#Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection w/a #HushMoney payment made to a porn star to influence the 2016 election. The case could be in the jury’s hands as early as Wed.
#Blanche is trying to suggest that the meeting that Trump & #MichaelCohen had in 2015 w/ #Pecker, of The #NationalEnquirer, when prosecutors say they hatched a plan to suppress damaging stories about #Trump & promote negative ones about his rivals, was SOP between a presidential #candidate & the #press. It was not.
Blanche suggests that bc Pecker’s relationship w/Trump, & their #CatchAndKill agreement, was not an #election#conspiracy bc it predated the campaign.
#Blanche says that despite the prosecution arguing that David #Pecker agreed to suppress negative stories on #Trump’s behalf in 2015 — a practice known as #CatchAndKill — the phrase "catch & kill" was not used at that meeting. “Make no mistake about it,” Blanche says.
Blanche argues there was “nothing unusual” about catching & killing, & that Pecker testified that The #NationalEnquirer only published ~½ of the stories it purchased.
#Blanche addresses the 3 specific #CatchAndKill deals prosecutors allege #Pecker was involved in, all of which they say were designed to protect #Trump. Defense argues all 3 stories are false.
He characterizes the 1st, involving a doorman at a #TrumpOrganization bldg, as “literally a made up story designed to harm President Trump.”
Blanche talks about Playboy model #KarenMcDougal who sold the rights to her story of an affair w/Trump to The #NationalEnquirer's parent co, #AMI.
#Blanche claims that #MichaelCohen fully fabricated an encounter that he had w/Pecker in which #Pecker expressed anger that he had not been repaid for 1 of the #HushMoney deals. “Ladies & gentlemen, that lunch did not happen,” Blanche said. “Cohen made it up.”
Blanche doesn’t provide any #evidence Cohen made it up. Instead, Blanche reminds jurors that they should pay close attention to documentary evidence in assessing Cohen’s testimony.
Neither Rodriguez nor Howard testified, & their absence may give #Blanche room to spin his theory. He notes that, in a text, Howard said that he was not working on #Trump’s behalf. Blanche suggests Howard was acting against the interests of David #Pecker, his publisher.
Blanche again tells the jury, that NDAs are not inherently problematic, adding that there is nothing “illegal,” “sinister” or “criminal” about them.
Yesterday, Costello behaved so atrociously on the witness stand that Juan Merchan cleared the courtroom to admonish him & the defense attorneys. Costello is due back on the stand
Prosecution & defense argue whether the evidence at trial supported the idea that #Trump did enter a conspiracy w/ #Pecker & #MichaelCohen in 2015 to suppress negative stories during his presidential campaign.
(isn’t that for the jury to decide?)
Defense suggests that there was nothing #criminal about “participating” in that meeting, & that meeting w/ The #NationalEnquirer was simply “standard operating procedure” for campaigning. (Um, no)
#Colangelo argues the instruction proposed about fmr #NationalEnquirer publisher #Pecker’s legal consult w/his attorney is irrelevant, because Pecker testified that he didn’t reveal all of the facts to AMI’s general counsel when he consulted them & therefore his attys couldn’t provide proper legal advice.
Bove argues that what matters is Pecker told Trump that he had been told the McDougal agreement was “bulletproof,” & Trump relied it.
Cross-examination of #MichaelCohen resumes, an opportunity for the defense to poke holes in his testimony & perhaps trip up or provoke the state’s key witness. The questioning of Cohen, #Trump’s fmr fixer, is the beginning of the end of Trump’s #criminal trial, which began April 15 & might conclude before Memorial Day weekend at this pace.
#Trump has his posse again. Today it’s more #Republican elected officials. Today, Trump will be joined by the #House speaker, #MikeJohnson, as well as #NorthDakota’s governor, #DougBurgum, a contender to be Trump's running mate. Also present will be Representatives #ByronDonalds & #CoryMills of Florida, & #VivekRamaswamy, who was one of Trump's primary rivals this year. Both Donalds & Ramaswamy are longshot hopefuls to be Trump's running mate.
Cohen testifies he continued to deal w/ #StormyDaniels in early 2018 w/Trump’s backing & blessing. He says that the president asked him to get a temporary restraining order against Daniels.
As #MichaelCohen repeats that he worked w/David #Pecker & others at his company to do so, he again repeats that he took action at #Trump’s direction. The prosecutors use that testimony to lead into Cohen’s #guilty pleas in the federal case against him in 2018. Some of the charges against him were related to the #HushMoney payment.
#Blanche asks #MichaelCohen if he’s been following the trial. Cohen says yes, to some extent. Blanche asks if he knows details about the jury selection process.
Objection from prosecution, & it's sustained.
Blanche asks Cohen if he recalls saying on TikTok, while David #Pecker, the fmr publisher of The #NationalEnquirer, was on the stand, that Pecker was corroborating everything he'd been saying for 6 yrs.
