Hope Hicks recounts political firestorm over ‘Access Hollywood’ tape in Trump’s hush-money trial

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By the Associated Press

Before leaving for the week, Judge Merchan denied a request by prosecutors that they be allowed to ask Trump, should he choose to testify, about being held in contempt of court for gag order violations in the criminal trial.

Merchan said allowing questioning on a matter involving the very same trial would be “so prejudicial it would be very, very difficult for the jury to look past that.”

By the Associated Press

On his way out, the former president spoke briefly to reporters, again decrying the prosecutors in this case and the other criminal and civil cases he’s faced.

He was asked about Hicks’ testimony but said he couldn’t comment because of the gag order but did say the prosecutors generally “destroyed people’s lives” and “I was very interested in what took place today.”

By the Associated Press

Hicks left the witness stand after Trump lawyer Emil Bove spent just about 20 minutes questioning her. Bove treated the former White House communications director gingerly, calmly inquiring after she became emotional at the start of his cross-examination.

Bove used his brief questioning to underscore the defense’s contention that Cohen was acting as a lone wolf, without the blessing of Trump or his campaign, when he paid $130,000 to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.

Bove elicited testimony from Hicks that Cohen sometimes went rogue in his service to Trump, that he wasn’t officially part of his campaign — though he sometimes tried to insert himself into campaign matters — and that he was known as a “fixer” only because he was “fixing things” he’d already broken.

Hicks noted that Cohen wasn’t in any of the Trump Tower meetings with Trump and campaign staff following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape and, in fact, may have been out of the country at the time.

By the Associated Press

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche indicated in comments in court that the former president is appealing the judge’s finding this week that he violated his gag order.

Blanche noted that they took particular issue with penalties for what are known as reposts — instances where Trump shared someone else’s post with his followers.

“We’re appealing but we accept the order of the court,” Blanche said.

By the Associated Press

Trump lawyer Bove returned to the day of the “Access Hollywood” tape release, asking Hicks to characterize how Trump was feeling at that moment. She obliged, giving one of her longer answers of the day.

“President Trump really values Mrs. Trump’s opinion and she doesn’t weigh in all the time but when she does it’s really meaningful to him,” she said. “He really, really respects what she has to say. I think he was really concerned about what the perception of this would be and yeah I know that was weighing on him.”

“I don’t think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed by anything happening in the campaign,” she continued.

As she spoke, Trump appeared to nod slightly, his gaze fixed on the witness box.

By the Associated Press

Before Trump’s lawyers began their cross-examination, prosecutors concluded their questioning by asking Hicks to describe what Trump told her about a conversation he had with Michael Cohen in February 2018. That was right after Cohen told The New York Times that he — Cohen — had paid the $130,000 to Daniels out of his own pocket.

Hicks said Trump told her Cohen said he “felt like it was his job to protect him and that’s what he was doing and he did it out of the kindness of his own heart and he never told anybody about it.”

Under questioning by prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, Hicks conceded that such an act would be “out of character” for Cohen. “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” she said.

But, even as Trump claimed he never knew about the payments, Hicks said her old boss had eventually come to believe the decision to bury the story before the election was prudent.

“Mr. Trump’s opinion was that it was better to be dealing with it now and it would’ve been bad to have that story come out before the election,” she said.

By the Associated Press

A recess was called after she started crying on the witness stand.

By the Associated Press

Merchan then asked Hicks if she needed time. Hicks had turned away from the microphone and appeared to be breaking down in tears.

“Yes,” she said gently.

Merchan then sent the jury out of the room. Hicks left a moment later, still emotional as she slipped out a side door.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan called a sudden recess as Hicks started crying on the witness stand when Trump lawyer Emil Bove started to ask her a question reflecting on her time at the Trump Organization.

By the Associated Press

Hicks said she spoke with Trump on Nov. 5, 2016, the day after the Journal article was published.

She testified that he “was concerned about the story. He was concerned about how it would be viewed by his wife, and he wanted me to make sure the newspapers weren’t delivered to their residence that morning.”

Asked if Trump was also worried about the story’s effect on the campaign, Hicks testified that everything they spoke about during that time was viewed through the lens of the campaign, with Trump often asking her, “How is it playing?” as a way of gauging how his appearances, speeches and policies were landing with voters.

Hicks testified that she was almost certain Trump used the phrase to express concern about how the Journal story would affect his election chances and the final days of his campaign.

By the Associated Press

Hicks was asked about text messages she exchanged with Cohen immediately after the publication of The Wall Street Journal’s story about the National Enquirer’s parent company buying the rights to McDougal’s story.

One message, displayed for jurors, showed Hicks requesting Cohen share a phone number for David Pecker, the president of parent company AMI.”Mr. Trump wanted to speak with him,” she testified.

In another message, Cohen informs Hicks he has a “statement by Storm denying everything and contradicting the other porn stars.” Hicks testified she didn’t know what Cohen was referring to “and I didn’t want to know.”

Both Cohen and Hicks were initially pleased by what Hicks described as a “muted” reaction to the Journal story.

“It wasn’t being picked up in the same way that something like the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape was,” she said. “It wasn’t wall to wall coverage.”

By the Associated Press

Hicks resumed testifying after a lunch break, with a prosecutor focusing his questions on the Trump campaign’s response to a Wall Street Journal story published days before Election Day in 2016 that exposed the National Enquirer’s $150,000 catch-and-kill deal with McDougal.

Hicks testified that Trump requested that she convey to the Journal reporter who’d contacted her for comment that he denies McDougal’s claims of an affair and porn actor Daniels’ claims of a sexual encounter with him, which were also mentioned in the article.

“The denial was from Mr. Trump for both women,” Hicks testified.

As is standard practice, the Journal contacted Hicks prior to the publication of the article and included Hicks’ statement in the story.

She read a portion of her denial, as printed in the Journal, on the witness stand: “Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said of the agreement with Ms. McDougal: ‘We have no knowledge of any of this.’”

Hicks recalled that Trump and Cohen spoke by phone after the story was published, but that nothing stood out from the call.

By the Associated Press

And the jury has entered the courtroom for the resumption of testimony following the lunch break.

By the Associated Press

Trump smiled broadly as he walked back into the courtroom and surveyed the gallery.

By the Associated Press

Before the lunch break, Hicks testified that after striking out with Kushner in her bid to have Rupert Murdoch delay the Wall Street Journal story about AMI buying the rights to McDougal’s story, she called Cohen and then, at his suggestion, Pecker.

Hicks testified that she didn’t really remember what Cohen said to her, but “there was a reason I called David next.”

“I think Michael sort of feigned like he didn’t know what I was talking about and that we should connect with David to get more information,” Hicks testified.

Asked about her conversation with Pecker, Hicks said she “asked what was going on, why was I receiving this email?” -- referring to the request for comment she’d received from the Journal reporter.

“He explained that Karen McDougal was paid for magazine covers and fitness columns and that it was all very legitimate and that’s what the contract was for,” Hicks testified.

By the Associated Press

Hicks will return to the stand around 2:15 p.m.

Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters as he left the courtroom for lunch but flashed a thumbs-up.

By the Associated Press

On Nov. 4, 2016, four days before the election, Hicks said she received a request for comment from a Wall Street Journal reporter for a forthcoming story about American Media Inc. buying the rights to Karen McDougal’s story that she had an affair with Trump years earlier.

Immediately, Hicks said she reached out to Kushner – in hopes he could use his connections to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Journal’s parent company, News Corp., to help delay the story, Hicks testified.

“He had a very good relationship with Rupert Murdoch and I was hoping to see if we could buy a little extra time to deal with this,” she said of Kushner.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told her that he likely wouldn’t be able to reach Murdoch in time, Hicks testified.

By the Associated Press

She testified that she first heard Stormy Daniels’ name uttered on Trump’s plane about a year before Cohen struck a deal with the porn actor to silence her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

In November 2015, Hicks said, she heard Trump and some of his security detail “telling a story about a celebrity golf tournament and some of the participants in the tournament and her name came up.”

The way the story went, Daniels “was there with one of the other participants that Mr. Trump played with that day,” Hicks testified.

In the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about what she says was an awkward and unexpected sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf outing in Lake Tahoe in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

By the Associated Press

In the aftermath of the “Access Hollywood” tape’s release, Hicks said she asked Cohen, then a lawyer for Trump, to chase down a rumor of another potentially damaging tape.

Hicks said she wanted to be proactive in seeking out the supposed tape because “I did not want anyone to be blindsided.”

She asked Cohen to call a friend of his in the media — whom she did not identify — and ask about the existence of the tape and, if there was a tape, when the campaign could expect it to be published.

“There was no such tape regardless, but he sort of chased that down for me,” Hicks said.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors read through a series of statements put out by prominent Republicans – including then-Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney – in response to the “Access Hollywood” tape, asking Hicks whether she recalled the various condemnations. She appeared increasingly irritated by the line of questioning as it went on.

Asked about remarks from then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan calling the tape “sickening,” Hicks replied tersely: “I don’t remember that but it sounds like something he would say.”

By the Associated Press

Hicks testified that the political firestorm that ensued after the release of the tape was so strong, it knocked an actual storm out of the headlines.

“It was intense. It dominated coverage, I would say, for the 36 hours leading up to the debate,” Hicks testified, referring to an important debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton that Trump had been preparing for when the news broke.

Hicks said that at the time she received an email from a Washington Post reporter around 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 7, 2016, informing her of the looming publication of a story revealing the tape, the news was dominated by a Category 4 hurricane that was charging toward the East Coast.

“I don’t think anybody remembers” where that hurricane hit, Hicks said.

Hurricane Matthew, which had hit Haiti and Cuba as a Category 4 storm earlier in the week, made landfall in the U.S. in South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 8, the day after the tape was made public.

By the Associated Press

Hicks said that he felt “this wasn’t good, but it was also like two guys talking privately, locker room talk.”

“It wasn’t anything to get so upset over,” she said of Trump’s feelings. “Certainly he didn’t want to upset anybody. He felt like this was pretty standard stuff for two guys chatting with each other.”

By the Associated Press

“I was concerned, very concerned,” Hicks said, speaking slowly. “Yeah. I was concerned about the contents of the email. I was concerned about the lack of time to respond. I was concerned that we had a transcript but not the tape. There was a lot at play.”

Hicks said she then forwarded the request to other campaign leadership, including Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, with the recommendation to “deny, deny, deny.”

The transcript of the conversation, which was attached in an email from a Washington Post reporter, was not read aloud in court, but was shown on monitors visible to jurors. Hicks was asked to read portions of the transcript to herself before responding.

Trump sat stone-faced as the transcript appeared on screen, whispering at points to his lawyers.

Prosecutors contend that the tape, which emerged just days before a debate, jolted Trump’s campaign and hastened his then-lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money deal with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

By the Associated Press

Hicks testified that she doesn’t remember if she was involved in the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting where Pecker said he told Trump and Cohen he’d be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by helping identify negative stories so they could be suppressed.

“I don’t have a recollection of that, but it’s certainly possible,” Hicks said.

Pecker testified last week that Hicks was present for some of the meeting, and Hicks said Friday that she’d frequently pop in and out of Trump’s office while he was meeting with other people.

Hicks recalled some of Trump’s other interactions with Pecker, including phone calls in which then then-candidate praised the publisher for articles critical of his political rivals.

She testified that she had a “vivid recollection” of hearing Trump on the phone with Pecker congratulating him on a National Enquirer article about medical malpractice allegations against Dr. Ben Carson. Another time, Trump called Pecker to compliment a negative article about U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Mr. Trump was just congratulating him on the great reporting,” Hicks testified. Sometimes he would say things like “this is Pulitzer worthy,” Hicks added.

By the Associated Press

In response to a question by prosecutors about the extent of Trump’s involvement in the campaign’s media strategy, Hicks didn’t mince words.

“I would say that Mr. Trump was responsible,” she says. “He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it, and we were all just following his lead.”

By the Associated Press

Before Hicks took the stand, the court saw and heard some of Trump’s response to the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in October 2016.

They included a video he posted to Twitter in which he apologized and called the video a “distraction from important issues we face today,” and a tweet in which he called his comments in the 2005 video “locker room remarks.”

Jurors also heard about a March 2023 Truth Social post in which Trump said he “did nothing wrong” and included a derogatory nickname for Stormy Daniels. In the post, he referred to Cohen, his ex-lawyer, as a “convicted liar and felon jailbird” and stated: “Never had an affair with her. Just another false acquisition by a sleazebag.”

In another social media post, he maintained “Nothing ever happened with these women” and “No one has more respect for women than me.”

By the Associated Press

Hicks described the sudden transition from working for the Trump Organization to working for a presidential campaign.

“Mr. Trump one day said we’re going to Iowa and I didn’t really know why,” Hicks recalled.

When Trump later said she would be his press secretary, Hicks said her first thought was that he “might be joking.”

“I had no experience and worked at the company, not the campaign, so I didn’t take it very seriously,” she said. “Eventually I started spending so much time on the campaign that I became a member of the campaign and I was the press secretary.”

By the Associated Press

Colangelo used the start of Hicks’ testimony to give jurors a window into Trump’s real estate company, the Trump Organization, including its personnel and even the physical layout of its offices.

Hicks worked there before joining Trump’s campaign and administration.

