Is that how it works? Does having crap legal representation (or in this case good representation told to do stupid things ) rule out appealing things like this?
from cnn updates:
The first sidebar ended, and Trump lawyer Susan Necheles started asking Madeleine Westerhout about his travel schedules.
But they are now back at the bench after prosecutors are objecting over travel schedules.
Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold was given the chance to ask Westerhout about whether she had viewed these specific schedules. Westerhout said her lawyer had shown them to her this morning but she wasn’t sure whether she had seen these specific schedules while she still worked at the RNC.
Judge Juan Merchan is denying the introduction of the travel schedules into evidence.
Madeleine Westerhout is saying that at some point, she was told a post office box was set up for the president to receive personal items.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles asks whether they learned that was a “really slow way to receive things?”
“Yes,” Westerhout says with a laugh.
There were times personal items were sent to the White House and Trump never received them, Westerhout confirms to Necheles.
When speaking about the slowness of receiving personal items via a post office box, Madeleine Westerhout agrees the delay is how Keith Schiller — the former president’s bodyguard — ended up receiving personal mail for Donald Trump and Melania Trump.
Trump attorney Susan Necheles is asking about Trump’s habits on signing and reviewing documents.
She’s digging into whether he was signing hundreds of documents a day. “Not every day, but sometimes,” Westerhout says.
“Would you see him signing things without reviewing them,” Necheles asks.
“Yes,” Madeleine Westerhout says.
Westerhout confirms that Trump would sign checks while doing other things, like sometimes while he was on the phone or meeting with others.
mr odonnell was as giddy as an 11 year old boy about the “orange turd”.
i believe more important than tthe toilet humour, is that the defence attorney just “flushed” her credibility with the jury. ms daniels having the post brought onto the screen, caught out the defence. ms daniels did very well yest.
from cnn updates.
Madeleine Westerhout says she spoke with Donald Trump after the article about the Stormy Daniels story was published.
“He was very upset by it,” Westerhout says. “My understanding was he knew it would be hurtful to his family.”
Westerhout then clarifies that was her understanding but not that Trump specifically said that to her. “He didn’t specifically speak about his family in that conversation,” she says.
Madeleine Westerhout spoke with defense attorney Susan Necheles once before on Wednesday night — the day before she was called as a witness.
The meeting with Necheles was for one hour via zoom. Westerhout met with prosecutors three times for hours.
More on this: At the start of most cross-examinations, the defense attorneys have noted they have not previously spoken to witnesses. It is not uncommon for witnesses to speak with prosecutors or defense attorneys.
Madeleine Westerhout is off the stand and her testimony is over.
She raised her eyebrows and smiled at Trump as she left the courtroom. He smiled back at her and mouthed something.
At the end of redriect, Westerhout confirmed she works as the chief of staff to the chair of American Global Strategies, who is Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
Daniel Dixon, who works as a lead compliance analyst for AT&T, is the next witness.
He is testifying under subpoena to AT&T as a records custodian.
Most of the jurors are still paying attention to Daniel Dixon’s testimony. Dixon, a AT&T lead compliance analyst, is testifying about call-detail records and subscriber records.
However, one juror has his head down during this testimony.
That’s getting into the weeds of US trial process, and IANAUSL, but the general rule is that you have to raise objections at the time. That’s what the trial is for : to set out all the evidence for the jury to assess. If you don’t do that, very hard to raise it on appeal.
Incompetent counsel is a hard argument to make, and in this case, when the two lead lawyers have very good reps, I would think it unlikely.
Especially if the problem is that they were carrying out their client’s instructions. Every accused has the constitutional right to direct his defence. If he tells his lawyers to do something, and the lawyers advise that would be very bad, and the client says : “Do it!”, that’s not incompetent counsel.
I think Trump’s attorneys would have a very difficult time convincing an Appellate Judge that their client thought he knew better than his attorneys.
Nope. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t type that with a straight face.
SO close, though 
I followed along for a while on the NY Times live coverage of the trial yesterday, and the reporters in the courtroom did not seem to think Necheles had a terrible or even bad day questioning Daniels. Reading along with those real-time updates, I got the impression that she landed some punches and took some counterpunches from Daniels, but did not make a fool of herself or behave incompetently (unfortunately).
cnn update:
Trump attorney Emil Bove is now asking about the limits of certain call records.
“These records don’t reflect the content of these calls?” Bove asks.
“Correct,” Daniel Dixon says.
“You can’t tell from the records themselves who actually spoke?” Bove asks.
“Correct,” Dixon says.
“You’re familiar with the concept of a pocket dial?” Bove asks, suggesting the transactional record shown could’ve been an accidental call.
In a written order Friday Judge Juan Merchan granted prosecutors motion to quash a subpoena from Donald Trump’s lawyers seeking to compel former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to turn over more records.
Merchan called Trump’s request for “all Documents" for a 13-month period from several individuals covering a range of topics including “Cohen’s recollection of interactions with President Trump” and "any form of bias or animosity toward President Trump” an improper fishing expedition.
Trump’s lawyers also asked for all documents relating to a February 2021 internal memo on “whether Stephanie Clifford a/k/a ‘Stormy Daniels,’ committed ‘extortion and or ‘larceny,’ and (b) whether President Trump was a 'victim of blackmail."
