And also that notoriously-cheap Trump only got to the point of considering paying off Stormy, if they couldn’t delay that past the election, because of the uproar caused by the release of the Access Hollywood tape.
I suspect there will be a lot of evidence presented of how strongly that tape affected the campaign personnel (including Trump). Hope Hicks, for one, will probably be asked about this.
In any event, it looks like Trump did a masterful job of keeping his affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal on the down low!
I don’t have a cite handy, but I’m quite sure I’ve heard several legal talking heads mention that – after the 2016 election – Trump asked if they “still had to pay” Stormy Daniels.
If they have somebody who can testify to having heard that, that seems damned compelling as to his true motive for the payment.
It doesn’t connect every dot, but it seems important … for an important dot.
Trouble for Trump is, this sort of defense would require the defendant to testify, wouldn’t it? Which then opens him up to all sorts of fun on cross-examination.
The judges in the court down the street each take a weekday off from whatever trials are in progress. They coordinate which day it will be with the other judges, so they’re not all off at the same time. Juries are told which day it will be when the trial begins.
I wish I could be this optimistic. I worry that one or more of these… people… will hang the jury for very bad reasons. Its really pretty depressing, actually.
A MAGAt smart enough to get on that jury is pretty rare, though.
What a surprise - Loser Donald thinks the courtroom sketch artist is out to get him.
I would expect a greater likelihood of this happening in GA or FL but in Manhattan, not so much.
If he ever does go on trial in Fla. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the courtroom sketches resemble those insane Trump and Jesus pieces by that nutball. You know the ones.
If he keeps pooping his pants in court the artist can add the cartoon smell waves.
Rachel Maddow alluded to the odor in an oblique way in her show this evening, saying < Cassidy Hutchison voice > something to the effect that while it may have seemed like an advantage to be inside the courtroom rather than in the overflow room, there were advantages and disadvantages, and a lot of them have to do with the 5 senses. Gad zooks.
The recording that Cohen made when talking to donald about paying off McDougal has been released. I can’t find a clean link, but it’s embedded in this cite below.
It’s not a long recording, and the important part is only the last handful of seconds. Cohen mentions that he’s going to have to create a company to handle the “transfer of information” regarding “our friend David”. That’s David Pecker, and a discussion of the payment. It sounds like donald asks if they should pay cash, and Cohen is adamant that they use a check (my best guess as to why is because an unexplained cash transfer of $130,000 would attract bank attention, whereas a check would be presumed to be part of a business transaction).
I wonder if there are other recordings.
…
Meanwhile, I feel like the defense previewed their argument in the opening when emphasizing that donald was (paraphrasing) “a man, just like you or me”. I think they are going to try to present the payments as motivated by concern for his family. It’s complete and utter bullshit, and I expect it to fail, but I think that’s the plan.
The other part of the defense, I think, is that donald didn’t concern himself with his business while he was president, so he didn’t pay attention to what checks were for.
But how does the defense make this argument? Are Eric or Don Jr expected to testify as the people running his business?
I wish the judge could have gag-ordered the witnesses as they did Trump. Cohen:
I hope the jurors are all following the judge’s instructions on not reading about the case.
But re posters worried about a single possible secret MAGA juror, there apparently was one in the E. Jean Carroll jury, and Trump still lost. It’s hard to maintain your initial inclination when everyone around you is arguing otherwise.
Any word on how the recording was made? Was Cohen wearing a wire?
‘Von ShitzinPantz’! I love it!
By definition, MAGA cultists are easily manipulated.
I’m pretty sure it’s as simple as walking in with papers in your hand, along with your phone, which is recording audio.
I believe that Omarosa did the same thing.
A few days ago there was a post or two about Trump holding papers outside the court while he gave an interview. I googled and can’t find anything about it. What was the issue?
Probably just that he’s a tool who was waving papers about as though they meant something.
I watched that event live on CNN. It was his bloviating to the media after leaving court that day.
Basically, the papers were printouts from media outlets that are favourable to Trump, and/or right-wing media. I hesitate to call them “news items,” as they seemed to be mostly opinion pieces. He went through them, stating where some of them were from (one was the Wall Street Journal), but he mentioned that a lot were from “legal scholars” who said “there’s no case” here.
Nothing from NYT or Washington Post or CNN or anything else. He (or a staffer) likely cherry-picked whatever said there was no case from all media. But that was all they were: printouts of opinions favourable to Trump in this matter.