Colangelo quizzed Hicks on other Trump Organization figures, including Trump’s longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller, his former executive assistant Rhona Graff, ex-chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and ex-lawyer turned key trial figure Michael Cohen. He also asked her to describe what she meant by the “26th floor,” the section of Trump Tower where Trump and other executives had their offices.

By the Associated Press

The former adviser is speaking about Trump in glowing terms, complimenting him multiple times in the first few minutes of her testimony.

She described him as a “very good multi-tasker, a very hard worker.” Asked who she reported to while working as communications director for the Trump Organization, Hicks said, “Everybody that works there in some sense reports to Mr. Trump. It’s a big successful company but it’s really run like a small family business in some ways.”

Hicks, who currently has her own communications consulting firm, is testifying under a subpoena and, unlike other former Trump employees, is paying her lawyers herself.

By the Associated Press

“Is this close enough? I’m really nervous,” Hicks said as she adjusted the microphone at the witness stand.

She’s being questioned by prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.

By the Associated Press

Hope Hicks has been called to testify.

Hicks served as Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep his alleged affairs out of the press in the final weeks before the election.

By the Associated Press

Trump has paid his $9,000 fine for violating the gag order.

The former president paid the penalty Thursday, ahead of a Friday deadline. Trump’s legal team supplied the court clerk’s office with two cashier’s checks, one in the amount of $2,000 and one for $7,000.

Judge Merchan ordered Trump to pay the fine after holding him in contempt of court and finding that posts he made online about his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, porn actor Stormy Daniels and the complexion of the jury had violated the gag order.

Merchan is weighing a prosecution request to hold Trump in contempt again and fine him $1,000 for each of four more alleged violations last week. Merchan has warned Trump that he could be jailed if he keeps breaching the gag order.

By the Associated Press

A government agency at the heart of Trump’s separate classified documents criminal case got a name drop at his New York hush money trial.

Before the break, Longstreet testified that she used the National Archives and Records Administration’s archive of the official presidential Twitter account to help verify the authenticity of Trump’s account.

Longstreet noted that Trump’s official government account, @POTUS45, frequently reposted tweets from Trump’s @realdonaldtrump account.

There was no visible reaction from Trump to the mention of the National Archives, whose pursuit of records he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after his 2020 election loss led to charges alleging that he illegally hoarded classified documents.

By the Associated Press

During the break, Trump conferred for a few minutes with his lawyers about a potential agreement with prosecutors regarding what evidence can be shown to jurors. He then stood with a frown and walked to the rail to speak with his adviser, Boris Epshteyn, who stood in the first row of the gallery.

By the Associated Press

Georgia Longstreet has been assigned to the Trump case for the past year-and-a-half. Her role has been to review publicly available records relevant to the case, including Trump’s social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Truth Social.

By the Associated Press

Picking up where he left off on Thursday, Bove plied Daus, the forensic analyst, with a set of deeply technical questions meant to suggest Cohen may have doctored a 2016 recording played in court the previous day.

As evidence, Bove noted that the audio cuts off suddenly, as well as “gaps” in the handling of the phone that Daus agreed were “not ideal.”

Prosecutors say the abrupt ending of the recording was the result of Cohen receiving another call. Under questioning from Bove, Daus said there was no record of an incoming call in the phone’s metadata -- but said it would be difficult to say for sure without looking at call log data from Cohen’s phone carrier.

“In many ways, we’re just going to have to take Michael Cohen’s word for it, aren’t we?” Bove said.

“Yes,” Daus replied.

With that, Bove concluded his cross-examination.

By the Associated Press

Before testimony resumed, Judge Merchan ruled to prevent prosecutors from showing the jury a photograph of Trump with Billy Bush and soap opera actor Arianne Zucker at the time of the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche had asked for the image to be excluded from the trial, pointing to a recent court decision overturning former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction. In that case, the appeals court ordered a retrial because the judge had allowed testimony at trial unrelated to the allegations.

Merchan said the appeals court decision “doesn’t really factor into this” case, noting the ruling had not laid out any new law, but nevertheless agreed to block prosecutors from introducing the photograph.

Prosecutors had said the image would help establish the timeline of the revelations about the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women without permission.

Merchan has previously ruled the 2005 tape cannot be played in court for jurors, but said prosecutors can still question witnesses about the recording.

By the Associated Press

Trump lawyer Emil Bove has resumed cross-examination questioning of Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst at the Manhattan district attorney’s office who extracted recordings, text messages and other evidence from two of Cohen’s iPhones.

By the Associated Press

Judge Juan M. Merchan started the trial day also by clarifying that Trump’s gag order doesn’t prohibit him from testifying on his own behalf, apparently responding to comments the former president made after court the day before.

“The order restricting extrajudicial statements does not prevent you from testifying in any way,” Merchan said, adding that the order does not in any way limit what Trump says on the witness stand.

Merchan directed his comments to Trump and his lawyers, saying it had come to his attention that there may have been a “misunderstanding” regarding the order.

By the Associated Press

Speaking to reporters before heading into court, Trump clarified comments he made the day before about the gag order, saying it does not stop him from testifying in the case but that the order stops him from “talking about people and responding when they say things about me.”

After court Thursday, Trump had responded to questions about what he’d thought of the day’s testimony by saying, “I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order,” causing some confusion. The gag order bars him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and some others connected to the case.

He also commented on the latest job numbers showing that U.S. employers scaled back hiring in April and said they’re “horrible.”

By the Associated Press

The former president’s motorcade has arrived at the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

By the Associated Press

That’s according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hicks served as Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep his alleged affairs out of the press in the final weeks before the election. Hicks later held various roles in his White House, including communications director.

The two people who described her forthcoming appearance to The Associated Press insisted on anonymity to discuss internal trial preparations.

By the Associated Press

The former president’s motorcade has left Trump Tower.

By the Associated Press

A recording played Thursday was secretly made by Michael Cohen shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen is heard telling Trump about a plan to purchase the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.

By the Associated Press

The panel members just got their first chance to hear the recording that Cohen secretly made in September 2016.

Jurors appeared riveted as they listened to the recording, which was made public in July 2018. Some stared down at monitors in front of them in the jury box, following along with a transcript shown on them.

A visibly irritated Trump leaned forward at the defense table, gazing at a transcript on a monitor in front him as he listened to the recording. Occasionally he turned to his left and said something to his lawyer Todd Blanche.

On the recording, made by Cohen using his iPhone’s Voice Memo app, the ex-lawyer is heard telling Trump: “I need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend, David,” a reference to then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker. “I’m going to do that right away.”

Cohen then says he’s spoken to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg about “how to set the whole thing up with funding.” Trump then says: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

A few moments later, Trump asks “what financing?” Cohen responds, “We’ll have to pay him something.” Trump says: “We’ll pay with cash.” Cohen objects, saying: “No, no, no, no, no.” Trump then says, “Check,” before the recording cuts off.

Prosecutors played the recording while questioning a DA’s office forensic analyst, Douglas Daus, who extracted and studied data from two iPhones Cohen provided to investigators.

By the Associated Press

Daus testified there were an eye-popping 39,745 contacts stored in Cohen’s phone.

“That is unusual. I have not seen that many contacts on a phone,” Daus told jurors, adding that he typically sees hundreds “maybe thousands” when analyzing cellphones.

Among the examples shown in court: Multiple pages worth of entries for Trump, ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and the Trump Organization’s former longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

Daus also looked at photographs stored on Cohen’s cellphones, including one shown in court of the ex-Trump lawyer posing at the lectern in the White House press briefing room in February 2017.

The analyst said he’s never met Cohen. But asked by prosecutor Christopher Conroy how he knows that’s him, Daus deadpanned: “I watch a lot of news.”

By the Associated Press

After Davidson’s testimony concluded, prosecutors called Douglas Daus to the witness stand.

Daus is a forensic analyst from the Manhattan district attorney’s office who performed analyses on two iPhones former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen turned over to authorities during the investigation.

By the Associated Press

Davidson finished testifying after a few more questions from Bove during a portion of his testimony known as re-cross.

The defense lawyer focused again on portions of audio recordings of conversations Davidson had with Cohen in 2018, playing them aloud for the jury. The same clips had previously been played only for Davidson and the parties, but not the jury.

Bove used the recordings to amplify his contention that, contrary to Davidson’s testimony, Daniels had attempted to leverage Trump’s election to maximize her payday. In one of the clips, Davidson could be heard saying he recalled hearing Daniels screaming at him during the 2016 negotiations and telling him to settle as soon as possible because she feared she’d lose leverage if Trump lost.

By the Associated Press

In the recording, Cohen could be heard telling Davidson about a conversation he’d had — with a person the witness said he believed to be Trump.

“I can’t even tell you how many times he said to me, ‘You know, I hate the fact that we did it.’ And my comment to him was, ‘But every person that you’ve spoken to told you it was the right move,’” Cohen said in the recording.

Davidson testified that he understood the comments were referring to Trump’s regret about the settlement with Daniels.

Elsewhere in the audio, Cohen can be heard fretting about his position within the Trump’s orbit, telling Davidson: “Nobody’s thinking about Michael.”

“I mean, would you write a book? Would you break away from the entire, we’ll call it, Trump doctrine?” Cohen asked. “Would you go completely rogue?”

By the Associated Press

After a short break, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass started a new round of questions for Davidson during a phase of his testimony known as re-direct. That’s common in trials. Bove will have a chance to then ask more questions.

By the Associated Press

Bove concluded his cross-examination by focusing Davidson’s attention on what’s not known about the Stormy Daniels agreement — namely what happened with it once it was sent to Cohen and whether Trump ever signed it.

The document referred to Trump by a pseudonym, David Dennison, and had a spot on the signature page for “DD.” But the version Davidson had, which was used as evidence at the trial, doesn’t show any signature in that space.

Bove also focused on what he said was the common use of pseudonyms in such deals. Aside from referring to Trump as David Dennison, the document listed Daniels as Peggy Peterson.

“It’s common. You even used it with Hulk Hogan. Correct?” Bove asked Davidson. After a pause and some prodding, Davidson responded: “I believe so.”

By the Associated Press

After Davidson was unable to recall the details of certain conversations from years ago, Bove tried a new tactic: confronting him with audio recordings of things he’s said in the past.

As he sat on the witness stand, Davidson listened, through headphones, to a 2018 conversation he’d had with Cohen, in which he said Daniels was experiencing “settler’s remorse” over her deal with Cohen.

Bove said the remarks suggested Daniels was seeking to “create leverage over Donald Trump,” which Davidson disputed. He noted the conversation happened years after the settlement, as Daniels was weighing an offer of $1 million to get out of the agreement.

Though the recording was made surreptitiously by Cohen, Davidson said he had previously suspected Cohen was taping their calls.

By the Associated Press

With Davidson back on the stand for more cross-examination, Trump lawyer Emil Bove zeroed in on Davidson’s role in negotiating for the gossip blog “The Dirty” to delete a story in 2011 that alleged Daniels had a sexual encounter with Trump.

Bove quizzed Davidson about possible connections between Daniels’ agent and the people who made the post, and whether she had sought to have the post taken down so she could negotiate a more lucrative deal elsewhere. Davidson ended up sending a cease and desist letter to the blog to have the post taken down.

During his questioning, Bove accidentally dropped the binder full of material he’d been referencing. “That drop was catastrophic to my binder,” the defense lawyer quipped as he tried to regain his bearings.

By the Associated Press

Before Davidson’s testimony resumed, Judge Merchan rebuffed a defense request to rule in advance on whether Trump would be in violation of his gag order by posting certain articles to his Truth Social account.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles had asked Merchan to review the articles, written by legal scholars such as Jonathan Turley who are critical of his prosecution, and decide whether they would run afoul of a ban on commenting about people involved in the case. She argued that the gag order, issued March 26, was somewhat ambiguous and that while she thought the articles were fine to post, she wasn’t sure.

But Merchan said there “is no ambiguity, I believe, in the order,” citing an appeals court ruling upholding the commentary ban. The judge said he wouldn’t give advanced rulings on what posts would and wouldn’t violate the gag order, advising Necheles: “when in doubt, steer clear.”

By the Associated Press

After returning to the courtroom, he sat at the defense table, chatting with lawyer Todd Blanche and reviewing a stack of photographs of what appeared to be a crowd at a political rally.

By the Associated Press

Trump waved but did not speak to reporters as he walked through the hallway after leaving the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

Bove was visibly frustrated at times while questioning Davidson, raising his voice as the hush money negotiator refused to answer certain questions about his previous work securing settlements for clients to suppress embarrassing information about other celebrities.

Bove twice sought Judge Juan M. Merchan’s help to compel answers from Davidson, who said he either didn’t remember the deals or isn’t authorized to speak about them. The judge refused.

After Davidson invoked attorney-client privilege in response to questions about past deals, one of several times he did so, Bove shot back: “We’re both lawyers. I’m not here to play lawyer games with you.” Bove later suggested Davidson’s memory was intentionally “fuzzy” around some of the more controversial settlements he worked on.

Bove’s style stands in contrast to Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche, who has been more soft-spoken in his questioning and interactions with the judge.

By the Associated Press

Bove pressed Davidson on his understanding of extortion law, grilling him about previous instances in which he solicited money to suppress embarrassing stories, including one involving wrestler Hulk Hogan.

By the time Davidson negotiated hush-money payments for McDougal and Daniels, Bove suggested to the witness, “you were pretty well versed in coming right up to the line without committing extortion, right?”

“I had familiarized myself with the law,” Davidson replied.

