angered the judge by rolling his eyes and talking under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove him if he didn’t show more respect for decorum.

Mr. Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.

He has repeatedly maligned Cohen’s credibility and was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump, offering testimony designed to undermine Cohen’s account. In a Fox News Channel interview last week, Mr. Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “monetise” himself.

He contradicted Cohen’s testimony describing Mr. Trump as intimately involved in all aspects of the hush money scheme. He told jurors on Monday that Cohen told him Mr. Trump “knew nothing” about the hush money payment to Ms. Daniels. “Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times,” he testified.

Cohen, however, testified earlier Monday that he had “no doubt” that Mr. Trump gave him a final sign-off to make the payments to Daniels. In total, he said he spoke with Trump more than 20 times about the matter in October 2016.

Prosecutors have said that they want to show that Costello was part of a pressure campaign to keep Cohen in Trump’s corner once the then-attorney came under federal investigation. On that theme, Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by Trump’s camp, “they are in our corner” and “you have friends in high places.”

Asked who those “friends in high places” were, Mr. Costello said he was talking about Mr. Trump, then the president. He bristled as he insisted he did not feel animosity toward Cohen and did not try to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he said to the latter.

Team Trump’s long-shot request

The judge has yet to rule on a defence request to throw out the charges before jurors even begin deliberating based on the argument that prosecutors have failed to prove their case. The defence has suggested Mr. Trump was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false claims. Such long-shot requests are often made in criminal cases but are rarely granted.

Mr. Blanche argued that there was nothing illegal about soliciting a tabloid’s help to run positive stories about Trump and identify potentially damaging stories before they were published. No one involved “had any criminal intent,” he said. “How is keeping a false story from the voters criminal?” he asked.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo shot back that “the trial evidence overwhelmingly supports each element” of the alleged offenses and said the case should proceed to the jury.

After the defense rested, Judge Merchan dismissed the jurors and looked ahead to closing arguments — the last time the jury will hear from either side. Deliberations could begin as early as next Wednesday. The judge told the jurors that closing arguments would normally come immediately after the defence rested, but he thought they would take at least a day. Given the impending Memorial Day holiday, “there’s no way to do all that’s needed” before then, he said. “I’ll see you in a week,” he told the 12-person panel.

Former President Donald Trump, left, speaks to the media with his lawyer Todd Blanche after attending the day’s proceedings in his hush money trial, in New York, Monday, May 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

After approximately five weeks, 19 witnesses, reams of documents and a dash of salacious testimony, the prosecution against Donald Trump rested its case on May 20, handing over to the defence, before closing arguments expected next week.

Mr. Trump’s team immediately sought to undermine key testimony against the former president, who is accused of covering up hush money paid to a porn star over an alleged encounter that could have derailed his successful 2016 White House bid.

His attorneys called lawyer Robert Costello — who once advised star prosecution witness Michael Cohen before falling out with him — in an apparent attempt to puncture Cohen’s credibility.

But Mr. Costello’s start on the stand was shaky at best, as his dismissive tone provoked an angry response from Judge Juan Merchan.

The judge ordered the jury out of the courtroom to admonish Costello, and, still unsatisfied, also ordered the press and others to briefly leave.

Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters afterwards, called the episode “an incredible display,” branding the proceedings “a show trial” and the judge “a tyrant.”

Extended quibbling among the two legal teams, along with the upcoming holiday weekend, means closing arguments that the judge had hoped could start on Tuesday are now anticipated for next week.

It’s unlikely and risky, but the door remains open for Mr. Trump to take the stand in the criminal trial, the first ever of a former US president.

Experts doubt he will, as it would expose him to unnecessary legal jeopardy and forensic cross-examination by prosecutors — but his lawyer Todd Blanche has raised the prospect.

Marathon questioning

On May 20, Mr. Blanche finished his third day of questioning Cohen after hours of at times digressive, at other times bruising, exchanges.

Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, recounted last week how he kept Trump informed about $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers set out to paint Cohen as a convicted criminal and habitual liar, recalling his time in prison for tax fraud and lying to Congress.

Mr. Blanche also probed Cohen’s loyalty to Mr. Trump and then to the prosecution, looking to show jurors that Cohen is self-serving and willing to go to great lengths to accomplish his aims.

Mr. Blanche vied to goad Cohen, who has a reputation for a short temper that could have hurt him on the stand, but the witness largely maintained his composure.

Cohen’s story generally lined up with Ms. Daniels and David Pecker, the tabloid boss who said he worked with Mr. Trump and Cohen to suppress negative coverage during the Republican’s White House run.

After Mr. Blanche finished with him, the prosecution returned for redirect, with prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asking Cohen what the whole experience has meant for him. “My entire life has been turned upside down,” he said. “I lost my law license, my financial security… my family’s happiness… just to name a few.”

