Trump’s history-making hush-money trial begins ...(Mod Warning)

3 min ago
Judge won't allow prosecutors to introduce texts from Daniels' publicist


Judge Juan Merchan says he won't let prosecutors introduce some text messages in from Gina Rodriguez, Stormy Daniels' then-publicist.

The judge said they are prejudicial and don't advance anything.

More on this: Prosecutors had hoped to get into text messages from Rodriguez to AMI executive Dylan Howard. The prosecutors argued these messages will help contextualize messages Howard sent to her that they plan to show the jury.

4 min ago
Court will not be in session Friday before Memorial Day, judge rules
Judge Juan Merchan ruled court will not be in session the Friday before Memorial Day, May 24, because a juror has to catch a flight. Neither side objected.



https://www.cnn.com/

 

I agree. Will the Rw erupt into more yawns?

 

ago
C-SPAN received subpoena to testify


C-SPAN received a subpoena to testify, confirms Robert Browning, the executive director of the C-SPAN archives.

The subpoena was from the Manhattan district attorney's office to turn over recordings in its archives of Donald Trump, Browning says.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

Trump Fined $9,000 for Violating Gag Order in New York Trial

The skank's chronic sphincter failure exacts a price.

​

Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for his repeatedly attacking prospective jurors and prosecutors’ expected star witnesses, warning the perp that additional violations could result in jail time.​

​

Being force fed Kaopectate® is the alternative.

​

 

For the

1 Stormy Daniels and 1 perfectly legal NDA for the 1 agreed upon amount. It's called STACKING.

When the Clinton campaign hired Jack Paladino to silence women whom he had either had affairs or had sexaully assaulted they wrote the charges as legal expenses. The campaign used campaign resources to form the Bimbo Squad which was in charge of the efforts to intimidate the women into silence. Who was charged with a crime then?

 

1 Stormy Daniels, 1 NDA, 1 agreed to amount, perfectly legal.

 

3 min ago
Davidson testifies he met McDougal 25 years ago


Keith Davidson is being asked if knows Karen McDougal.

"She was a client of mine," he said, adding that he met her 25 years ago when she was dating his friend.

Davidson is McDougal's former attorney.

1 min ago
Key things to know about Daniels and McDougal as their former attorney testifies
From CNN's Kaanita Iyer

Former President Donald Trump has been accused of taking part in an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election and an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, which included a hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to hide an affair. Trump has denied the affair.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, received a $130,000 payment just days before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors allege Trump disguised the transaction as a legal payment and falsified business records numerous times to “promote his candidacy.” Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty.

Daniels shared in a documentary released in March that she accepted the payment to keep her one-night stand with Trump in 2006 from becoming public to protect her husband and daughter.

Meanwhile, Karen McDougal is a model and actress who has said she had a monthslong affair with Trump in 2006. She was paid $150,000 to keep quiet about it by the National Enquirer, according to prosecutors. Trump has denied the affair.

While the hush money trial is focused on the hush money deal involving Daniels, prosecutors have used the alleged McDougal payoff as evidence the schemes were aimed at protecting Trump's electoral chances.

See a full timeline of key moments in the case.

6 min ago
Trump just handed a note to his attorney
Trump just wrote a note on a notepad and handed it to his attorney Emil Bove. Bove wrote something and handed it back to Trump.



6 min ago
Cohen was working on Trump's behalf when they interacted over Daniels' blog post, Davidson testifies
Michael Cohen was working on Donald Trump's behalf when they interacted over the Stormy Daniels' blog post, Keith Davidson testified.

Davidson was given a thumb drive in court with emails and attachments from his law firm's servers.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

5 min ago
Davidson says he first spoke with Cohen over blog post involving Stormy Daniels and Trump
Keith Davidson explains how he knows Michael Cohen, saying they first spoke over a blog posting in 2011 involving his client and Donald Trump.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asks Davidson who that client was, and he replied that she was Stephanie Clifford, also known as adult-film star Stormy Daniels.




8 min ago
Trump glances at Davidson a few times
Donald Trump has looked over at Keith Davidson from time to time as he's begun testifying, though he's mostly facing forward and not reacting to the testimony.













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8 min ago
Davidson says he's had "very little" contact with David Pecker
Keith Davidson tells prosecutors he's had "very little" contact with ex-tabloid publisher David Pecker, saying he's only ever interacted with Pecker three or four times in his life.




10 min ago
Davidson testifies he did not often negotiate the sale of stories to tabloids
Keith Davidson says he "rarely" negotiated the sale of stories to the tabloids.




8 min ago
Davidson testifies he's "professional acquaintances and friends" with AMI executive Dylan Howard
Keith Davidson says he's known Gina Rodriguez for well over ten years. He says he's represented her in legal matters over the years.