Davidson was previously investigated by the FBI, but not charged, after he asked Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, to pay his client $300,000 to head off the release of the wrestling star’s sex tape, portions of which ended up published by Gawker.

Bove noted Davidson helped a client get paid $10,000 off the release of Lindsay Lohan’s private medical files. He also had a role in brokering a sex tape involving early 2000s MTV personality Tila Tequila.

By the Associated Press

As he launched into the cross-examination, Trump lawyer Emil Bove elicited testimony from Davidson that he’d never had any interactions with Trump — only Cohen.

The lawyer testified that he never met Trump, nor had he ever been in the same room as him until he began testifying in court Tuesday.

Davidson said he was unfamiliar with the Trump Organization’s record keeping practices — a key issue in the trial — though he did receive some emails from Cohen’s company email address.

Any impressions he had of the former president came through others, the lawyer testified.

Bove appeared to be underscoring the defense’s points that Trump was removed from the negotiations — that Cohen was handling the hush-money matters on his own — and that his testimony isn’t relevant to the charges at hand, which allege Trump falsified business records by logging reimbursement payments to Cohen as legal fees.

By the Associated Press

Before the break, Steinglass wrapped his questioning of Davidson by asking about texts Cohen sent, instructing him to prevent Daniels from doing interviews.

Cohen texted at one point that the “wise men think the story is dying” so she shouldn’t do any interviews, and any statements from her should come from Davidson.

Shortly after that exchange, which was shown on courtroom monitors, Daniels declined to appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

In another instance, Davison issued a statement for Daniels again denying she’d had a sexual encounter with Trump, drafting it in a Hollywood hotel suite as she was getting ready to appear on TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show.

But Daniels then disavowed the statement on the show, noting that the signature on it didn’t match her own.

This enraged Cohen, who threatened to sue Daniels “to hell” and sent other threatening messages, Davidson testified.

“He can be a very aggressive guy,” he said.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s lawyers will get their turn on cross-examination after a short break.

By the Associated Press

He went to great lengths on the stand to defend a January 2018 statement he penned on behalf of Stormy Daniels denying a news report that Cohen had paid $130,000 to silence her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.

For example, the statement’s claim that Daniels never had a “sexual and/or romantic affair with Donald Trump” could technically be true, Davidson contended, if you were to “hone in on the definition of romantic, sexual and affair.”

“I don’t think anyone has ever alleged that any interaction between she and Mr. Trump was romantic,” the lawyer testified, drawing a laugh from Steinglass, the prosecutor.

Likewise, Davidson said, the denial about hush money payments could be considered factual, since the payments made to Daniels were, legally speaking, “consideration in a civil settlement.”

Trump denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels.

By the Associated Press

He testified that Cohen ranted to him about Trump in a phone conversation about a month after the 2016 election, complaining the president-elect wasn’t taking him to Washington D.C. and hadn’t paid him back for the $130,000 payment.

“Jesus Christ, can you believe I’m not going to Washington?” Davidson recalled Cohen saying during the Dec. 9, 2016, call.

Davidson was doing some Christmas shopping at a California store that he said was bizarrely and memorably decorated in an “Alice in Wonderland”-type theme with representations of huge rabbits and a “Cat in the Hat” on the ceiling, amid other holiday decor.

“I’ve saved that guy’s ass so many times, you don’t even know,” Cohen continued, according to Davidson. Using an expletive, he said Trump “isn’t even paying me the $130,000 back.”

By the Associated Press

When it became clear on election night that Trump would be elected, Davidson texted then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard: “What have we done?” Howard responded: “oh my god.”

Explaining the message on the witness stand Thursday, Davidson said: “This is sort of gallows humor. It was on election night as the results were coming in. There was sort of surprise among the broadcasters and others that Mr. Trump was leading in the polls and there was a growing sense that folks were about ready to call the election.”

“There was an understanding that our efforts may have in some way – strike that – our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump,” Davidson added.

By the Associated Press

The lawyer, who represented McDougal in the deal, testified that Cohen told him he and Trump were “very upset” when The Wall Street Journal published an article that exposed the arrangement just days before the 2016 presidential election.

“He was very upset that the article had been published,” Davidson said of Cohen. “He wanted to know who the source of the article was, why someone would be the source of this type of article, he was upset by the timing. He stated his boss was very upset and he threatened to sue Karen McDougal.”

The article was published on Nov. 4. Election Day was Nov. 8.

By the Associated Press

As Davidson returned to the witness stand, jurors got a look at the confidential settlement agreement he negotiated on behalf of Stormy Daniels.

Under the deal dated Oct. 28, 2016, Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about her claims that she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.

The document referred to Daniels and Trump by pseudonyms Peggy Peterson and David Dennison, but it also contained a side letter that identified them by name.

“It is understood and agreed that the true name and identity of the person referred to as “DAVID DENNISON” in the Settlement Agreement is Donald Trump,” the document stated, with Trump’s name written in by hand.

The side letter said only Davidson and Cohen were to keep copies of the document, deeming it “ATTORNEY’S EYES ONLY.”

Davidson testified that was done because of the sensitive nature of the deal.

By the Associated Press

There was no immediate decision from the judge on the four alleged gag order violations.

Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated hush money deals for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, has returned to the witness stand. He started testifying on Tuesday.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan grew impatient as Blanche tried to justify Trump’s April 22 comments to the Real America’s Voice TV network that the jury was “95% Democrats,” “the area’s mostly all Democrat,” and, “It’s a very unfair situation that I can tell you.”

The judge interrupted the defense lawyer as he argued the comments were permissible because Trump believes the trial is a “political persecution” and that the location, in heavily Democratic Manhattan, put him at a distinct disadvantage.

“Did he violate the gag order?” Merchan asked, cutting to the chase.

“Absolutely, positively not,” Blanche responded.

“He spoke about the jury, right?” an incredulous Merchan asked. “He said the jury was 95% Democrats and the jury had been rushed through and the implication being that this is not a fair jury.”

Blanche reasoned that the comment — a few seconds from a 21-minute interview — was said as a passing reference to “the overall proceedings being unfair and political” and wasn’t directed at any specific jurors.

By the Associated Press

The gag order prevents Trump from making public statements about potential witnesses in the trial, which includes his former fixer.

Blanche argued that shouldn’t be the case. He cited examples of social media posts from Cohen critical of Trump, including one that appeared to include a fabricated image of Trump in an orange superhero costume.

He said Cohen’s TikTok and other social media accounts “repeatedly” criticize and mock the former president and the gag order.

“This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order,” Blanche said.

By the Associated Press

Defending Trump against allegations of violating the gag order, Blanche argued that the saturation of media coverage has made it impossible for Trump to conduct interviews without being bombarded with questions about the trial.

“He can’t just say ‘no comment’ repeatedly. He’s running for president,” the defense attorney said, adding the gag order should be seen in the context of “what’s happening behind us,” a reference to the high volume of journalists in the courthouse. “Every time we whisper to our client, it’s livestreamed over all sorts of social media outlets,” he said.

But Judge Merchan quickly batted down that argument, saying members of the news media are “not defendants in this case, they’re not subject to the gag order, that’s a very significant issue you’re overlooking.”

Merchan noted that he had no authority over the media.

“The former president of the United States is on trial,” the judge continued. “He’s the leading candidate for the Republican party right now. It’s not surprising that we have press here, we have press in the overflow room, we have people throughout the world that are interested.”

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan indicated he would not sanction Trump for his comment last week during a visit to a Manhattan construction site where, in response to a question about David Pecker’s testimony, he said the ex-tabloid publisher has “a nice guy.”

“Just to save you time, I’m not terribly concerned about that one,” Merchan told Blanche. The judge, however, did express concern about the three other comments at issue in the hearing.

By the Associated Press

Attorney Todd Blanche began his defense of his client’s statements by invoking a recent comment by President Biden forecasting “stormy weather” for Trump — an “obvious” reference to Stormy Daniels, according to Blanche.

“President Trump can’t respond to that in the way he wants to because of this gag order,” Blanche said.

Judge Merchan said Trump was not barred from responding to his Democratic rival, but “is not allowed to refer to foreseeable witnesses” in the trial.

By the Associated Press

Among the alleged gag order violations are comments Trump made in the hallway outside the courtroom, where he has often spoken to reporters at the start and end of each day in court.

In one of those monologues, Trump again attacked his former attorney, Michael Cohen, as a “liar.”

“The defendant is talking about witnesses and the jury in this case, one right here outside this door,” said Conroy, the prosecutor. “This is the most critical time, the time the proceeding has to be protected.”

Conroy urged Judge Merchan to impose a $1,000 fine for each of the four alleged violations.

He said prosecutors weren’t yet seeking to have Trump jailed as punishment because the alleged violations at issue happened prior to Merchan ordering Trump on Tuesday to pay a $9,000 fine for nine previous gag order violations.

“Because we’d prefer to minimize disruption to this proceeding, we are not yet seeking jail, but the court’s decision this past Tuesday will inform the approach we take to future violations,” Conroy told the judge.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan has commenced a contempt hearing on prosecutors’ allegations that Trump violated his gag order four more times.

These are in addition to the nine violations Trump was fined for earlier in the week.

The jury isn’t present for this proceeding.

The judge said prosecutors have submitted four exhibits, a video clip of each violation, which won’t be played in court. Trump’s lawyers have submitted nearly 500 pages of evidence in a bid to refute the alleged violations.

In a court filing, Trump’s lawyers argued that the gag order was designed to silence him while his enemies — including witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels — are allowed to repeatedly attack him. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy said in court Thursday that’s not true, arguing that the gag order was imposed as a result of Trump’s “persistent and escalating rhetoric aimed and participants in this proceeding.”

By the Associated Press

Before heading into the courtroom, Trump spoke to reporters in the hallway, where he griped that the case should have been brought “eight years ago,” which would have been before prosecutors allege a crime was committed.

Karen McDougal sold her story to the National Enquirer in August 2016 and Stormy Daniels made her deal with Michel Cohen in October 2016. Trump didn’t start making reimbursement payments to Cohen, which prosecutors say were mislogged as legal fees, until 2017.

By the Associated Press

Trump, wearing a gold tie and blue suit, strode into the courtroom trailed by his lawyers and aides including Boris Epshteyn.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s motorcade has reached the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

By the Associated Press

The former president got in his motorcade, heading to the courthouse.

By the Associated Press

The trial is expected to last another month or more, with jurors hearing testimony four days a week. Trump — who has cast the prosecution as an effort to hurt his 2024 campaign — is required to be there, much to his stated dismay.

“They don’t want me on the campaign trail,” he said Tuesday.

The judge said Tuesday that there will be no court on May 17 so Trump can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

Court also won’t be in session on Friday, May 24 to accommodate a juror who has a flight that morning, the judge said. That means the trial will be off for four straight days for the Memorial Day weekend, resuming on Tuesday, May 28.

By the Associated Press

Returning to the stand Thursday will be Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal in their negotiations with the National Enquirer and Michael Cohen.

He testified that he arranged a meeting at his Los Angeles office during the summer of 2016 to see whether the tabloid’s parent company American Media, Inc. was interested in McDougal’s story. At first, they demurred, saying she “lacked documentary evidence of the interaction,” Davidson testified.

But the tabloid at Pecker’s behest eventually bought the rights, and Davidson testified that he understood — and McDougal preferred — it would never be published.

One reason for that, he said, is that there was an “unspoken affiliation” between Pecker and Trump and a desire by the company that owned the Enquirer to not publish stories that would hurt Trump.

By the Associated Press

The trial, now in its second week of testimony, has exposed the underbelly of tabloid journalism practices and the protections, for a price, afforded to Trump during his successful run for president in 2016.

The case concerns hush money paid to squelch embarrassing stories, including from a porn actor and a former Playboy model, and reimbursements by Trump that prosecutors say were intentionally fraudulent and designed to conceal the true purpose of the payments and to interfere in the election.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified last week that he offered to be the “eyes and ears” of the Trump campaign and described in detail his role in purchasing a sordid tale from a New York City doorman that was later determined to not be true as well as accusations of an extramarital affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

The goal was to prevent the stories from getting out, a concern that was especially pointed in the aftermath of the disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which he was heard describing grabbing women without their permission.

A separate $130,000 payment was made by Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, to porn actor Stormy Daniels, to prevent her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump from surfacing.

Trump’s company then reimbursed Cohen and logged the payments to him as legal expenses, prosecutors have said in charging the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison.

By the Associated Press

Trump leaves as court wraps for the day.

By the Associated Press

As he did so, the former president pressed in to view the message on a monitor in front of him on the defense table. He then leaned over to whisper something to his lawyer Todd Blanche, sitting at his left, as the messages flashed by on the screen — rendered as a spreadsheet in black text on a green background.

Trump and Blanche whispered back and forth intermittently as Davidson continued testifying about the text message.

In the October 2016 message to Davidson, Howard was commenting on Cohen’s apparent reluctance to make good on an agreed-upon $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.

“All because trump is tight,” Howard wrote in one of the messages, which Davidson said was a reference to Trump’s purported frugality. In a follow up message, the editor wrote: “I reckon that trump impersonator I hired has more cash.”

By the Associated Press

Three times in the waning minutes of Tuesday’s testimony, Trump was left alone at the defense table as Judge Merchan summoned the lawyers to the bench to discuss matters outside the jury’s earshot.

During one of the interruptions, Trump lawyer Blanche turned to Eric Trump in the gallery and chuckled before going up to the bench.