Impact on Trump’s 2024 campaign

Mr. Trump meanwhile has complained his 2024 election campaign for another White House term is being stymied by the weeks-long court proceedings, which he has to attend every day.

He did so again May 20, complaining to journalists he’s “not allowed to have anything to do with politics because I’m sitting in a very freezing cold, dark room for the last four weeks. It’s very unfair.”

Calling the case politicized, a coterie of leading Republicans have stood in the wings behind him as he gives remarks to reporters outside the courtroom.

The growing list includes several lawmakers eyeing Mr. Trump’s vice presidential pick, including Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

Yet despite the palace intrigue and courtroom drama, the charges ultimately hinge on financial records, and whether falsifying them was done with intent to sway the 2016 presidential vote.

When the jury begins deliberating, the often juicy testimony will likely linger, but they will also have stacks of documents to consider.

For weeks, Donald Trump has sat silently in a New York courtroom while former employees and associates have testified in his criminal hush money trial. On Monday, the former U.S. president might seize the chance to tell his side of the story.

It is unclear whether Trump will take the witness stand.

Though he said before the trial began that he planned to testify, his lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge last week that he was unsure whether he would do so. Trump himself declined to tell reporters whether he will testify or not.

The first former president to stand criminal trial has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment that bought the silence of porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. Daniels had threatened to go public with her account of an alleged 2006 sexual encounter – a liaison Trump denies.

Outside the courtroom, Trump, 77, has blasted the trial as a politically motivated effort to hobble his attempt to take back the White House from Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election.

Inside the chamber, Trump has sat at the defendant’s table listening to Daniels tell her account of their time together in lurid detail. Other witnesses have discussed efforts to bury unflattering stories at a time Trump faced multiple accusations of sexual misbehavior.

Prosecutors said last week they expected to wrap up their presentation on Monday after remaining testimony from Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels.

At that point, Trump’s legal team will get a chance to make a presentation of their own, though defense lawyers often skip that step when they believe prosecutors have failed to make their case.

Trump’s lawyers said they did not think they would need much time to call witnesses of their own – unless Trump opted to testify.

“That’s another decision that we need to think through,” Blanche said on Thursday.

If he chooses to testify, Trump will have the opportunity to convince jurors that he was not responsible for the paperwork at the heart of the case and rebut Daniels’ detailed account of their meeting in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

He would not be restrained by a gag order that bars him in other settings from criticizing witnesses, jurors, and relatives of the judge and prosecutors.

However, he would face cross-examination by prosecutors, who could try to expose inconsistencies in his story. Any lies told under oath could expose him to further criminal perjury charges.

Trump could risk tarnishing his credibility or alienating the jury if he goes off on confusing tangents or loses his temper on the stand, said George Grasso, a retired New York judge.

“If he were to slip into campaign mode, he could play into the archetype of Donald Trump as a person who can’t control himself, as a person who’s loose with the truth,” Grasso said. “He could tank his whole case with one outburst.”

Trump last appeared as a witness in a civil business fraud trial last year, delivering defiant and rambling testimony that aggravated Justice Arthur Engoron, who was overseeing the case. Engoron would go on to order him to pay $355 million in penalties after finding he fraudulently overstated his net worth to dupe lenders.

Defendants in white-collar criminal cases typically do not testify in their own defense, but Trump would not be the only one to do so. Cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes are among recent high-profile defendants to take the stand. Both were convicted of defrauding investors and are now serving time in prison.

The hush money trial is widely seen as the least consequential of the four criminal prosecutions Trump faces, but it is likely the only one to go to trial before the election. Trump faces charges in Washington and Georgia of trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden and charges in Florida of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. He has pleaded not guilty in all three cases.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was intimately involved with all aspects of a scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo his 2016 campaign, his former lawyer said Monday in matter-of-fact testimony that went to the heart of the former president’s hush money trial.

“Everything required Mr. Trump’s sign-off,” said Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer-turned-foe and the prosecution’s star witness in a case now entering its final, pivotal stretch.

In hours of highly anticipated testimony, Mr. Cohen placed Mr. Trump at the centre of the hush money plot, saying the then-candidate had promised to reimburse the lawyer for the money he fronted and was constantly updated about behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

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“We need to stop this from getting out,” Mr. Cohen quoted Mr. Trump as telling him in reference to porn actor Stormy Daniels’ account of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump a decade earlier. The then-candidate was especially anxious about how the story would affect his standing with female voters.

A similar episode occurred when Mr. Cohen alerted Mr. Trump that a Playboy model was alleging that she and Mr. Trump had an extramarital affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” was Mr. Cohen’s message to Mr. Trump, the lawyer said. The woman, Karen McDougal, was paid $150,000 in an arrangement that was made after Mr. Trump received a “complete and total update on everything that transpired.”

