Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s hush cash trial instructed Tuesday that the previous president has been violating a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses on social media in an strive to get locked up for political functions.
The pass judgement on, in the meantime, instructed the protection they have been shedding credibility with their arguments before bringing within the jury to listen testimony from a key witness in case, former National Enquirer writer David Pecker.
“We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty; the defendant seems to be angling for that,” prosecutor Chris Conroy told Judge Juan Merchan at a hearing over whether Trump should be held in contempt over a series of posts on Truth Social that prosecutors argue violated Merchan’s gag order. The ruling prohibits Trump from publicly attacking witnesses and jurors, something prosecutors say he’s done at least 10 times since the order went into effect.
“The purpose of this hearing is to find out whether the defendant Mr. Trump should be held in contempt for one or all of these violations,” the judge said as the hearing began.
“His disobedience of the order is willful, it’s intentional,” Conroy told the judge of Trump. “He is aware of what he is not allowed to do and he does it anyway.”
But Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued “there was absolutely no willful violation” of the April 1 order and said his client was merely responding to a “barrage of political attacks.”
When Merchan pressed Blanche on what specific attacks Trump was responding to when he made the posts, the attorney struggled to answer.
“I keep asking you over and over to give me an example and I’m not getting an answer,” the judge said, appearing frustrated.
The DA’s office is seeking the maximum $1,000 fine for each of the 10 posts it says violated the order, along with an order that Trump remove the posts from his social media platform. It also wants Merchan to warn Trump any future violations risk not just additional fines but also as long as 30 days in jail.
Merchan reserved a decision on the issue until a later time, but he made clear that he was not impressed by the arguments from Trump’s legal team. When Blanche told him Trump was being careful about complying with the order, the judge told him, “You’re shedding all credibility with the court docket.”
Trump did not seem concerned during Blanche’s exchange with the judge — he sat with his eyes closed for a portion of it. He took to Truth Social immediately after the hearing to vent about the judge and Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the DA’s office who prosecutors have said is covered by the gag order. (The judge is not covered by the order.) The post questioned whether Pomerantz will be “prosecuted.”
A ‘mutually beneficial’ agreement
After the hearing, the jury was brought back into the courtroom for further testimony from David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who was the first witness the DA’s office called Monday. During his opening statement, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said Pecker conspired with his longtime friend Trump and Michael Cohen, who was then Trump’s lawyer, in a scheme to suppress scandalous stories about Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
“They agreed that Pecker would lend a hand the defendant’s marketing campaign through performing as eyes and ears for the marketing campaign,” Colangelo said.
It was Pecker who alerted Cohen to the news that adult film star Stormy Daniels was about to come forward with a claim that she had had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, when he was married, Colangelo said. Trump has denied her claim.
Cohen ultimately paid Daniels $130,000 to get her to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Prosecutors allege that Trump falsely claimed his reimbursement to Cohen as legal payments. He’s charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a low-level felony, and faces up to four years in prison if he’s convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
Pecker testified Tuesday that he’d known Trump since the late 1980s and had “a perfect courting with Mr. Trump through the years.” He said when he purchased the Enquirer in 1999, Trump told him, “Congratulations! You have purchased a great magazine.”
Pecker said Trump later became a source for news on his hit show “The Apprentice.” He said they generally spoke every few months, but their contacts became more frequent after Trump declared he was running for president in 2015. Pecker also said he attended Trump’s campaign announcement at Trump Tower after Cohen told him he should be there.
“No one merits to be there greater than you,” Cohen told him in an email that was shown to the jury.
He then recounted a meeting he had at Trump Tower with Cohen and Trump that August, which is when prosecutors said the election scheme was hatched. Pecker said the pair asked him what he could do to help the campaign.
“I stated what I might do is I might run, or post, sure tales about Mr. Trump, and I might post damaging tales about his warring parties,” Pecker recounted, adding he also told them he’d be their “eyes and ears” on stories that could be damaging.
He said he “idea that a large number of ladies would pop out to take a look at to promote their tales as a result of Mr. Trump was once smartly referred to as essentially the most eligible bachelor and dated essentially the most stunning ladies. And it was once transparent that based totally on my previous enjoy, that once any person was once operating for public workplace like this, it is rather commonplace for those ladies to name up magazines just like the National Enquirer to take a look at to promote their tales.”
They agreed if that came about, Pecker would notify Cohen, and “he would be able to kill” the tales, Pecker stated. He referred to as the settlement “mutually beneficial” as a result of he idea the sure Trump tales — and damaging tales about his warring parties — would lend a hand the paper’s newsstand gross sales.