By the Associated Press

Asked if Cohen ever told him whom he was representing in the Daniels negotiations, Davidson said the ex-lawyer may not have explicitly stated he was working on Trump’s behalf — but the implication was clear.

“Every single time I talked to Michael Cohen, he leaned on his close affiliation with Donald Trump,” Davidson said. “It was part of his identity. He let me know it at every opportunity he could that he was working for Donald Trump.”

By the Associated Press

With Daniels’ deal with Cohen done, but the money unpaid, Davidson and Howard texted each other about what the then Enquirer editor in chief called an “impending storm” of publicity if the performer took her story somewhere else, according to Davidson’s testimony and documents shown at the trial.

In the exchange, on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18, 2016, Davidson wrote to Howard that he believed Daniels and her agent had agreed to bring her story to another publication, and “I think it’ll be a full-on blitz.”

“I just felt like there was going to be more than a flurry of activity. I felt like it was going to be a tornado,” Davidson explained in court.

“If the story got out,” Steinglass asked.

“Yes,” Davidson said.

By the Associated Press

Before the break, Davidson testified that though both parties had reached a deal, the payment to Daniels didn’t materialize by the agreed upon date.

At first, Cohen offered a litany of explanations for the delay, at turns blaming broken computers, Secret Service “firewalls,” and the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. “The things he was saying didn’t really make sense,” Davidson said of Cohen.

As the excuses piled up, Davidson said he understood that Cohen “didn’t have the authority to actually spend money.” He eventually sent an email informing Cohen that the deal was off.

“I thought he was trying to kick the can down the round until after the election,” Davidson said.

By the Associated Press

Trump walked back into the courtroom holding his cellphone in his right hand.

By the Associated Press

Trump did not speak to reporters as he left the courtroom for the afternoon break.

By the Associated Press

A five-judge panel in the state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s request for a stay of the proceedings while he appeals several pretrial rulings, including the trial judge’s refusal to recuse himself.

Trump had sought the stay prior to the start of jury selection. A lone judge in the appeals court had previously rejected a request for an emergency stay halting the trial.

By the Associated Press

In drawing up the deal, Davidson said he’d used a pair of pseudonyms to disguise the parties involved: Stormy Daniels became Peggy Peterson; Donald Trump became David Dennison.

The alliterative code names were picked, in part, because Daniels was the plaintiff and Trump was the defendant, the lawyer testified.

Asked if David Dennison was a real person, Davidson responded that he played on his high school hockey team.

“And how does he feel about you now?” wondered prosecutor Josh Steinglass.

Davidson stifled a laugh, then answered: “He’s very upset.”

By the Associated Press

Soon after the “Access Hollywood” tape leaked, Davidson testified, Daniels’ agent reached a deal with then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard for the tabloid to acquire the rights to her story for $120,000, but Howard backed out of the deal.

The editor instead told Daniels’ agent, Rodriguez, to call Cohen and complete the deal directly with him — but she refused to speak with Cohen after their uncomfortable prior interaction. Rodriguez asked Davidson to step in and negotiate the deal with Cohen, the lawyer testified.

Davidson said he had numerous interactions with Howard over the years regarding stories. Asked if it was unusual for Howard to direct him to make a deal with a third party like Cohen, Davidson responded: “This is the only time that ever happened.”

“In essence, Michael Cohen stepped into AMI’s shoes,” Davidson said, referring to the name of the Enquirer’s parent company at the time, American Media Inc.

Davidson testified that in negotiating with Cohen, he hiked the price to $130,000 — building in his fee for his work on the deal.

By the Associated Press

Davidson testified that the leak of Trump’s 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape had “tremendous influence” on the marketability of Daniels’ story.

He said Daniels’ agent, Gina Rodriguez, had been trying to drum up interest in her story earlier in the 2016 election cycle but found there wasn’t much.

Asked to describe the “Access Hollywood” tape, which can’t be shown in court, Davidson testified that it involved Trump and the show’s then-host Billy Bush being recorded on a “hot mic” and “some statements by both men that were troublesome.”

By the Associated Press

Davidson testified that his first interaction with Michael Cohen related to a 2011 post on a gossip blog that stated Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump had “some sort of physical or romantic interaction.”

After the blog post was published, Davidson said, Daniels’ agent, Gina Rodriguez, called him and said “some jerk” had called “and was very, very aggressive” and threatened to sue.

Asked who the “jerk” was, Davidson said: “Michael Cohen.”

Davidson testified that when he called Cohen, the ex-Trump lawyer greeted him “with a hostile barrage of insults and insinuations that went on for quite a while.”

“Finally, after he finished, I explained to him that I was calling because my client, Stormy Daniels, did not want the story up. I wanted to see if he had done anything” to try to get the story taken down, Davidson said.

Davidson said that after the dust-up, he — not Cohen — eventually sent a cease-and-desist letter to the blog and the story was removed.

By the Associated Press

Asked why American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s parent company, would buy a story it didn’t intend to run, Davidson said he was aware of two reasons.

“One explanation I was given is they were trying to build Karen into a brand and didn’t want to diminish her reputation,” he said. “And the second was an unspoken understanding that there was an affiliation between David Pecker and Donald Trump and that AMI wouldn’t run this story, any story related to Karen, because it would hurt Donald Trump.”

By the Associated Press

The deal for McDougal’s story did eventually close, Davidson testified, with the former Playboy model receiving a $150,000 payment as well as the promise of magazine covers and regular columns for publications owned by the National Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc.

Davidson testified that once the deal was done, he called Cohen as a professional courtesy because the agreement involved his client, Trump.

Trump wasn’t a named party to the tabloid’s agreement with McDougal. Still, Davidson acknowledged Tuesday that burying her claims would be of value to Trump’s campaign.

Asked by prosecutor Steinglass how Cohen reacted to news of the deal’s closing, Davidson testified matter-of-factly: “He was pleased.”

By the Associated Press

After lunch, questioning picked up with Davidson describing the back-and-forth haggling involved in selling the former Playboy model’s story to the tabloid empire.

In one text message shown to jurors, Davidson told Enquirer editor Dylan Howard that “they are asking me to go back for another 25,” meaning another $25,000. Howard responded with an expletive, adding, “Not my money. I’ll ask.”

But even as they reached a basic framework for the deal, Davidson described his “growing frustration with the process.” At one point, Davidson said he was pushed to call former Trump attorney Michael Cohen directly, something he said he had been trying to avoid.

“I thought it was odd, certainly,” Davidson said about being asked to call Cohen. “I didn’t particularly like dealing with him and that’s why I was trying like hell to avoid talking to him,” he added.

By the Associated Press

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton walked into the courtroom with Trump after lunch.

The Republican is sitting in the first row of the courtroom gallery directly behind the defense table. He’s a few seats away from Trump’s son, Eric, who’s sitting near the aisle with Susie Wiles, a Trump political operative.

By the Associated Press

Trump gave a fist pump to reporters, but did not stop to speak on his way back into the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

The posts were deleted ahead of the judge’s 2:15 p.m. ET deadline, while court was in recess for lunch.

Links to the old Truth Social posts redirected to a “Not found” message, while those to Trump’s website redirected to a 404 error page.

Earlier Tuesday, Judge Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for the nine posts for violating the order, which bars him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors.

By the Associated Press

Trump did not stop to talk to reporters as he left. The trial will resume at 2:15 p.m. ET.

By the Associated Press

Shortly after Davidson began representing McDougal, he reached out to Dylan Howard, the editor in chief of the National Enquirer, promising a “blockbuster Trump story.”

Howard replied soon after: “I will get you more than ANYONE for it. You know why.”

As the text messages were displayed on screens to the jury, Davidson testified he didn’t know exactly what Howard meant at the time. But, he noted that he knew Howard’s boss, David Pecker, and Trump were “longtime friends and had a former business relationship.”

Among Howard’s follow up texts to Davidson, as shown in court, were: “Did he cheat on Melania?” and “Do you know if the affair was during his marriage to Melania?”

“I really can’t say yet, sorry,” Davidson had replied.

Asked by Steinglass about what McDougal was claiming, Davidson testified: “Ms. McDougal had alleged that she had a romantic affair with Donald Trump some years prior.”

Trump has denied this.

By the Associated Press

As questioning turned toward Davidson’s involvement in some of the hush money deals, he says he met McDougal 25 years ago through a friend. He started representing the former Playboy model in 2016 “to provide advice and counsel as to what her rights and obligations would be regarding a personal interaction that she had.”

“With whom?” Steinglass asked.

“Donald Trump.”

By the Associated Press

Jurors appeared attentive as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass began questioning Davidson, with several switching their focus between the men as each one spoke and some members of the panel taking notes.

By the Associated Press

Keith Davidson is known for representing people trying to sell celebrity sex tapes or other embarrassing information.

He represented McDougal, a former Playboy model, and Daniels, a porn actor, in hush money negotiations with the National Enquirer and Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen in 2016.

McDougal claimed she’d had a yearlong affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. Daniels claimed she had a one-time sexual encounter with him in 2006. Trump denies the allegations.

By the Associated Press

The next witness up is Phillip Thompson, an executive at a company that provides stenographers and videographers for depositions — sworn, out-of-court statements under oath.

He’s here to authenticate portions of a transcript and video of a deposition Trump gave in one of writer E. Jean Carroll’s federal defamation lawsuits against him. The portions included Carroll’s lawyer asking Trump about his Truth Social platform, the dates of his marriage to wife Melania Trump and whether he was aware of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

The former longtime Elle magazine advice columnist alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and then defamed her after she came forward publicly in 2019. He says nothing happened between them and has accused her of engineering a “hoax” to sell a book. After two federal trials last year and this winter, juries awarded Carroll over $88 million. Trump is appealing.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors played C-SPAN clips of Trump on the campaign trail in the final weeks of his 2016 campaign as he forcefully denied allegations made by several women after his infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape was made public.

“The stories are total fiction. They’re 100% made up, they never happened, they never would happen,” Trump said at an Oct. 14, 2016 rally in North Carolina.

Another clip played for the jury, from January 2017, showed Trump praising Cohen as as good lawyer and friend.

Trump didn’t appear to react in court to the clips, which were played on monitors throughout the courtroom, including directly in front of him on the defense table.

After confirming the veracity of the clips, Browning, who manages C-SPAN’s video collection, was dismissed from the witness stand. Trump’s attorneys declined to question him.

By the Associated Press

Court won’t be in session on Friday, May 24 to accommodate a juror who has a flight that morning, Judge Merchan said.

That means the trial will be off for four straight days for the holiday weekend, resuming on Tuesday, May 28. Merchan also informed jurors there will not be court on May 17, though he didn’t give them a reason. That’s the day Trump will be attending his son Barron’s high school graduation.

By the Associated Press

The next witness called to the stand is Dr. Robert Browning, the executive director of the C-SPAN archives.

Browning, who manages the network’s video collection, was called to verify the authenticity of video of a Trump campaign event. Prosecutors are calling people who are regarded as “records custodians” to verify evidence.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s campaign is already fundraising off this morning’s ruling that he violated the court’s gag order.

“Democrat judge just ruled against me,” reads the subject line of a Tuesday morning email blast, which shares the news that, “A Democrat judge JUST HELD ME IN CONTEMPT OF COURT!”

“THEY WANT TO SILENCE ME!” the message continues, asking supporters to “STAND WITH TRUMP” by contributing money.

By the Associated Press

He waved to reporters but didn’t speak as he passed through a hallway.

By the Associated Press

Before the break, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo asked Judge Merchan to let prosecutors question the former president about his gag order violations should he choose to testify.

The judge previously ruled to allow prosecutors to challenge Trump’s credibility by questioning him about a limited number of his recent legal setbacks if he ends up taking the witness stand.

Trump has said he wants to testify, but he is under no obligation to do so.

Prosecutors also requested permission from Merchan to introduce evidence they say shows Trump orchestrated a “pressure campaign and intimidation effort” against Cohen and Daniels.

Colangelo said Trump’s attorney had opened the door to that evidence by seeking to undermine the credibility of the two witnesses in opening statements.

Merchan did not immediately rule, but said, “the door has been opened.”

By the Associated Press

Trump did not stop to talk to reporters after he left the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

The banker had been answering questions about accounts he helped Cohen open.

By the Associated Press

Cross-examining Farro, Blanche, the defense lawyer, underscored that Cohen made no mention that the accounts he opened in October 2016 had anything to do with deals involving then-candidate Trump or his company.

If Cohen had done so, “I would have asked questions,” Farro said.

Farro also noted that he might not have opened an account if he’d been told it was for what’s known as a shell corporation – one that receives and sends out money but doesn’t have an underlying business.

But Cohen told the banker the account was for a real estate consulting business.

Nothing about it raised “any red flags to you?” Blanche asked.

“Not based upon the answers I was given to the questions I asked,” Farro said.

By the Associated Press

Blanche began by asking Farro to once again describe his relationship with Cohen.

Farro said he first met Cohen in person at a meeting in Trump Tower, but primarily communicated over the phone. Pushed by Blanche, Farro acknowledged that Cohen wasn’t always easy to work with.

“He was a challenging client because of his desire to get things done so quickly,” Farro said. “Ninety percent of the time it was an urgent matter.”

By the Associated Press

Within a day after opening the Essential Consultants LLC account on Oct. 26, 2016, and funding it with about $130,000 from his own home equity loan, Cohen wired out $130,000 to Keith Davidson, then a lawyer for Daniels, documents showed.