#MichaelCohen is asked how he monitored the progress of the deal w/ #KarenMcDougal, & says he did so by text, phone & the app Signal. The prosecutor doesn't dwell on it, but that is documented evidence, & jurors heard from other witnesses, especially David #Pecker, just how much Cohen contacted the parties during that period in 2016.
"I've got this locked down for you," Howard tells Cohen of the McDougal story. "I won't let it out of my grasp."
Cohen is asked about having been present for a conversation that #Trump had w/ David #Pecker about a week after those texts were sent. Cohen says Trump asked Pecker "how things were going," & Pecker said they had it under control.
#MichaelCohen describes a call when that David #Pecker said that it would take $150k to "control the story," referring to #KarenMcDougal's claims. Cohen testifies that #Trump said "no problem — I'll take care of it," meaning, Cohen says, that Trump would pay him back.
This demonstrate just how desperate Trump was to keep these stories suppressed: A lot of evidence has been entered about how frugal he was. (Though Trump never paid Pecker back for McDougal's story.)
Jurors have already heard a recording, secretly made by Cohen as he talked to #Trump about #KarenMcDougal, corroborating this part Cohen's testimony.
Cohen said that #Pecker had told him the agreement w/McDougal was “bulletproof." That is exactly the same word that Pecker told the #jury that he had used w/Cohen.
#MichaelCohen is now recalling David #Pecker applying pressure to get reimbursed for paying off #KarenMcDougal. "It was too much money for him to hide from the CEO of the parent company," he says. He adds that he had several conversations w/ #Trump about that fact. The jury is likely to again hear the recording that was played earlier.
#Pecker "insisted" on being paid back, #MichaelCohen says. He even met w/Cohen at his favorite Italian restaurant. "He expressed his anger that I need to get this money back," Cohen says. Trump kept insisting he would "take care of it." But never did.
Cohen says Pecker intimated that he had known #Trump for years & had essentially compiled a dossier on him, which he would use if need be. Cohen worried that Pecker might release some very damaging stories about Trump.
Importantly, New York has a "one-party consent" law as to recording conversations. If a single party consents to a recording, it is #legal.
Jurors are played, for the 2nd time, the recording that #MichaelCohen described.
Jurors read the transcript of the recording on screens as the audio plays.
Cohen addresses the payment to #Pecker, referring to the publisher as "our friend David." Court again hears #Trump ask about financing & then advising Cohen to "pay in cash."
Cohen says that when he insisted that David #Pecker be paid, he made reference to Pecker's dossier on #Trump. And he says that while he said "financing," he meant "funding," meaning he was asking how Pecker would be repaid for silencing #KarenMcDougal's story.
Prosecution presents details of the financial transactions that #MichaelCohen originally planned to use to reimburse David #Pecker for the payment to #KarenMcDougal.
Cohen says that Pecker was not the one who was ultimately going to pay to silence the story. It was "Mr. Trump." &, as we look at his call history, he says that a 7-min call placed to Trump on 29 Sept, 2016 -a month before the election — was to inform #Trump that the McDougal matter was “being resolved."
#MichaelCohen says after all that, #Pecker called & told him that #Trump would not have to pay. Cohen said he looked forward to telling Trump this, because it "would make him very happy."
Cohen says Pecker's explanation was that the #KarenMcDougal deal had ended up being good for his co. But the jury heard from Pecker during his testimony, that he had spoken to his general counsel & decided that he did not want to be repaid - because he was worried about committing a #crime.
#MichaelCohen says he spoke to #Trump before the LLC creation. “Everything required Mr. Trump's signoff" &, "I wanted the money back."
Cohen testifies about using a home equity line of credit to pay #StormyDaniels.
Cohen discusses a call between him & 2 reps of The #NationalEnquirer, David #Pecker & #DylanHoward. They discussed Daniels's plans to go to The Daily Mail w/her story, & Cohen says that it would be "catastrophic" for the campaign, further turning women against the candidate.
these texts - combined w/ #MichaelCohen's testimony - indicate that the motivations for the #HushMoney deal were to protect #Trump politically.
After Cohen decided to pay #StormyDaniels himself, we are seeing, he launched into a blitz of phone calls w/ both #KeithDavidson & David #Pecker. This is documentary evidence: & shows, w/ surprising ividness given that it is simply metadata, the frenzy that Cohen was experiencing as he sought to suppress the Daniels story.
After #MichaelCohen describes wanting to be the personal lawyer to the new president, which he didn't get, he begins to describe not receiving a significant bonus. Prosecutors are leaning into the fact that Cohen was very angry & disgruntled in late 2016.
Like David #Pecker before him, Cohen was an ally who had the ability to hurt #Trump.
As prosecution moves toward the reimbursement of Cohen, it helps to show how angry he was.
Asked how he felt about the minimal bonus: "Angry. Very angry."