He stated Cohen would name and say “we would like you to run an article” on a selected goal, and the Enquirer would “embellish it from there.” Asked who the “we” was once that Cohen referred to, Pecker stated he understood it to imply Cohen and Trump.
The articles integrated tales about then-Trump competitors — and now allies — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ben Carson. The headlines integrated “Boozin Ted Cruz Fixin To Lose” and “Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass also asked Pecker about a notorious headline linking Cruz’s father to the John F. Kennedy assassination. Pecker said the story was “created” by mashing together pictures of Cruz’s father and Lee Harvey Oswald.
Catch and kill
Pecker then described the first of three stories prosecutors said he helped to kill in order to aid Trump. He said that in October of 2015, Enquirer editor Dylan Howard reached out to him — as he’d been instructed to do — with a salacious Trump story. A doorman at one of Trump’s New York buildings, Dino Sajudin, was “selling a story that Donald Trump fathered an illegitimate girl with a maid in — at — at Trump Tower, and may have worked in his — in Mr. Trump’s penthouse.”
He said he “straight away” referred to as Cohen, who did not assume the allegation was once true however stated he would test it out. In the period in-between, Howard negotiated to purchase the rights to Sajudin’s tale for $30,000. Pecker stated he instructed Cohen, “I’ll pay for it. This’ll be a very big story. I believe it’s important he should be removed from the market, so we’ll acquire the story.”
The deal integrated a $1 million penalty if the doorman spoke concerning the case to any person else.
Cohen instructed him “the boss” was once “very pleased,” Pecker stated, including that he did not talk about the plan immediately with Trump — best with Cohen.
“Prior to this arrangement to purchase this story from Dino, had you ever paid a source to kill a story about Donald Trump?” Steinglass asked.
“No,” Pecker answered. He added that it was much more than the tabloid would typically pay for a story — especially since Howard hired investigators who determined the doorman’s story was “completely 1,000 p.c unfaithful.”
Pecker said he eventually wanted to release the doorman from agreement because he was “tough,” but that Cohen asked him not do so until “after the election.” Pecker said he agreed.
The Playboy model
Pecker recounted another tip Howard got in June of 2016 involving Karen McDougal, “a Playboy type who is making an attempt to promote the tale a few courting that she had with Donald Trump for a 12 months.”
Pecker stated he once more alerted Cohen, who instructed him he did not assume the declare was once true. He instructed Cohen he’d stay him “apprised” of any tendencies. He stated he then were given a decision from Trump, who stated Cohen had instructed him about McDougal’s claims and requested him what he considered them. Pecker stated he instructed to Trump that he purchase the tale, however Trump demurred and stated, “I don’t buy any stories. Anytime you do something like this, it always comes out.”
Pecker stated Howard organized an interview with McDougal, and Cohen referred to as a number of occasions whilst it was once taking place. “He kept on calling, and each time he called he seemed more anxious,” Pecker stated, including that he believed however didn’t know that Cohen was once being pressed for main points through Trump.
Trump has denied McDougal’s declare of an affair.
Trump’s social media posts
The contempt listening to targeted on prosecutors’ allegation in two court docket filings that Trump “willfully violated” the gag order with repeated posts on Truth Social. The cited posts come with one who referred to Cohen and Daniels as “sleaze bags” and others that related to a New York Post tale calling Cohen a “serial perjurer.”
The partial gag order Merchan slapped on Trump this month bars him from making “public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”
Trump’s legal professionals have argued that the posts did not violate the order as a result of he was once in large part sharing posts from people and news retailers, and the posts are political speech. Asked through the pass judgement on what case regulation he had to enhance that place, Blanche stated he did not have any, however “it’s just common sense.”
Blanche defended one of the vital posts about Daniels, announcing it involved her credibility, now not her expected testimony.
“Her credibility doesn’t matter a whole lot if she doesn’t take the stand in this trial,” Merchan stated.
Conroy instructed the pass judgement on that Trump’s use of his acronym for his marketing campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” in one of the crucial posts does not trade the character in their message.
“Throwing a ‘MAGA’ into a post doesn’t make it political. It may make it more ominous,” he stated.
Trump’s legal professionals have additionally contended that the order permits Trump to protect himself from assaults, so he was once inside of his rights to talk out as a result of Cohen and Daniels have criticized him publicly. Merchan stated closing week that he does not consider his order makes such an exception.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s workplace additionally cited feedback Trump made to newshounds Monday, when he many times referred to as Cohen a liar. Conroy stated he’d be submitting any other movement on the ones feedback later Tuesday.