The 2016 presidential election was on Nov. 8.

Farro said Cohen indicated the transaction was related to a real estate transaction – not a political candidate, an adult film performer or buying up a potential media story.

“We might consider something like that a reputational risk,” Farro said.

By the Associated Press

“I stand with Trump,” Paxton said in a social media post about attending the trial.

By the Associated Press

Testimony has resumed with Gary Farro, a banker who helped Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen open accounts. Cohen used one to buy the silence of porn performer Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 election. She alleged a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies.

Cohen indicated the account, opened in late October 2016 in the name of Essential Consultants LLC, would be used for real estate consulting, according to testimony and documents shown at the trial.

In response to prosecutor Becky Mangold’s questions, Farro said the bank would have asked more questions if there had been any mention of a connection to a political candidate, buying a story that was being pitched to the media or paying a porn performer.

The additional scrutiny would have delayed or even nixed opening the account, which Cohen had wanted to open right away. In particular, the adult film world “is an industry we don’t work with,” he said.

With only real estate in the picture, the account was opened within a day — “very quick,” Farro said.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan wrote that he was finding Trump “in criminal contempt for willfully disobeying a lawful mandate” of the court on nine separate occasions for posts made on Truth Social and his campaign website.

But Merchan ruled Trump’s April 10 post referring to Cohen and Daniels as “sleaze bags” was not a gag order violation. He said Trump’s contention that he was responding to previous posts by Cohen “is sufficient to give” him pause “as to whether the People have met their burden” as to that post.

However, the other nine “attack the credibility of arguably two of the more high-profile witnesses in this case.”

By the Associated Press

In his ruling, the judge warned that he’s willing to jail Trump if he violates court orders.

Merchan wrote that Trump “is hereby warned that 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 lamented that he was limited by law to fining Trump a maximum of $1,000 per violation, writing that while such an amount “may suffice in most instances to protect the dignity of the judicial system, to compel respect for its mandates and to punish the offender for disobeying a court order, it unfortunately will not achieve the desired result in those instances” where a person held in contempt “can easily afford such a fine.”

Merchan wrote that in such instances, it would be preferable if he could impose “a fine more commensurate with the wealth” of the person being fined. “Because this Court is not cloaked with such discretion, it must therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment,” the judge concluded.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors alleged the former president had violated the order — which bars him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors — 10 times, and the judge concurred in all but one of those cases. Merchan will hold a hearing Thursday on four more alleged violations.

Trump stared down at the table in front of him as the judge read the ruling, frowning slightly but otherwise showing no expression.

The ruling is a rebuke for the former president who had insisted he was exercising his free speech rights. The ruling came at the start of the second week of testimony in the historic case.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan says Trump’s criminal trial will not be held on May 17 so the former president may attend the event.

“I don’t think the May 17 date is a problem, so Mr. Trump can certainly attend that date, attend his son’s graduation,” Merchan said.

By the Associated Press

It’s the first time a member of his family has attended his criminal trial.

In the courtroom, Trump turned from the defense table and walked over to his son in the first row of the gallery. Trump put his hand on his son’s arm as they chatted prior to the resumption of proceedings.

By the Associated Press

As usual, Trump addressed reporters before court to rail against this and his other legal cases.

He once again downplayed the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, calling it “peanuts” compared to the student protests currently roiling college campuses.

By the Associated Press

A crowd of around 60 Trump supporters has gathered across the street from the courthouse, carrying Trump and American flags on tall poles.

By the Associated Press

The former president’s motorcade pulled up to the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

By the Associated Press

The former president entered his motorcade outside Trump Tower in midtown, headed to the courthouse in lower Manhattan for the second week of trial testimony.

By the Associated Press

Last week, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s testimony provided jurors with a stunning inside look at the supermarket tabloid’s “catch-and-kill” practice of purchasing the rights to stories so they never see the light of day.

Trump’s longtime executive assistant, Rhona Graff, told jurors she recalled seeing Stormy Daniels in a reception area of Trump Tower, though the date of the visit wasn’t clear.

By the Associated Press

The first week of testimony at Donald Trump’s hush money trial was the scene-setter for jurors: Manhattan prosecutors portrayed what they say was an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential campaign by burying negative stories. Now prosecutors are working on filling in the details of how they believe Trump and his allies pulled it off.

Court resumes Tuesday with Gary Farro, a banker who helped Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen open accounts, including one that Cohen used to buy the silence of porn performer Stormy Daniels. She alleged a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denies.

By the Associated Press

The former president spoke to reporters with more energy than he had in past days after spending the day in the courtroom. He declared that the case was politically motivated and reaffirmed his willingness to debate President Joe Biden anytime, anywhere, even Friday night or at the White House.

Trump left for the day after speaking for a few minutes and didn’t take any questions from reporters on the way out of court. He’s expected to head back to Florida.

By the Associated Press

So far, prosecutors have called three witnesses.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker spent about 10 hours on the stand over the course of four days.

Then Trump’s longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff answered questions for about 30 minutes.

The current witness, Cohen’s former banker Gary Farro, was on the stand for a little under an hour Friday and will return Tuesday when the trial resumes.

By the Associated Press

Trump walked out of court, exhaling and with a stern expression.

With Monday a long-scheduled day off, the trial will resume Tuesday.

By the Associated Press

Farro detailed, step by step, the process of helping Michael Cohen create an account for his limited liability company, Resolution Consultants. Prosecutors have also shown emails in which Cohen describes the opening of the account as an “important matter.”

Cohen said the company, which he opened in September 2016, was related to real estate, according to Farro. In fact, the LLC was formed to facilitate the planned purchase of Karen McDougal’s story rights from American Media. That deal never went through.

Farro said that since the account was never funded, it was never technically opened. Instead, Cohen pivoted to starting another account for another LLC — Essential Consultants, which he used to make the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Similarly, Farro said Cohen led him to believe that firm would be involved in real estate consulting.

By the Associated Press

Farro testified that Cohen had several personal bank accounts at First Republic Bank when Farro took over the client relationship in 2015.

“I was told that I was selected because of my knowledge and because of my ability to handle individuals that may be a little challenging,” Farro said.

“Frankly, I didn’t find him that difficult,” he added.

By the Associated Press

Gary Farro works at Flagstar Bank as a private client adviser and was previously at First Republic, which was used by Cohen.

He’s testifying pursuant to a subpoena.

By the Associated Press

The former president is back in court after a break.

By the Associated Press

He was carrying the thick stack of papers he brought in with him in the morning. He gave a thumbs up as he left and ignored a shouted question from a reporter about Stormy Daniels.

By the Associated Press

Trump spoke briefly to Graff as she left the witness stand.

He appeared to reach out to her with his hand as an officer guided her away from the witness stand past the defense table.

Trump’s lawyers were at the bench, talking with Judge Merchan, when Trump stood up and engaged with Graff.

By the Associated Press

Stormy Daniels was once at Trump’s offices in Trump Tower, Graff testified.

“I have a vague recollection of seeing her in the reception area” one time, the longtime former Trump assistant said.

The date of the visit wasn’t immediately clear.

Graff said she assumed Daniels was there to discuss potentially being a contestant on one of Trump’s “Apprentice”-brand TV shows.

“You had heard President Trump say that he thought that she would be an interesting addition” to the cast, Trump lawyer Susan Necheles asked.

“It was part of the office chatter,” Graff said.

By the Associated Press

After prosecutors zipped through questions for Graff, primarily focused on specific scheduling details, attorneys for Trump asked open-ended questions about her working relationship with her former boss.

“I never had the same day twice. It was a very stimulating, exciting, fascinating place to be,” she said of her 34 years working for the Trump Organization.

Graff then described Trump as a “fair” and “respectful” boss.

By the Associated Press

Longtime Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff testified that contact information for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal were maintained in the Trump Organization’s Outlook computer system.

Prosecutors then displayed those contact entries to jurors. The exhibits showed McDougal’s contact info included a phone number and address. For Daniels, a phone number was listed under a single name: “Stormy.”

By the Associated Press

Before Pecker left the witness stand, Steinglass elicited testimony pushing back on a defense suggestion that the former National Enquirer publisher had changed his story about Trump thanking him at a Jan. 6, 2017, Trump Tower meeting for his help burying negative stories.

During cross-examination, Bove had shown Pecker notes from the first of two FBI interviews he gave in 2018. According to the notes, Pecker told investigators Trump hadn’t shown gratitude at their meeting.

Pecker maintained that the FBI’s notes of the interview may have been wrong. And, as Steinglass noted, he told investigators in an interview a week later that Trump had thanked him “for handling” Karen McDougal’s affair claims and a Trump Tower doorman’s false rumor about him.

Pecker confirmed he later told a federal grand jury Trump was “very grateful and these stories could have been very, very damaging.”

Asked by Steinglass if he had any confusion over whether that happened, Pecker replied: “No.”

By the Associated Press

Rhona Graff, who started working for Trump in 1987 and left the Trump Organization in April 2021, has been described as his gatekeeper and right hand.

She was among several people involved in keeping his records. Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, wrote in his 2020 book “Disloyal” that she had her own Trump Tower office with a large filing cabinet containing folders on various issues pertaining to Trump.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, the first prosecution witness called, testified Thursday that Graff was often the conduit for his communications with Trump, routing his calls and summoning him to a Trump Tower meeting on Jan. 6, 2017. At the meeting, the ex-publisher said, he and Trump discussed some of the hush money arrangements at issue in the case.

Graff was previously subpoenaed in the New York attorney general’s Trump civil fraud investigation but did not testify when the case went to trial last year.

By the Associated Press

Pecker has concluded his testimony.

By the Associated Press

“I’m going to try not to keep you here too much longer,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told David Pecker as questioning got underway.

By the Associated Press

Trump has returned to the courtroom following the lunch break.

As he sat down at the defense table, he summoned lawyer Bove, who was standing, to his side. He then spoke with the attorney before turning away and chatting with one of his other lawyers, Blanche.

By the Associated Press

During the trial’s lunch break, Trump reacted on social media to President Biden’s comment Friday that he’s willing to debate this fall.

Trump said on Truth Social that he thinks Biden “doesn’t really mean it.” He said if Biden is serious, they should debate next week or even Friday at the Manhattan courthouse on national television, saying “I’ll wait around.”

On the way into court Friday morning, Trump complained he was in court instead of in Florida with his wife for her birthday and said he planned to fly to Florida after the trial wrapped for the day.

By the Associated Press

Before breaking for lunch, prosecutors clawed back at the defense’s contention that the National Enquirer arrangement wasn’t unique to Trump, eliciting testimony from Pecker that underscored the unusual nature of their deal.

“Is it standard operating procedure for AMI to be consulting with a presidential candidate’s fixer about amendments to a source agreement,” Steinglass asked, using initials for the tabloid’s parent company. “No,” Pecker responded.

Several similar questions followed suit, with Pecker acknowledging he had not previously sought out stories and worked the company’s sources for information on behalf of a presidential candidate or allowed political fixers close access to internal decision-making.

“It’s the only one,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Trump stopped to confer with aide Jason Miller just outside the courtroom doors. He left without making any remarks to reporters waiting nearby.

By the Associated Press

After resuming his questioning of Pecker, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass made a point of returning to a topic that had been raised during cross-examination: the true objective of a 2016 contract the National Enquirer’s parent company made with former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Wasn’t the contract really aimed at “locking up the Karen McDougal story?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pecker said, later adding that the parts about columns and articles were “included in the contract basically to disguise the actual purpose of it.”

“And what was the actual purpose of it?”

Pecker said it was “to acquire the lifetime rights to her story so it’s not published.”

By the Associated Press

As Bove wrapped up his cross-examination, Pecker said “I’ve been truthful, to the best of my recollection.”

Now prosecutors will get to ask the former National Enquirer publisher some more questions, which is standard in trials.

By the Associated Press

Defense attorney Emil Bove is questioning Pecker about various agreements American Media Inc. made to resolve investigations into its role in purchasing stories on Trump’s behalf.

After focusing on the company’s non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors, the defense lawyer turned to asking Pecker about a conciliation agreement the publishing firm had with the Federal Election Commission. Under the deal, American Media Inc. paid a $187,500 civil penalty to resolve a campaign finance violation.

By the Associated Press

Trump sat chatting and gesturing with lawyer Susan Necheles while the other lawyers had an extended conversation with Judge Merchan at the bench.

After the sidebar conversation broke up for a few minutes, Trump leaned over to another one of his lawyers, Todd Blanche, whispering something to him. Blanche then leaned toward Trump and covered his mouth as he whispered a response, while attorney Emil Bove resumed questioning Pecker.

By the Associated Press

In their fourth day of hearing from Pecker, jurors remain attentive even as cross-examination turns to parsing a 2018 non-prosecution agreement between federal authorities and American Media, the parent company of the National Enquirer.

Members of the jury are variously watching Pecker or defense lawyer Bove, looking at the document on big screens in the courtroom or appearing to take notes.

By the Associated Press

Pecker pushed back on a line of questioning from the defense suggesting a proposed deal to sell his tabloid empire may have pushed him to resolve a federal investigation into his company.

Defense attorney Emil Bove zeroed in on the context surrounding a non-prosecution agreement between Pecker and the federal government. He repeatedly suggested Pecker may have felt pressured to accept an agreement in order to finalize a deal to sell his company to newsstand operator Hudson News Group for a proposed $100 million.