He also confirms his relationship with Dylan Howard, the former chief content officer at AMI, saying he's known him for well over 10 years through professional matters.

Davidson categorized his relationship with Howard as "professional acquaintances and friends."


11 min ago
Davidson says he was offered immunity to testify in grand jury but did not seek it
Keith Davidson says he received immunity to testify in the grand jury but did not seek it.

He says he's testifying today pursuant to a subpoena.

Some background: Under New York law, a person can automatically get immunity for testifying before a grand jury.


11 min ago
Davidson testifies his law firm was "heavily involved with media cases" between 2015 and 2017
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is beginning his questioning by walking through Keith Davidson's employment history. Davidson says he owns his own law firm in Los Angeles, Davidson and Associates.

When asked about the period of time from 2015 to 2017 Davidson says, "At that time, my practice was heavily involved with media cases."

Davidson confirms that his work frequently involved non-disclosure agreements in those cases.

Davidson is looking at the jury as he's answering many of these questions.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

5 min ago
Davidson testifies he represented McDougal in 2016 over interaction with Trump


Keith Davidson said he represented Karen McDougal in 2016 to provide her advice of counsel about her rights about a personal interaction she had with Donald Trump.

Davidson said McDougal became his client because they were reintroduced by her former brother-in-law.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

5 min ago
Davidson shown email to McDougal containing retainer agreement


Keith Davidson was shown an email he sent to former Playboy model Karen McDougal saying, "Great seeing you today. I’ve already started on your case.”

The email also contained a retainer agreement and was dated June 15, 2016.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

5 min ago
What we know about Keith Davidson


Keith Davidson is now on the stand. He was the lawyer who was at the center of the so-called hush money agreements with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

The lawyer helped negotiate the deals to silence Daniels and McDougal over their alleged encounters with Donald Trump. Davidson said in an interview with CNN in 2018 that he’d spoken with Michael Cohen on several occasions about the two women.

Davidson also said he called Cohen in the late summer of 2016 to inform him that he’d settled a case involving Playboy model McDougal. McDougal sold the rights to her story to American Media Inc., the parent company of the National Enquirer, for $150,000 and other perks. Davidson said he informed Cohen of the deal as “a professional courtesy.”

During his testimony last week, David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified about his communications with Davidson throughout the process of negotiating the payments.

CNN's Scott Glover and Sara Sidner contributed reporting to this post.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

8m ago / 12:26 PM EDT
Trump appears to fall asleep during testimony


Trump appears to have fallen asleep while listening to testimony — at times appearing to stir and then falling back to sleep.

Trump's eyes were closed for extended periods and his head has at times jerked in a way consistent with sleeping.

https://www.nbcnews.com/

 

2m ago / 12:34 PM EDT
Davidson says he won’t testify about his conversations with McDougal because of attorney-client privilege


Asked by Steinglass whether he discussed with McDougal that he was authorized to negotiate on her behalf with media companies, Davidson declined to detail his discussions with his client.

“I can’t and won’t discuss what I discussed with Ms. McDougal,” Davidson said, drawing a firm line with respect to attorney-client communications.

10m ago / 12:27 PM EDT
Prosecutor begins questioning Keith Davidson about Karen McDougal


Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Keith Davidson a few questions about how he knows Karen McDougal. He said he met her about 25 years ago and she was dating his friend.

Asked if he represented McDougal in the summer of 2016, Davidson said, "“I represented her in order to provide advice and counsel...regarding a personal interaction she had...with Donald Trump."


https://www.nbcnews.com/

 

1 Stormy Daniels, 1 NDA, 1 agreed upon amount not FIVE.

Do you get charged for each dollar taken?

 

Trump fined $9,000 for violating gag order in New York hush money trial (msn.com)
Just like I said fined $9,000 instead of $8,000. Fancy that!

 

Who convicted Trump of election fraud?

Bragg has no jurisdiction to try him for election fraud in the election, the state has no jurisdiction to charge him or try him.


How Judge Merchan Is Orchestrating Trump’s Conviction

...Judge Juan Merchan is orchestrating Trump’s conviction of a crime that is not actually charged in the indictment: conspiracy to violate FECA (the Federal Election Campaign Act — specifically, its spending limits). That should not be possible in the United States, where the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment mandates that an accused may only be tried for a felony offense if it has been outlined with specificity in an indictment, approved by a grand jury that has found probable cause for that offense.