“What I was doing, I was doing at the direction of and benefit of Mr. Trump,” Mr. Cohen testified.

Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied having sexual encounters with the two women.

Mr. Cohen is by far the prosecution’s most important witness, and though his testimony lacked the electricity that defined Ms. Daniels’ turn on the stand last week, he nonetheless linked Mr. Trump directly to the payments and helped illuminate some of the drier evidence such as text messages and phone logs that jurors had previously seen.

The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Mr. Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. But prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments — also carries sizable risks with a jury and could be a boon to Mr. Trump politically as he fundraises off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.

The men, once so close that Mr. Cohen boasted that he would “take a bullet” for Mr. Trump, had no visible interaction inside the courtroom. The sedate atmosphere was a marked contrast from their last courtroom faceoff, when Mr. Trump walked out of the courtroom in October after his lawyer finished questioning Mr. Cohen during his civil fraud trial.

This time around, Mr. Trump sat at the defence table with his eyes closed for long stretches of testimony as Mr. Cohen recounted his decade-long career as a senior Trump Organization executive, doing work that by his own admission sometimes involved lying and bullying others on his boss’s behalf.

Jurors had previously heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so that it can then be quashed. But Mr. Cohen’s testimony, which continues Tuesday, is crucial to prosecutors because of his direct communication with the then-candidate about embarrassing stories he was scrambling to suppress.

Mr. Cohen also matters because the reimbursements he received from a $130,000 hush money payment to Ms. Daniels, which prosecutors say was meant to buy her silence in advance of the election, form the basis of 34 felony counts charging Trump with falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged, falsely, as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose. Defence lawyers say the payments to Mr. Cohen were properly categorised as legal expenses.

Under questioning from a prosecutor, Mr. Cohen detailed the steps he took to mask the payments. When he opened a bank account to pay Ms. Daniels, an action he said he told Mr. Trump he was taking, he told the bank it was for a new limited liability corporation but withheld the actual purpose.

“I’m not sure they would’ve opened it,” he said, if they knew it was ”to pay off an adult film star for a nondisclosure agreement.”

To establish Mr. Trump’s familiarity with the payments,Mr. Cohen told the jury that Mr. Trump had promised to reimburse him. The two men even discussed with Allen Weisselberg, a former Trump Organization chief financial officer, how the reimbursements would be paid as legal services over monthly instalments, Mr. Cohen testified.

And though Mr. Trump’s lawyers have said he acted to protect his family from salacious stories, Mr. Cohen described Mr. Trump as preoccupied instead by the impact they would have on the campaign.

He said Mr. Trump even sought to delay finalising the Ms. Daniels transaction until after Election Day so he wouldn’t have to pay her.

“Because,” Mr. Cohen testified, “after the election it wouldn’t matter” to Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen also gave jurors an insider account of his negotiations with David Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer, who was such a close Mr. Trump ally that Mr. Pecker told Mr. Cohen his publication maintained a “file drawer or a locked drawer” where files related to Mr. Trump were kept.

That effort took on added urgency following the October 2016 disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording in which Mr. Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women sexually.

The Daniels payment was finalised several weeks after that revelation, but Monday’s testimony also centred on a deal earlier that fall with Ms. McDougal.

Mr. Cohen testified that he went to Mr. Trump immediately after the National Enquirer alerted him to a story about the alleged Ms. McDougal affair. “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” he said Mr. Trump told him.

Mr. Trump checked in with Mr. Pecker about the matter, asking him how “things were going” with it, Mr. Cohen said. Mr. Pecker responded, ‘We have this under control, and we’ll take care of this,” Mr. Cohen testified.

Mr. Cohen also said he was with Mr. Trump as he spoke to Mr. Pecker on a speakerphone in his Trump Tower office.

“David had stated that it’s going to cost them $150,000 to control the story,” Mr. Cohen said. He quoted Mr. Trump as saying: “No problem, I will take care of it,” which Mr. Cohen interpreted to mean that the payment would be reimbursed.

To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Mr. Trump’s endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Mr. Cohen designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager. Acting on Trump’s behalf, Cohen said, he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.

“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Mr. Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”

Defence lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Mr. Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that he’s an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”

Prosecutors aim to blunt those attacks by acknowledging Mr. Cohen’s past crimes to jurors and by relying on other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress Mr. Cohen’s testimony. They include a lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Ms. Daniels and Ms. McDougal, as well as Mr. Pecker and Ms. Daniels.

After Mr. Cohen’s home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Mr. Trump showered him with affection on social media and predicted that Mr. Cohen would not “flip.” Months later, Mr. Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty to federal campaign-finance charges.

Besides pleading guilty to the hush money payments, Mr. Cohen later admitted lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that he had pursued on Mr. Trump’s behalf during the heat of the 2016 campaign. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but spent much of it in home confinement.