“To consummate that deal, you knew you had to clear up the investigations,” Bove asks. After pausing for several seconds, Pecker replied in the affirmative. But Pecker also said he felt “no pressure” to finalize the non-prosecution agreement in order to complete the transaction.

In the end, the deal never went through.

By the Associated Press

Trump waved to reporters but did not say anything as he returned to the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

In the most confrontational moment so far Friday, Bove challenged Pecker on statements he made to federal prosecutors in 2018, which the defense attorney said are “inconsistent” with the publisher’s testimony given this week.

Pecker testified that Trump thanked him for his help handling stories involving former Playboy model Karen McDougal and Dino Sajudin, a Trump Tower doorman, during a White House visit on Jan. 6, 2017.

But according to notes cited by Bove in court, Pecker had previously told federal authorities Trump did not express any gratitude to him or American Media during the meeting.

Pecker on Friday stuck to the story that he’s given in court.

“I know what the truth is,” he said.

By the Associated Press

Trump left the courtroom and gave a thumbs up without answering questions.

By the Associated Press

The defense’s questioning has turned to the deal between the National Enquirer’s parent company and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Bove sought to get at what both her and the Enquirer’s objectives really were in making the 2016 deal.

The $150,000 agreement gave American Media Inc. exclusive rights to McDougal’s account of any relationship with “any then-married man,” a clause Pecker has testified was specifically about Trump. She claims they had an affair in 2006 and 2007; he denies it.

The contract also called for McDougal to pose for magazine covers and to produce, with a ghostwriter’s help, columns and other content on fitness and aging for various American Media titles.

Pecker testified earlier this week that the provision for content was essentially a fig leaf for a pact that was really about keeping McDougal’s story from becoming public and potentially influencing Trump’s chances at the presidency. But in response to questions Friday from Bove, Pecker said McDougal was looking to restart her career and that American Media had pitched itself in a video conference as a venue that could help her. The company indeed ended up running more than 65 stories in her name, he said.

When American Media signed its agreement with her, “you believed it had a legitimate business purpose, correct?” Bove asked.

“I did,” Pecker said.

McDougal’s story — and American Media’s deal with her — ultimately became public, anyway in a Wall Street Journal article four days before the 2016 election, after early and absentee voting had started.

By the Associated Press

In his fourth day on the witness stand, Pecker appears wearier than usual.

He’s interrupting his answers at times with long pauses and is speaking in a strained voice that can be difficult to hear.

In addition to the long hours of testimony, the nature of cross-examination may have also contributed to Pecker’s apparent fatigue, as defense attorneys rattle off questions with “yes” or “no” answers meant to poke holes in his earlier testimony.

By the Associated Press

The defense’s insistence on referring to Trump as “President Trump,” even when describing events that took place before his election, is rankling prosecutors.

Trump’s lawyers said at the outset of the trial that they’ll refer to their client as President Trump “out of respect for the office that he held from 2017 to 2021.”

But Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass suggested Friday that using the title is anachronistic and confusing when tacked onto questions and testimony that involve things that happened while he was campaigning for the office in 2015 and 2016.

“Objection. He wasn’t President Trump in June of 2016,” Steinglass noted after one such mention. The judge sustained the objection.

By the Associated Press

Getting to the salacious stories at the center of Pecker’s earlier testimony, Bove brought up that the National Enquirer’s parent company — not Trump or his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen — paid a former Trump Tower doorman $30,000 in 2015 for the rights to an unsubstantiated claim that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump Tower.

Pecker testified earlier that the Enquirer thought the tale would make for a huge tabloid story if it were accurate, but eventually concluded the story was “1,000% untrue” and never ran it. Trump and the woman involved both have denied the allegations.

Bove asked whether he would run the story if it were true. Pecker replied: “Yes.”

By the Associated Press

Pecker has testified that he hatched a plan with Trump and former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen in August 2015 for the National Enquirer to help Trump’s presidential campaign.

But, under questioning by Trump’s lawyer, Pecker acknowledged there was no mention at that meeting of the term “catch-and-kill,” which describes the practice of tabloids purchasing the rights to story so they never see the light of day. Nor was there discussion at the meeting of any “financial dimension,” such as the National Enquirer paying people on Trump’s behalf for the rights to their stories, Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Bove is getting under the hood of the National Enquirer’s editorial process, seeking to show the tabloid had its own publishing incentives unrelated to any deal with Trump.

To underscore his point, Bove pulled up five headlines that ran in 2015 about Ben Carson — who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary — describing him as a “bungling surgeon” and alleging he harmed patients, among other claims. Bove noted the information was pulled from publicly available information published in other outlets, including the Guardian.

In his testimony, Pecker acknowledged it was standard practice at the publication to recycle stories from other outlets with a new slant.

“Because it’s good, quick and cost efficient, and you would’ve done it without President Trump?” Bove asked.

“Um, yes,” Pecker replied.

Pecker acknowledged that the National Enquirer had been running negative stories about Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, long before the August 2015 meeting where he said he agreed to help Trump’s campaign. Pecker previously testified that stories about the Clintons boosted sales of the supermarket tabloid.

By the Associated Press

The jury’s day began with an instruction from the judge that it’s OK for prosecutors or defense lawyers to meet with witnesses ahead of a trial to help them prepare to testify.

That pertains to testimony that came out toward the end of the day Thursday, when Trump lawyer Emil Bove was cross-examining Pecker.

Bove has now resumed questioning the former National Enquirer publisher.

By the Associated Press

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker has returned to the witness stand for his fourth day of testimony. Donald Trump’s lawyers are questioning him on cross-examination.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan has taken the bench.

By the Associated Press

Trump walked into the courtroom for the day after speaking to reporters about his wife’s birthday, the Supreme Court arguments on Thursday, and how cold he finds the courthouse.

By the Associated Press

The former president’s motorcade has arrived at the courthouse.

By the Associated Press

• Todd Blanche: A former federal prosecutor, Blanche previously represented Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in a mortgage fraud case — and got it thrown out.
• Susan Necheles: A former Brooklyn prosecutor, Necheles is a respected New York City defense lawyer who represented Trump’s company at its tax fraud trial last year.
• Emil Bove: A star college lacrosse player, Bove was a veteran federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

By the Associated Press

The former president is in his motorcade, heading for the courthouse.

Pecker will return to the witness stand for the fourth day as defense attorneys try to poke holes in the testimony of the former National Enquirer publisher, who has described helping bury embarrassing stories Trump feared could hurt his campaign.

It will cap a consequential week in the criminal cases the former president is facing as he vies to reclaim the White House in November.

By the Associated Press

Testimony has concluded for the day and the jury has left the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

Defense attorney Emil Bove grilled Pecker on his recollection of specific dates and meetings, an apparent effort to underscore the difficulty of recalling details relevant to the years-old allegations against Trump.

After noting Pecker had mistakenly told a grand jury the wrong week that Trump was in New York City, Bove suggested: “There are times that there are gaps in your memory that you have to fill in with what you assume happened based on other events.”

Pecker rejected that premise. He later told Bove he’d met with Manhattan prosecutors between three and five times since the start of the year, as recently as a few weeks ago. He said his testimony was based on his “best recollection of the time.”

By the Associated Press

Bove’s questioning also shed light on the origins of the term “catch-and-kill,” at least as it relates to Trump’s case.

“Before this investigation started, you had never heard the phrase ‘catch-and-kill,’ isn’t that correct?” Bove asked.

“Yes,” Pecker answered.

“The first time you heard the phrase, you heard it from a prosecutor,” Bove asked.

“That’s correct,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Early in his cross-examination, Bove traced Pecker’s long relationship with Trump, showing how the publishing executive flexed his power to help his friend long before the presidential election.

Back in 1998, Bove said, Pecker tried to squelch a negative National Enquirer story about Trump’s then-wife Marla Maples. Though the story was published anyway, Pecker acknowledged he’d attempted to get it stopped.

“Seventeen years of providing President Trump with a heads up about potentially negative publicity?” asked Bove.

“That’s correct,” Pecker replied.

The reason for the long-running collaboration, Bove posited, was that Trump helped drive magazine sales -- and Pecker wanted to maintain close access to him.

At one point in the 1990s, Pecker testified, the publisher launched Trump Style, a magazine built around Trump’s brand and real estate holdings.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s lawyers are getting their first chance to question a witness.

Defense attorney Emil Bove opened his cross-examination of Pecker by noting that he managed American Media Inc. to make money and asking about what Pecker has described as its “checkbook journalism.”

Pecker acknowledged that during his tenure, the tabloid and magazine publisher printed only about half the stories it bought -- a fact the defense appears to be eliciting in order to suggest there was nothing unusual or criminal about the “catch and kill” operations involving claims about Trump.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors wrapped up their questioning of Pecker by asking whether he bears Trump any ill will.

“On the contrary,” he said, “I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor. He helped me throughout my career.”

Although they haven’t spoken since the FBI began investigating the hush money arrangements several years ago -- Pecker said he thought it would be inappropriate for them to communicate, given the probe -- “I still consider him a friend,” Pecker said.

Trump looked on stoically as Pecker said so.

By the Associated Press

The silver-haired, mustachioed Pecker appeared at ease on the witness stand, calmly bringing to life the machinations he says were involved in identifying and burying stories on Trump’s behalf.

He vividly recounted conversations he says he had with Trump and his fixer Cohen. He recalled meetings at Trump Tower and a dinner at the White House.

He shed light on the inner workings of the National Enquirer and the supermarket tabloid industry — and its use of “checkbook journalism” and “catch-and-kill” tactics — and the frantic race to pay off Stormy Daniels in the wake of the release of Trump’s infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

Many of the details were previously known, but they’d been relegated to black-and-white in court papers and news articles. At Trump’s trial, they have a narrator — a grandfatherly figure who made his living in the world of celebrity gossip.

The ex-publisher divided his focus between the jury and the prosecutor questioning him. Jurors looked on, often with rapt attention.

By the Associated Press

Steinglass, the prosecutor, took Pecker through American Media Inc.’s 2018 non-prosecution agreement with federal authorities.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute AMI in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea and prison sentence that same year.

The Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, deeming the McDougal deal as a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”

Asked who was the unnamed presidential candidate mentioned in the document, Pecker said, “Donald Trump.”

By the Associated Press

Trump was furious when McDougal gave an interview to CNN’s Anderson Cooper in March 2018, Pecker testified.

“I thought you had and we had an agreement with Karen McDougal that she can’t give any interviews or be on any TV channels,” Trump told Pecker by phone, the former National Enquirer publisher said in court.

Pecker said he explained to the then-president that the agreement had been changed to allow her to speak to the media after a November 2016 Wall Street Journal article about the tabloid’s $150,000 payout to McDougal.

“Mr. Trump got very aggravated when he heard that I amended it, and he couldn’t understand why,” Pecker told jurors.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that Trump invited him to a White House dinner in July 2017 to thank him for helping the campaign — and again for an update on McDougal at the event.

The ex-publisher said Trump encouraged him to bring anyone he wanted, recounting that the then-president told him, “it’s your dinner.”

Pecker testified that he and Howard, the then-National Enquirer editor, as well as some of his other business associates, posed for photos with Trump in the Oval Office. Pecker said others at the dinner included Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and press adviser Sean Spicer.

“How’s Karen doing?” he recalled Trump saying as they walked past the Rose Garden from the Oval Office to the dining room.

“I said she’s doing well, she’s quiet, everything’s going good,” Pecker testified.

By the Associated Press

Two Secret Service agents sat in the first row of the courtroom gallery directly behind Trump.

Ten court officers were positioned around the room, peering at reporters in the gallery.

Jurors continue to mostly look directly ahead, not making eye contact with Trump, as they passed the defense table in and out of the courtroom.

By the Associated Press

The former publisher of the National Enquirer did not look at Trump while walking by him.

By the Associated Press

The judge has signed an order setting in motion arguments — not necessarily immediately — over prosecutors’ request from this morning for yet more contempt findings against Trump.

Prosecutors had already asked the judge to fine Trump over 10 social media posts they say violate a gag order that bars him from making public statements about witnesses and jurors. Thursday morning, they flagged another four incidents -- including comments he’d made about Pecker at an early-morning press event.

By the Associated Press

Trump waved his fist as he returned to the courtroom after lunch but did not respond to a shouted question about the US Supreme Court.

By the Associated Press

Four years before Trump’s trial, disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape in the very same Manhattan courtroom.

As reporters were waiting for Trump to walk into Courtroom 1530 at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for the resumption of testimony in his case, the New York Court of Appeals posted its decision reversing Weinstein’s conviction and ordering him a new trial.

Many of the reporters covering Trump’s trial also covered the Weinstein case and were furiously refreshing the appeals court’s website to see the decision and alert their newsrooms to the development.

By the Associated Press

Trump left the courtroom without addressing reporters in the hallway.

By the Associated Press

Pecker recalled going to another meeting with Trump on Jan. 6, 2017 — about two weeks before his inauguration — where he and the then president-elect discussed McDougal.

Pecker said he was brought into Trump’s office just as Trump was ending a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, press adviser Sean Spicer, then-GOP chair Reince Prebius and future Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who were updating Trump on a shooting that day at the Fort Lauderdale airport.

As Pecker recalled it, Trump introduced him to the group of aides as the National Enquirer owner and joked: “He probably knows more than anyone in this room.”

After dismissing the aides, Trump asked the former tabloid publisher for an update on “our girl,” meaning McDougal, according to Pecker.