Bragg, a county district attorney responsible for enforcing state law, has no authority to prosecute federal crimes, much less crimes under FECA — a corpus so abstruse that Congress created a specialized bureaucracy, the Federal Election Commission, to ensure its uniform application, vesting the FEC and the Justice Department with exclusive enforcement jurisdiction (as explained in my weekend column).
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024...ent=featured-content-trending&utm_term=second

Biden’s Collusion in the Anti-Trump Lawfare Gambit

...The best collusion evidence in the New York case is the silence of the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission.

The FEC was created by Congress in 1974 to ensure uniform enforcement of federal campaign law, for which Democrats began pushing in the post-Watergate years. A specialized bureaucracy was deemed necessary because the regulation of campaign funding has profound implications for the projection of political speech — the core of the First Amendment’s free-expression guarantee. Hence, the campaign laws are abstruse and controversial — subject to repeated court challenges, many of them successful, since their inception.

To get a firm grip on federal campaign-finance enforcement, and to avoid overly aggressive applications of this dubious legal edifice that could easily lead to further chipping away by the federal courts, the Justice Department and the FEC have been given exclusive jurisdiction over enforcement, as the FEC put it in approving a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between itself and the Justice Department just a year ago — i.e., not long after Bragg filed his indictment of Trump, in which he did not dare admit that he was endeavoring to enforce federal campaign law. The feds take up the entire campaign-finance-enforcement field, as one would expect given that we’re talking about federal law that controls federal campaigns and elections. As the MOU elaborates, the Justice Department has “exclusive jurisdiction” over criminal enforcement; the FEC has “exclusive jurisdiction” over civil enforcement.

The campaign laws are so complex that the FEC’s role includes the promulgation of “regulations to implement and clarify these laws.” For its part, the Justice Department has produced an exacting enforcement manual of well over 200 pages, which has been edited numerous times, in order to walk federal prosecutors through the complex web of statutes and regulations.....
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/bidens-collusion-in-the-anti-trump-lawfare-gambit/

How many times does this have to be explained?

 

Just keep building up those reversible errors Judge...............but of course getting a conviction is not what this is all about is it.

 

4m ago / 12:47 PM EDT

Keith Davidson describes meeting in which McDougal alleged affair with Trump for 'several weeks to months'


Davidson said that by June 20, 2016, Dylan Howard texted him that he had landed and was en route to Davidson’s office, where they met with McDougal, Jay Giardina (her ex-brother in law), and a man named Johnny Crawford, a friend of McDougal's.

At that meeting, McDougal alleged she had had a romantic and sexual affair with Donald Trump for “several weeks to months” some years prior.

Davidson is detailing meetings and details we first learned about from David Pecker’s testimony, but with more details and from a different vantage point.

5m ago / 12:46 PM EDT
Text exchange between Davidson and Enquirer reporter revealed Trump and McDougal's affair


Keith Davidson testified that he had texted with National Enquirer reporter Dylan Howard, saying he had a "blockbuster Trump story," in June 2016.

Davidson testified that the story was about the interactions between Trump and Davidson's client, Karen McDougal.

Howard had responded to Davison, "Talk 1st thing, I will get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why..."

Davidson said he didn't know if he had a "clear understanding at the time" of Howard's text.

"But I knew that Dylan’s boss David Pecker and Mr. Trump were longtime friends and had a former business relationship," Davison continued.



9m ago / 12:42 PM EDT
Prosecutor shows texts between McDougal's lawyer and Dylan Howard: 'Did he cheat on Melania?'


Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass introduced text messages as evidence between Davidson and Dylan Howard the morning after Davidson told him that he had a "blockbuster Trump story."

"Did he cheat on Melania?" Howard asked Davidson. "Do you know if the affair was during his marriage to Melania."

"I really can't say yet, sorry," Davidson said.

"Okay keep me informed," Howard said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/

 

4m ago / 12:51 PM EDT
Keith Davidson said in one text that McDougal was 'being cornered by the estrogen mafia'


In one text exchange between Keith Davidson and Dylan Howard, Davidson said, “Don’t forget about Cohen. Time is of the essence. The girl is being cornered by the estrogen mafia."

Davidson testified, “That was a very unfortunate, regrettable text I sent. That phrase is not one that I used or came up with. That was a term by one of, I think, one of Karen’s associates that was at the first meeting. And there was several women who were leaning on Karen to sign a deal with ABC.”


https://www.nbcnews.com/

 

4m ago / 12:53 PM EDT
Analysis: Davidson is keeping his disposition monotone

Keith Davidson's disposition on the witness stand is notable. His speech is monotone, without a lot of elaboration and seemingly avoiding colorful language.

For instance, he called the alleged dealings between his client, Karen McDougal, and Trump a "personal interaction."

