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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Takeaways from Day 9 of the Trump hush money trial | |
By Jeremy Herb, Kara Scannell and Lauren del Valle, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:33 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
Judge Juan Merchan handed down his first punishment to Donald Trump for | |
in the New York hush money trial Tuesday, fining Trump $9,000 for nine | |
violations. | |
The judge also warned the former president in his that continued | |
violations could also lead to imprisonment – a striking reminder of | |
the historic and surreal nature of this trial. | |
Once the trial itself began Tuesday, jurors heard from the attorney who | |
negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money | |
agreements, Keith Davidson, who detailed his tribulations with | |
Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 | |
campaign to get the money promised to Daniels for her to stay quiet. | |
Davidson testified that a tabloid editor believed Daniels’ story | |
would be the “final nail in the coffin” for Trump’s presidential | |
aspirations in October 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape came out. | |
Instead, Davidson negotiated a $130,000 hush money deal with Cohen on | |
Daniels’ behalf, and she did not speak out publicly before the 2016 | |
election. | |
Here are the takeaways from day nine of the Trump hush money trial: | |
Trump is fined – and faces more later this week | |
Before the jury was called in Tuesday morning, Merchan levied a $9,000 | |
fine against the former president for multiple violations of the | |
judge’s gag order barring public discussion of witnesses in the case | |
or the jury. | |
Merchan fined Trump for nine violations – $1,000 each, the maximum | |
allowed by law – after prosecutors had filed a motion to hold the | |
former president in contempt over his social media posts and public | |
comments about Cohen, Daniels and the makeup of the jury pool. | |
This won’t be Trump’s last run-in with Merchan’s gag order, | |
either. Last week, the district attorney’s office cited another four | |
comments from Trump that allegedly violated the order. Merchan has | |
scheduled a hearing on those violations for Thursday. | |
The comments cited by prosecutors pointed to Trump’s continued | |
commentary about witnesses, including that he thought AMI chief David | |
Pecker was “nice.” Prosecutors argued that the remark was a message | |
to other witnesses to “be nice” on the stand. | |
In his order, the judge warned Trump that he could be imprisoned if he | |
continues to willfully violate the gag order. Merchan could jail Trump | |
for 30 days for finding him in contempt. | |
“The Court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its | |
lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the | |
circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment,” Merchan | |
wrote. | |
Stormy’s lawyer takes the stand | |
Davidson, an LA-based attorney, represented both McDougal and Daniels | |
when they were shopping stories about their romantic relations with | |
Trump in 2016. | |
He described in detail his conversations with American Media Inc.’s | |
then-chief content officer Dylan Howard – aided by text exchanges | |
between the two rich in detail to help freshen up Davidson’s memory | |
– as he cut a $150,000 deal with AMI for McDougal’s story and then | |
struck a $130,000 deal directly with Cohen for Daniels after AMI backed | |
out. | |
Davidson said Daniels’ manager, Gina Rodriguez, approached him and | |
asked him to close the deal. “It’s going to be the easiest deal | |
you’ve ever done in your entire life,” Davidson said, before | |
pausing and letting out a little laugh. | |
Rodriguez told him it had already been negotiated. “All you have to | |
do is talk to that a**hole Cohen,” Davidson recalled. | |
Davidson walked jurors through the contracts he drew up with Cohen and | |
the excuses he got when Cohen initially didn’t pay. | |
“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the road until after | |
the election,” Davidson testified about Cohen’s excuses for not | |
coming up with the funding, which prompted him to tell Cohen at one | |
point that the deal was off. | |
Davidson’s testimony also provided some lighter moments. In the | |
contract, he used pseudonyms: Peggy Peterson for Daniels because she | |
was the plaintiff and David Dennison for Trump because he was the | |
defendant. | |
Assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass asked if Dennison was a | |
real person. “Yes, he was on my high school hockey team,” Davidson | |
said. | |
“How does he feel about you now?” Steinglass asked. | |
“He’s very upset,” Davidson said, holding back a laugh. | |
Daniels’ attorney also had some choice words for Cohen. Asked to | |
describe Cohen’s demeanor while negotiating the payment with him, | |
Davidson said, “He was highly excitable, sort of a pants on fire kind | |
of guy.” | |