Pecker said he reassured Trump that McDougal was keeping quiet, and Trump thanked him for handling the matters with McDougal and Dino Sajudin, the former doorman at one of Trump’s buildings who was also paid for his claims.

“He said that the stories were very embarrassing,” Pecker recalled.

By the Associated Press

In late 2016, Pecker says he was summoned to Cohen’s office in Trump Tower to discuss concerns about damaging material about Trump that may have been left over in the National Enquirer’s boxes.

Cohen also complained about not getting a bonus from Trump and suggested that he’d paid off Stormy Daniels with his own personal funds, according to Pecker.

During that conversation, Trump entered the room, Pecker said. Cohen then falsely told Trump that he’d personally reviewed the boxes for damaging information, according to Pecker. On their way out, Pecker let Trump know Cohen was worried about his bonus, adding that he believed Cohen “would throw himself in front of a bus for you.”

Pecker then recalled Trump’s response: “He said, ‘Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of him.’”

By the Associated Press

Pecker recalled an irate Trump calling him a day after The Wall Street Journal published an article on the eve of the 2016 election.

The article broke the news of the National Enquirer’s $150,000 payment to McDougal for the rights to the former Playboy model’s story claiming an affair with Trump.

“Donald Trump was very upset, saying ‘how could this happen? I thought you had this under control. Either you or one of your people leaked the story,’” Pecker testified.

He said he told Trump a small number of people at the Enquirer knew of the deal and he speculated to Trump that perhaps McDougal or someone connected with her had tipped off the Journal.

The Journal ran its story on Nov. 4, 2016, just four days before the election. The next day, Pecker testified, Cohen texted him saying “the boss” wanted to speak to him. Trump then called him.

“Our call ended very abruptly. He didn’t say goodbye, which was very unusual,” Pecker testified.

Pecker admitted that AMI’s response to the Journal that the company had “not paid people to kill damaging stories about Mr. Trump” was a lie.

“I wanted to protect my company, I wanted to protect myself, and I wanted also to protect Donald Trump,” Pecker explained on the witness stand.

By the Associated Press

On the stand, Pecker recalled the night after the public learned of the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump discusses grabbing women sexually without asking permission, when then-editor Dylan Howard called with an urgent matter.

Howard said he’d heard from Daniels’ representatives that she was trying to sell her story and the tabloid could acquire it for $120,000 if it decided right away, Pecker told jurors.

Pecker said he put his foot down, noting the magazine was already $180,000 in the hole for Trump-related catch-and-kill transactions.

“I said we already paid $30,000 to the doorman, we already paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal,” Pecker recalled. “I am not a bank and we are not paying out any further disbursements or monies.”

At the same time, Pecker said he told former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen that he should buy the story and “take it off the market” to avoid it getting out.

By the Associated Press

In the wake of the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape, members of Trump’s team were working to get a years-old story removed from Radar Online, a gossip website, featuring a different clip of Trump discussing women, according to Pecker.

The piece in question, which described Trump as a “Playboy Man,” was first posted in 2008, before AMI purchased Radar. But after Cohen alerted Pecker and then-editor Dylan Howard to the post, they agreed to delete it immediately.

“He was following my instructions to remove the posting from the Radar page,” Pecker said of Howard.

The email chain was then forwarded to Trump’s campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks.

By the Associated Press

The Supreme Court justices seem highly skeptical of Trump’s claims of absolute immunity— but with arguments still underway, the essential question of when they might decide the case remains unclear.

The timing of their ruling could be as important as the outcome. At least five justices appeared likely to reject the claim of absolute immunity, but some also suggested that former presidents might have some immunity.

If their ruling reflects that and requires lower courts to then sort out whether immunity applies to Trump, it could push the trial past the November election.The court usually releases their opinions by the end of June.

Listen to the oral arguments live.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is beginning to ask Pecker about porn actor Stormy Daniels and her claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump. The former president denies it happened.

By the Associated Press

While jurors were on a break, both sides debated disputed exhibits prosecutors want jurors to see.

Some of the disputed evidence, which Judge Merchan is keeping out of the trial for now, involved text messages then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard exchanged with a relative around the time of Trump’s 2016 election.

“At least if he wins, I’ll be pardoned for electoral fraud,” Howard said in one of the messages, which was read aloud in court by a prosecutor.

In another message, Howard informed his relative that Trump has “just been named president elect.”The relative’s response — “Oh dear” — elicited laughter from the gallery when it was read in the courtroom.

The messages were not shown in court.

Trump’s lawyers argued the messages were hearsay, not business records, and couldn’t be used as evidence.

The jury has now returned to hear more from Pecker.

By the Associated Press

Trump left the courtroom after a break from the morning’s testimony, giving a thumbs up to reporters who shouted questions.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that he used an outside firm to create the invoice for Cohen to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story — a deal that was never consummated — in order to keep the transaction off his company’s financial logs, fearing scrutiny from his staff.

“I believed that payment would raise a lot of questions and issues and be communicated to the rest of the editors, which is something I didn’t want to happen,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Amid discussions of reimbursing American Media for the McDougal payout, Cohen also requested all the material the National Enquirer had gathered on Trump over the years, Pecker told jurors.

He said he told Cohen there were boxes full of old news articles and files, and Cohen insisted he wanted them nonetheless.

“He said that the boss said that if I [Pecker] get hit by a bus, or if the company was sold, he did not want someone else to potentially publish those stories,” Pecker recalled.

By the Associated Press

Pecker says he believes Trump was aware of the contract with McDougal.

Asked by a prosecutor if he knew if anyone other than Cohen was aware of the National Enquirer’s contract with McDougal, Pecker said: “I believe that Donald Trump did.”

The ex-publisher answered after the judge overruled the defense’s objection to the question, which was then read back by a court reporter before Pecker responded.

By the Associated Press

Based on his experience with Schwarzenegger, Pecker said he “wanted to be comfortable that the agreement that we were going to prepare for Karen McDougal met all the obligations with respect to a campaign contribution.”

“I called Michael Cohen and I told him that we finalized an agreement with Karen McDougal, the contract was bullet proof and we consulted with a campaign attorney,” Pecker added.

McDougal’s contract gave American Media Inc., which owned the National Enquirer and several fitness magazines, exclusive rights to McDougal’s story on any relationship with a married man.

Pecker said that clause was specifically about Trump.The contact said McDougal would have fitness and aging-related columns and blog posts in various American Media magazines and sites, but Pecker said that provision was really just a cover story -- and not the type that appears on a magazine. He said it was meant to “validate” the $150,000 she was getting.

“With respect to campaign laws, I wanted to have the contract be a record that stipulates” services that she would provide, as a basis for the payment, Pecker explained. But the real purpose of the contract was to buy and lock up her claim about a 2006-2007 Trump affair, which the former president says never happened.

Pecker went on to say that the deal was intended to keep McDougal’s story from becoming public and potentially influencing the election.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified he was leery of paying McDougal on Trump’s behalf because of trouble he ran into with an earlier “catch-and-kill” arrangement benefiting Arnold Schwarzenegger during the movie star’s run for governor of California in 2003.

Schwarzenegger had been a prominent figure in several fitness magazines Pecker’s company was acquiring, appearing on their covers more than 70 times and acting as an editor at large.

After Schwarzenegger announced his run for governor, “a number of women called up the National Enquirer” with stories about Schwarzenegger. The deal “I had was that I would call him and advise him of any stories that were out there, and I ended up buying them for a period of time.”

Pecker said he didn’t publish the stories. One of the women ended up going to the Los Angeles Times, which did run a story. Asked for comment, Pecker recounted Schwarzenegger telling reporters: “Ask David Pecker.”

By the Associated Press

Cohen has for months has made an outpouring of posts about the case on social media but Wednesday night declared in a post on X that he’ll stay quiet until after he testifies.

“Despite not being the gagged defendant, out of respect for Judge Merchan and the prosecutors, I will cease posting anything about Donald on my X (formerly Twitter) account.”

Cohen said he’ll also refrain from commenting on his podcast until after his trial testimony and said, “See you all in a month (or more).”

By the Associated Press

The former president is listening intently as Pecker, his longtime friend, testifies in vivid detail about the National Enquirer’s efforts to buy and kill unflattering stories – related to both Trump and other celebrities, including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He has passed along notes to the two attorneys on either side of him, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that McDougal demanded $150,000 — plus writing assignments and other business opportunities — for the rights to her story. But according to Pecker, it wasn’t clear who was going to pay for it.

Pecker said Cohen initially asked him to front the costs: “I said, ‘Michael, why should I pay? I just paid $30,000 for the doorman story. Now you’re asking me to pay $150,000 for the Karen story, plus all of these other additional items that she wants to do.’”

When asked how he would be reimbursed, Pecker says Cohen assured him: “Don’t worry about it. I’m your friend. The boss will take care of it.”

By the Associated Press

In a moment that bespeaks the sometimes plodding nature of court testimony, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass and Pecker went through some Q-and-A about Daylight Saving Time versus standard time. Why? It’s related to the timing of an email that’s being introduced.

By the Associated Press

After working with former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for years, Pecker said he came to believe Cohen did not have authority to spend Trump Organization’s funds without high-level approval.

“Every time that we went out to lunch I always paid, he never paid,” Pecker noted. “So I didn’t think that he had the authorization to buy or acquire or spend any money without Mr. Trump’s approval.”

By the Associated Press

Pecker recalled getting a telephone call from Trump during the tabloid’s pursuit of former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s claims of an extramarital affair with Trump.

“When I got on the phone, Mr. Trump said to me, ‘I spoke to Michael. Karen is a nice girl. Is it true that a Mexican group is looking to buy her story for $8 million?’ I said, ‘I absolutely don’t believe there’s a Mexican group out there looking to buy her story for $8 million.’”

Trump then asked Pecker what he should do, the ex-publisher said. Pecker testified he told Trump, “I think you should buy the story” and keep it quiet.

“I believed the story was true,” Pecker explained. “I thought it would be very embarrassing to himself and to his campaign.”

By the Associated Press

While awaiting a ruling on whether Trump will be held in contempt of court and possibly fined over alleged violations of a gag order, prosecutors asked the judge to consider whether he violated it four more times with remarks he made outside court this week.

Among others, prosecutor Christopher Conroy flagged comments Trump made just Thursday morning at an early-morning press event about witness David Pecker, who is continuing to testify today.

Trump said the former National Enquirer publisher has “been very nice,” which Conroy characterized as “a message to Pecker: be nice.” He argued that it’s also a message to other potential witnesses that Trump has a platform and will use it to attack them if they aren’t kind to him.

The judge hasn’t immediately ruled on Conroy’s request to hold Trump in contempt and levy “appropriate sanctions.”

By the Associated Press

David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who has been testifying as a prosecution witness, is back on the stand.

By the Associated Press

Inside the courtroom, Trump’s lawyers Emil Bove and Todd Blanche leaned in toward the former president, chatting with him as news photographers entered the courtroom to snap his photo before the proceedings get under way.

Trump started straight ahead, looking sternly as shutters hummed.

By the Associated Press

Trump has walked to the defense table where he stood briefly and whispered into lawyer Todd Blanche’s ear before sitting down.

Before entering court, he addressed reporters in the hallway. He began by speaking not about the trial but instead the economy.

“Gasoline is going way up. Energy costs are going way up,” he said.

He again addresses the Supreme Court, which is hearing oral arguments today on whether he’s immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“I would have loved to have been there,” Trump said.

By the Associated Press

The Supreme Court is taking up the Trump’s bid to avoid prosecution over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

Trump’s lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions of former occupants of the Oval Office would become routine and presidents couldn’t function as the commander in chief if they had to worry about criminal charges.

Here’s what to know about that case.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s motorcade has arrived at the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

By the Associated Press

After his morning event in midtown, the former president had returned to Trump Tower. He has now left again, headed in a motorcade to the courthouse in lower Manhattan.

By the Associated Press

Trump briefly remarked on his friendship with tabloid publisher David Pecker, who began testimony Tuesday and is expected to retake the stand again today.

Trump was asked by reporters what he thought of the testimony and when he last spoke to Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, and Trump responded by saying “David’s been very nice, a nice guy.”

By the Associated Press

Trump addressed Thursday’s Supreme Court arguments from New York, where he was visiting construction workers for a campaign stop before heading to court in his criminal hush money case.

“A president has to have immunity,” he told reporters as a crowd cheered behind him. If you don’t have immunity, you just have a ceremonial president.”

He again complained that the judge in his felony case wouldn’t excuse him from court to attend the Supreme Court arguments in person. Criminal defendants are expected to appear in court every day during their trials.

By the Associated Press

The White House has steered clear of talking about Trump’s trial, but spokesperson Andrew Bates appeared to make a sly reference to the courtroom.

While speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Florida, Bates began his briefing by asking that “nobody fall asleep while we talk.”

At the trial’s outset, some reporters suggested that it appeared there were times that Trump drifted off to sleep while watching the proceedings. The former president’s campaign disputed that. With no video camera in place and trained on him, there’s no way of knowing for sure.

By the Associated Press

The jury has been sent home for the day, with court adjourning early for the Passover holiday.

Jurors had to directly pass by Trump at the defense table as they exited just after 2 p.m. but none appeared to look in his direction.

Afterward, Trump peered at reporters in the courtroom gallery as he ambled to the hallway. He clutched the same pile of clipped papers he walked in with earlier.