Merchan ruled Friday that the information is protected as privileged work product while also calling the request impermissibly broad. Merchan denied another request in the subpoena seeking years worth of communications between personnel within the Manhattan DA’s office calling it an apparent “attempt to obtain DANY’s internal communications about their discovery obligations.”
The order notes Trump’s legal team has received some discovery from Pomerantz as recently as March before the trial began.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has entered the courtroom.
Jennie Tomalin is the next witness. She works for Verizon as a senior analyst in executive relations.
rc notes:
looks like today is set up the evidence day as the defence will not stipulate anything. they appear to be bringing in people to give custody evidence.
Don’t worry about that. There are times you can ask the court for a standing objection to a line of questioning so you don’t have to object to every question on the same topic. I don’t think that happened here. Generally, any question you don’t object to cannot be grounds for appeal. (there are some extremely rare exceptions to this rule, but I won’t bore everyone with that now)
They won’t even try this. It’s not a thing.
oh, i don’t know, they are trying many things that are not a thing.
cnn update:
The records that prosecutors are introducing through Jennie Tomalin relate to 12 subscriber phone records, she says.
The records from Verizon are accepted into evidence, including one of a phone for Allen Weisselberg.
For context: These phone records being introduced into evidence are likely to be used later on by prosecutors.
Trump attorney Emil Bove is asking Jennie Tomalin about the Verizon records, including one for Keith Davidson.
Remember: Davidson is the former attorney for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. He testified last week.
Jennie Tomalin is off the stand. She testified for 12 minutes.
The court is taking a short break and jurors are leaving the courtroom.
Lawyers are now taking up an objection to an upcoming exhibit.
Defense attorney Emil Bove says the exhibit is a clip of Trump on “Larry King Live” in 1999 being asked about campaign finance laws. Bove argues that Trump’s views on campaign finance in 1999 are not relevant to his state of mind in 2016 or 2017.
“There was extensive revisions to campaign finance laws in intervening period both statutory and by the Supreme Court,” Bove argues.
Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold says that the corporate contribution ban, which is what’s relevant here, has been part of campaign finance law since 1907.
Judge Juan Merchan says he will rule after the break.
What about the nuance in this trial? My understanding, as you point out, is that an appeal based on something where an objection wasn’t raised is a flat-out nonstarter. How about this instance where it wasn’t raised real time, but was raised (does the first request for a mistrial amount to an objection?) shortly thereafter and before the trial ended?
It’s on the record, right? Is this one a gray area, up to the appellate court to determine (i.e., not the merits per se, but whether it’s a permissible appeal at all)?
Any summary of the clip available?
Has the Judge said anything about referring to him as “President” instead of “Mr”?
The party could try to find some excuse for not objecting, and then ask for a currative instruction. (“the jury shall disregard what they heard about x.”) And then appeal the refusal to give the instruction. It’s a tough argument to make. Appellate courts want to encourage contemporaneous objections, so the trial judge can fix things as they happen. They don’t like to micro manage the trials (or they shouldn’t anyway). Most of these issues are evidentiary questions, and therefore they are reviewed on appeal under an “abuse of discretion” standard, which is very hard to establish.
If they do get a curative instruction, does that put a bullet in any basis for an appeal (one that would be entertained, that is)?
cnn updates:
Judge Juan Merchan sides with the defense and says he will not allow Trump’s interview in 1999 about campaign finance into evidence.
He says trying to draw an inference to what he knew in 2015 or 2017 is a step too far.
Judge Juan Merchan says they are going to end early today. They are going until 1 p.m. ET or perhaps a bit later but will not be returning after lunch.
Prosecutors have two more witnesses, which they estimate will take about an hour, according to reporters in the courtroom.
They have one more evidentiary issue to take up after their testimonies.
Georgia Longstreet is being called back to the witness stand.
The paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney’s office testified last week. Longstreet tells prosecutor Rebecca Mangold that as part of her duties as a paralegal, she’s responsible for analyzing records produced via subpoena.
Georgia Longstreet says the team of paralegals have reviewed and saved public posts from Trump’s Twitter account. This is how prosecutors are entering additional Trump tweets into evidence.
Georgia Longstreet is testifying about the text messages she reviewed for this case. She and the other paralegals on the case have reviewed 500 pages of text messages in relation to the case. She’s personally reviewed about 100 pages.
The paralegals have reviewed over 10,000 pages of call records for the case. She’s personally reviewed about 200 to 300, she says.
The paralegals have reviewed 300 to 500 pages of contact records. She says she’s matched about 50 contacts to phone records.
They also reviewed 75 different court cases.
Jurors are now being shown some of Donald Trump’s tweets.
The first set is a thread related to Michael Cohen, dated April 21, 2018.
It also attacks New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who is in the courtroom today as well.
To note: This tweet is days after Cohen’s home, apartment and hotel room were raided by the FBI.
It sure helps. “Jurors are presumed to follow the court’s instructions.” Some things can’t be cured, of course, that’s why they move for a mistrial.
Thanks. Very helpful.