Davidson is looking at his own text messages and asked to explain the context surrounding events even he described as a "bombshell" at the time, but today on the stand, his voice pattern never changes — even when the subject is objectively eyebrow-raising.

https://www.nbcnews.com/

 

5 min ago
Karen McDougal "did not want to tell her story," her former attorney testifies


Keith Davidson is testifying that Karen McDougal "did not want to tell her story."

Davidson says McDougal's goals were to "rejuvenate her career, to make money and to avoid telling the story and being termed the scarlet letter.” She didn't want to be termed "the other woman," he said.

On July 23, 2016, former National Enquirer editor Howard texted Davidson: “Get me a price on McDougall (sic). All in. Consulting gig perhaps as a fitness expert thrown into the mix.”
The ABC deal required her to tell her story, so she liked the AMI deal that wouldn't force her to do that, Davidson says.

"That was one of her stated goals" not to have to tell her story, he says.

https://www.cnn.com/

 

1 min ago
Court is breaking for lunch


The court is taking a lunch break until 2:15 p.m. ET.

Donald Trump has left the courtroom.

1 min ago
Howard texted Davidson that McDougal "get more out of a deal" with AMI than one with ABC
Former National Enquirer editor and AMI executive Dylan Howard texted Keith Davidson on July 28: "She’ll get more out of a deal with AMI than ABC."

"I need this to happen," Davidson responded over text.

More on this: Earlier, Davidson confirmed he was in discussions with ABC News about a possible deal for Karen McDougal's story.

2 min ago
Davidson describes offers for McDougal's story
Keith Davidson is testifying about his first offer to former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

Davidson's offer to Howard over text was: "How about 1m now," meaning $1 million, he explained. "And 75k per year for next 2 years as a fitness corresponded for ami & ur related pubs."

"I'll take it to them but thinking it's more hundreds than millions," Howard responded over text on July 23. Davidson said he interpreted that warning to mean, "I should expect a counter offer that was substantially less."

Davidson responded by offering $800,000 now and $100,000 per year for a total of $1 million.

Howard's response "leave w/ me" suggested they were not "in the same ballpark," he testified.

“We are going to lay it on thick for her," Howard texted Davidson on July 28, 2016.

Davidson replied, "Good. Throw in an ambassadorship for me. I’m thinking Isle of Mann."

Davidson noted that was a joke.

"It was sort of in jest," Davidson said. "That was just a joke."

https://www.cnn.com/

 

Boo-****in-hoo
Someone needs to tell the repulsive Jason Miller that the reporting is coming from journalists who are in the courtroom.

'Donald Trump Is Pissed At His Trial Lawyer, Maggie Haberman Reports'

"Blanche has apparently sought to placate Trump to some extent, using strategies in court that some analysts have characterized as “terrible” and bizarre.

Legal experts have suggested that Trump is hurting his own defense by forcing his attorney to spout falsehoods and push political rhetoric that does not hold up in court.

Last week, Judge Juan Merchan told Blanche he was “losing all credibility with this court” after he argued that his client was trying hard to comply with a gag order preventing him from attacking people involved with the case.

cont:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-pissed-trial-lawyer-151108124.html

 

You keep citing a repeating OPINION pieces. Nice thing about opinions, everyone is allowed to have..... their own opinion.
Apparently there are some differing opinions in this matter.
Don't be so outraged at this. It is normal for different opinions to exist, and those you are citing tend to sway one direction.
The only opinions that really matter now are those of the jury. We'll have to wait to see what their opinions are. Otherwise it's just an exercise in futility.
It will be up to the jury if they accept the prosecution's view of these actions by Trump.
If you read the NY law, and it's been posted numerous times on this forum, the underlying crime does not have to be prosecuted for the law to apply, only proven that there was one and it led to the act of falsifying documents. It seems a bit of a stretch, but when I read the law, it isn't as much of a stretch as it first appears.
My opinion is that all the talk about Trump not being charged by the Feds for election interference doesn't play a part in the present proceedings.
Anyway, that's my opinion........

 

LEGAL opinions citing the LAW and the CONSTITUTION.

The refute what I posted and cite the law that backs it up and the Constitution.

And those opinions are at the mercy of this DA and Judge and their misapplication of the law.

I have cited the LAW put yourself on this jury and tell me how on earth you convict him for something this DA and this court HAS NO JURISDICTION?

A distinction without merit. Did you even bother to read what I posted???? And New York has no jurisdiction over a federal election law violation PERIOD, that is the SOLE plenary power of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Since when in this country can some country DA declare you guilty of a crime for which you have not even been charged let alone convicted by a jury. Did you miss the fact that the grand jury did not charge Trump with election fraud yet he is being tried for it in this court?

Then what is the underlying crime Bragg is claiming and upon which his entire case hinges? ONLY the Feds can make such a criminal charge.