NEW YORK — The fourth week of witness testimony in Donald Trump’s secret trial could be confusing: Michael Cohen is expected to finally testify on Monday.
The long-awaited testimony from Trump’s former lawyer and personal adviser would follow a breathtaking development by prosecutors in a case that ultimately depends on record keeping. Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records to cover up secret payments Cohen made as part of efforts to buy and bury stories that could harm the former president’s 2016 campaign.
Text messages, audio recordings, notes and more have been presented or shown to jurors in recent weeks to illustrate what prosecutors say was a scheme to illegally influence that year’s elections. And at times dramatic testimony from witnesses that included former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, former Trump staffers and porn star Stormy Daniels added to the intrigue.
The prosecution could rest its case this week after telling the judge on Friday that it expected to call just two more witnesses.
The trial is in its 16th day.
In addition to Daniels’ account of a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump – which he denies – last week we saw two failed attempts by the defense to mistrial, attempts to suppress the gag order or at least change it. it and much more.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal charges.
The case is the first criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four cases against Trump to reach a jury.
At the moment:
– Michael Cohen: A Challenging Witness in Trump’s Secret Money Trial
— Trump trial is about sex, bank accounts and power: highlights from the third week of testimony
– Key players: who’s who in Trump’s criminal trial
— The case of silence is just one of Trump’s legal cases. I see the others here
Here are the latest:
Michael Cohen left his New York home on Monday morning.
Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe is expected to take the witness stand in the former president’s case.
In criminal trials, many witnesses come to the stand with their own criminal records, relationships with defendants, contradictory previous statements, or anything else that could affect their credibility.
Cohen has a specific set of baggage.
On the stand, he will need to explain his previous rejections of key aspects of the silent agreements and convince jurors that this time he is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Sandwiched between his court appearances, Donald Trump headed Saturday to the Jersey Shore, where he repeatedly blamed President Joe Biden for the criminal charges he faces as the presumptive nominees prepare to face off in the November election and called his case for silence on New York. “a Biden show trial.”
Accusing the Democratic president of being “a total idiot,” Trump, before a crowd of tens of thousands of people, repeatedly characterized the cases against him as politically motivated and designed to harm his ability to campaign.
“He is a fool. He’s not an intelligent man,” Trump said of Biden. “I talk about him differently now because now I have no gloves.”
Trump has repeatedly accused the Biden administration and Democratic officials in New York of using the legal system to block his return to the White House.
The silence case was brought by local prosecutors in Manhattan who do not work for the Justice Department or any White House office. The Justice Department said the White House had no involvement in the two criminal cases against Trump brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
Court proceedings in Donald Trump’s silent trial will be held over just three days this week – Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Wednesday is the usual day off from the trial during the week and the court will not be in session on Friday to allow the former president to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.
After all, Allen Weisselberg, former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, could appear at Donald Trump’s secret trial.
On Friday, Judge Juan M. Merchan asked prosecutors to see if they could bring him to court before trying to present evidence to explain his absence.
Weisselberg, 76, is currently incarcerated at the Rikers Island complex in New York City, serving a five-month sentence for lying under oath in his testimony in the Trump civil fraud investigation conducted by the state attorney general. He pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced last month. Your plea agreement does not require your cooperation or testimony in the criminal case.
“At the moment, it seems to me that we are trying to get ahead of ourselves. We’re trying to explain why he’s not here without making any effort to get him here,” Merchan said.
Trump lawyer Emil Bove noted that his absence “is a very complicated issue” and could require a jury instruction on uncalled witnesses.
Prosecutors argued that subpoenaing Weisselberg to testify would likely be a waste of time given his loyalty to Trump and the likelihood that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Donald Trump is due back in court Monday morning as witness testimony in his criminal trial enters its fourth week.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal advisor, is the prosecution’s star witness in Trump’s secret trial. Cohen is scheduled to testify on Monday and is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case.
Prosecutors say they could finish presenting evidence by the end of the week.
Cohen is expected to testify about his role in arranging secret payments on Trump’s behalf during his first presidential campaign, including to porn actress Stormy Daniels, who told jurors last week that the $130,000 she received in 2016 their aim was to prevent her from going public. about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite a decade earlier.
Defense lawyers prepared a blunt cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that the middleman-turned-enemy is a “confessed liar” with an “obsession with getting President Trump.”
The trial is in its 16th day.