Cohen, Davidson added, was like the cartoon dog who yells | |
“squirrel!” | |
Jurors hear about the Stormy Daniels payment paper trail | |
Cohen’s former banker Gary Farro returned Tuesday morning to walk the | |
jury through Cohen’s bank activity around the payment to Daniels. | |
Records show it took Cohen less than 24 hours to open an account for a | |
shell company and use it to wire the money to Daniels’ attorney. | |
On October 27, 2016, Cohen pushed his bank to expedite a $131,000 | |
advance on the home equity line of credit tied to his personal property | |
he shared with his wife. That was approved and the money was | |
transferred to the new Essential Consultant LLC account Cohen opened, | |
telling his banker at the time it was for a rushed real estate deal. | |
The next morning Cohen wired $130,000 to an account facilitated by | |
Daniels’ lawyer. | |
Farro testified that when he dealt with Cohen, 90% of the time it was | |
an “urgent matter.” | |
The banker also said First Republic Bank closed all of Cohen’s | |
accounts, leaving only his existing mortgages with the institution, | |
after news of the Daniels hush money payment became public. | |
Trump videos played for the jury in court | |
Prosecutors used records custodians to enter several video clips into | |
evidence Tuesday morning. | |
Three C-SPAN clips of Trump speaking at public events were played for | |
the jury in open court. Two clips from October 2016 campaign events | |
showed then-candidate Trump vehemently denying allegations from women | |
who publicly accused him of sexual assault after the “Access | |
Hollywood” tape was released earlier that month. | |
“As you have seen, right now I’m being viciously attacked with lies | |
and smears. It’s a phony deal. I have no idea who these women are,” | |
Trump says in one clip. | |
In a clip from January 11, 2017, President-elect Trump said, “Michael | |
Cohen is a very talented lawyer. He’s a good lawyer in my firm.” | |
Snippets from Trump’s October 2022 deposition taken for his E. Jean | |
Carroll defamation lawsuits were also admitted into evidence and played | |
in court. | |
Prosecutors also played a clip from the deposition where Trump | |
described that Truth Social was a platform he opened as an alternative | |
to Twitter. In another clip Trump responds to questions confirming that | |
he is married to Melania Trump, since 2005. | |
Jurors also saw Trump identify himself as the speaker in the “Access | |
Hollywood” tape during that deposition – although no video clip was | |
played in relation to the question about the “Access Hollywood” | |
tape, nor the tape itself. (The judge previously ruled only a | |
transcript of the audio could be admitted into evidence – not the | |
video footage.) | |
Tuesday is a family affair | |
Trump had several visitors in the gallery behind him in court on | |
Tuesday, beyond the typical accompaniment of aides there each day. | |
His son, Eric Trump, attended the trial – the first family member of | |
the former president to appear during the trial. Susie Wiles, Trump’s | |
senior campaign adviser, was sitting beside the former president’s | |
son. | |
Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and David McIntosh, who has | |
cofounded conservative political groups including the Club for Growth, | |
stopped into the courtroom for some of Tuesday’s session, too. | |
Tuesday’s appearances could be the beginning of a new kind of | |
pilgrimage for Trump’s allies: instead of visiting him at Mar-a-Lago, | |
they come to see the presumptive GOP nominee stand trial in New York. | |
Former Trump 2016 campaign adviser – who was wiretapped by the FBI | |
and over it – was also inside the Manhattan courtroom, CNN’s | |
Kaitlan Collins reported. | |
Though Trump brought a slew of aides and allies with him to court, Page | |
was not sitting near them and instead entered through security with | |
reporters and members of the public. Page declined to comment to CNN on | |
why he was present, but his presence speaks to the circus-like | |
atmosphere that has enveloped Trump’s trial. | |
Page was a key name during Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and | |
his presence emphasizes the throwback nature of this trial — where | |
many figures from Trump’s past and several whom he no longer speaks | |
with have taken center stage. | |
Trump on Tuesday also got another dose of family friendly news: Before | |
the trial began his attorneys had asked for May 17 off so that Trump | |
could attend his son Barron’s graduation. The judge had said he | |
didn’t know yet if that was possible – but on Tuesday, Merchan said | |
things were moving quickly enough that he was comfortable having no | |
court that day so Trump could attend graduation. | |
Trump had previously attacked the judge for preventing him from | |
attending Barron’s graduation, even though the judge had only | |
previously said he was withholding a decision on the request. | |
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