Trial proceedings will resume on Thursday.

By the Associated Press

An internal National Enquirer email and invoice were entered into evidence in Trump’s trial.

The documents were shown to jurors and describe payments made to Sajudin, then a Trump Tower doorman, to kill his story about a child Trump had allegedly fathered with an employee.

One of the documents describes the funds coming from the publication’s “corporate” account. An invoice prepared by an executive editor references an “immediate” $30,000 bank transfer payment for “‘Trump’ non-published story.”

The tabloid ultimately concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have both denied the allegations.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that he’d never paid to bury a story about Trump before Dino Sajudin, then a doorman at Trump Tower, came along.

The former National Enquirer publisher recalled calling Cohen and explaining that they could purchase the doorman’s silence for $30,000 by buying the exclusive rights to his story.

“He said, ‘Who’s going to pay for it?’ I said, ‘I’ll pay for it,’” Pecker testified. “Then he said, ‘Thank you very much.’ He said, ‘The boss will be very pleased.’”

In response to the prosecutor’s question about who he understood “the boss” to be, Pecker replied: “Donald Trump.”

Explaining why he decided to have the National Enquirer foot the bill, Pecker testified: “This was going to be a very big story.”

He added that it would “probably be the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley,” but noted he would’ve held it until after the election, citing his agreement with Cohen.

Pecker described the National Enquirer’s “normal” procedure of placing Sajudin under a polygraph test to determine if his tip was legitimate, but prosecutor Joshua Steinglass stopped him before he could reveal the results, which isn’t allowed in court.

Pecker said the National Enquirer hired a private investigator, sent reporters to a location where the supposed child was living and used other verification methods — ultimately learning that the story was “1,000% untrue.”

“Had you ever paid a story to kill a story about Donald Trump?” Steinglass asked.

“No I had not,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Following questions about his relationship with Trump, Pecker was asked about claims brought forth by a former Trump Tower doorman.

The doorman, Dino Sajudin, received $30,000 from the National Enquirer in 2015 for the rights to a rumor that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump World Tower. The tabloid concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have both denied the allegations.

As David Pecker described receiving the tip in court, Trump shook his head.

Pecker testified that upon hearing the rumor, he immediately called Cohen, who said it was “absolutely not true” but that he would look into whether the people involved worked for Trump’s company.

By the Associated Press

Pecker’s testimony provided a seamy backstory to Trump’s rise from political novice to president of the United States.

With Cohen acting as a shadow editor of sorts, Pecker said he and the National Enquirer parlayed trashy rumor-mongering into splashy tabloid stories that tarred Trump’s opponents while also running pieces that boosted his image.

The articles were timed to run just as Trump’s rivals were climbing in polls, and some of the allegations — such as articles falsely tying Ted Cruz’s father to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy — entered the mainstream via cable news and conservative-leaning talk programs.

Trump himself amplified the National Enquirer’s absurd allegations about Cruz’s father in May 2016, telling Fox News in one interview, “His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being, you know, shot.”

“Nobody even brings it up, I mean they don’t even talk about that. That was reported and nobody talks about it,” he went on.

Trump had a history in 2016 of repeating unproven and unsubstantiated stories, many from the National Enquirer, which had endorsed his candidacy. After the tabloid printed a story without evidence that claimed Cruz was having an extramarital affair, Trump praised the publication for having a “very good” record of accuracy.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that Cohen would call him and say, “We would like for you to run a negative article” on a certain political opponent.

“He would send me information about Ted Cruz or about Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis of our story, and then we would embellish it a little,” he said.

The court was shown examples of the resulting headlines relating to Carson, a surgeon who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and later became his secretary of housing.

“Bungling surgeon Ben Carson left sponge in patient’s brain” reads one article relaying allegations from a former patient.

Pecker said he would send Cohen drafts of these stories, to which Cohen would provide feedback. Asked if he knew whether Cohen ever shared those stories with Trump, Pecker said: “I don’t recollect that, no.”

By Alyssa Vega, Globe Staff

The jury, Trump, and Pecker are back in the courtroom, and Pecker is continuing his testimony.

By the Associated Press

Pecker said that after his August 2015 meeting with Trump, Cohen, and Hicks, he wanted to keep the agreement under wraps.

Pecker testified that after that meeting he met with the National Enquirer’s editor at the time, Dylan Howard, and underscored that the agreement he’d just made at Trump Tower was “highly, highly confidential.”

He said he wanted the tabloid’s bureau chiefs to be on the lookout for any stories involving Trump and said he wanted them to verify the stories before alerting Cohen.

“I told him that we are going to try to help the campaign and to do that I want to keep this as quiet as possible,” Pecker testified. “I did not want anyone else to know this agreement I had and what I wanted to do.”

By Alyssa Vega, Globe Staff

Judge Merchan excused the jury so they could take a break.

By the Associated Press

While Pecker had many personal interactions with Trump over the years, the former National Enquirer publisher said that he also worked closely with Cohen.

Describing an August 2015 meeting with Trump, Cohen and then-Trump aide Hope Hicks at Trump Tower, Pecker explained how he might be an asset to Trump.

He testified that he could “publish positive stories about Mr. Trump, and I would publish negative stories about his opponents, and I said I would also be the eyes and ears.”

If he heard “anything negative” about Trump, or instances of “women selling stories,” Pecker said he “would notify Michael Cohen.” From there, Pecker said stories could be purchased and “killed,” meaning they would go unpublished.

“Prior to that August 2015 meeting, had you ever purchased a story in order to not print it, about Mr. Trump?” Steinglass, the prosecutor, asked.

“Uh, no,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that amid the height of Trump’s success with “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice,” the tabloid ran a reader poll asking if Trump should run for president.

Though reader polls are unscientific, the results nevertheless strongly favored a Trump presidential run — so much so that Trump cited it during a subsequent “Today Show” interview about his aspirations for running for president.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified that he met Trump in the 1980s at Mar-a-Lago while there as a guest of a client.

Prosecutors asked Pecker to point to Trump in court and to describe an item of his clothing, a standard part of criminal trials. As he acknowledged Trump and his “dark blue suit,” the former president grinned widely at his longtime friend.

When he bought the National Enquirer in 1985, Pecker said one of the first calls he received was from Trump, who said, “You bought a great magazine.”

Pecker testified that his relationship with Trump grew with the success of Trump’s reality TV show, “The Apprentice.” He said Trump would share content with him from the show that he could publish in his magazines free of charge.

“Our relationship started to grow even further” when Trump launched a celebrity version of “The Apprentice,” he said, citing widespread interest in the show and the notable names whom Trump eliminated each week using his catchphrase: “You’re fired!”

While Pecker had many personal interactions with Trump over the years, he said that once Trump hired Michael Cohen, he was told to go through the then-attorney.

“If there was any rumors in the marketplace about Mr. Trump and his family, or any negative stories that were coming out, or anything that I heard overall, that I would go through — I would call Michael Cohen directly,” Pecker explained.

By the Associated Press

Trump used a short break during his hush money trial on Tuesday to slam the judge in the case over the gag order he is currently under.

“HIGHLY CONFLICTED, TO PUT IT MILDLY, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN, HAS TAKEN AWAY MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH,” Trump wrote on his social media site during a brief court break. “EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO TALK AND LIE ABOUT ME, BUT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND MYSELF. THIS IS A KANGAROO COURT.”

Merchan is currently weighing a decision on whether to find Trump in contempt of court and to fine him for what prosecutors say is a violation of a gag order barring him from speaking publicly about witnesses in the case. Prosecutors have sought at least $3,000 in fines over almost a dozen online posts that Trump made in recent weeks, including three Truth Social posts.

By the Associated Press

Judge Merchan said he would not make an immediate decision on whether Trump violated a gag order.

Following a hearing held before witness testimony was set to resume, Merchan suggested that instead of begging for forgiveness, Trump should have asked for clarity when considering social posts or reposts that might cross the line.

Trump’s lawyers had reiterated their argument that his posts about witnesses such as his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen were merely responses to political speech.

Prosecutors have sought sanctions against the former president, as well as fines of at least $3,000.

Last year, Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed at his New York civil fraud trial after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge’s chief law clerk.

In 2022, Trump was held in contempt and fined $110,000 for being slow to respond to a subpoena in the investigation that led to the civil fraud lawsuit.

By the Associated Press

Blanche, Donald Trump’s lawyer, peeled back the curtain on the ex-president’s Truth Social operation during a hearing on whether he recently violated a gag order prohibiting him from publicly attacking witnesses in his hush-money case.

According to Blanche, people working with Trump will pick out articles they think his followers would like to see and then repost them to Truth Social under his name.

Blanche had argued that reposting a news article, as in some of the posts at issue, doesn’t violate the gag order put in place by Judge Merchan.

When the judge asked for citations to cases to back that supposition up, Blanche said he didn’t have any, but “it’s just common sense.”

Prosecutors have asked the judge to hold Trump in contempt of court and to fine him at least $3,000 for the online posts in question.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s lawyer said in court Tuesday morning that the former president didn’t willfully violate a gag order that Judge Merchan put in place, barring him from publicly attacking key witnesses in his hush-money case.

Fighting proposed fines, Blanche hit a key defense argument on the matter: that Trump was just responding to others’ comments in the course of political speech.

“There is no dispute that President Trump is facing a barrage of political attacks,” including from Cohen and Daniels, Blanche said.

He again argued it’s unfair for those individuals to be unfettered in their comments — but for Trump to be muzzled.

By the Associated Press

A man has been taken into custody by court officers after causing a disturbance in the overflow courtroom.

The man had been admitted to the overflow courtroom, which is located next to the main courtroom, but officers said he declined to sit down and obey the rules of the court on Tuesday morning. He left the room and officers escorted him off the floor in handcuffs moments after the hearing began.

Court staff have repeatedly warned journalists and members of the public about violating rules in the overflow room, where a video feed of the trial’s proceedings is shown with a slight delay. At least two reporters have been barred from covering the trial after violating rules against recording and taking photographs, according to a court spokesperson.

A court system spokesperson confirmed an arrest but did not immediately provide details.

By the Associated Press

Conroy accused Trump of violating the gag order again on Monday in remarks outside the courtroom door about his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen.

Conroy pointed to Trump’s comments about Cohen’s representation of him and characterization of Cohen as a liar.

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors called the posts a “deliberate flouting” of the court’s order. In one post, from April 10, Trump described his former lawyer-turned-foe Michael Cohen and porn actor Stormy Daniels as “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!”

Prosecutors are seeking a $1,000 fine — the maximum allowed by law — for each of the first three alleged violations. They did not specify the punishment they are seeking for the seven other posts, which date to the morning jury selection began in the trial last week.

By Amanda Kaufman, Globe Staff

The hearing is underway now, with prosecutors arguing that multiple Trump social media posts violated a gag order in the case.

Christopher Conroy, a prosecutor in the case, said Trump violated the order on 10 occasions in April. Eight of the posts were on Truth Social and the others were on Trump’s official campaign website.

By the Associated Press

Shortly after court resumed Tuesday morning, Trump sat at the defense table alone as his lawyers and prosecutors left the courtroom with Judge Merchan for a closed-door conference.

There was no indication as to what the conference was about.

One of the lawyers had asked the judge if they could all approach the bench, to which the judge agreed. A moment later the group walked out of the courtroom to a side room out of view and earshot of reporters.

Before entering the courtroom, Trump had focused on events well outside of the trial.

“It’s a big day in Pennsylvania,” he said in the courthouse’s hallway, urging people to vote in the state’s GOP primary happening today.

Trump, in a red tie, said the pro-Palestinian protests happening at local colleges are “a disgrace. And it’s really on Biden.” He added that President Joe Biden has the wrong tone and the wrong words. “What’s going on is a disgrace to our country and it’s all Biden’s fault.”

By Amanda Kaufman, Globe Staff

Trump arrived at the courthouse in Manhattan and spoke to reporters ahead of a hearing on whether he violated a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses in the case.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s attorney used his opening statement to attack the case as baseless, saying the former president did nothing illegal.

The attorney, Todd Blanche, challenged prosecutors’ claim that Trump agreed to pay porn actor Stormy Daniels to aid his campaign, saying Trump was trying to “protect his family, his reputation and his brand.”

Blanche indicated the defense will argue that after all the very point of a presidential campaign is to try to influence an election.

“It’s called democracy,” Blanche told jurors. “They put something sinister on this idea, as if it was a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”

Blanche also portrayed the ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions performed by a Trump Organization employee. Trump “had nothing to do with” the allegedly false business records, “except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country,” Blanche said.

And he argued that the records’ references to legal expenses weren’t false, since Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer at the time.

By the Associated Press

Trump left Trump Tower and his motorcade is heading to Manhattan criminal court.

By the Associated Press

The trial will adjourn early on Tuesday in observance of Passover. Judge Merchan plans to end court proceedings at 2 p.m. for the holiday.

By the Associated Press

David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher who prosecutors say worked with Trump and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen on a strategy called “catch and kill” to buy up and then spike negative stories, will be back on the stand Tuesday.

Read the full story.

By the Associated Press

Before testimony resumes Tuesday, the judge will hold a hearing on prosecutors’ request to hold the former president in contempt of court over social media posts he recently made.

Last week, the prosecution asked that Judge Merchan sanction Trump and fine him at least $3,000 for allegedly violating a gag order prohibiting him from attacking key witnesses in the case. Prosecutors said Trump did just that with nearly a dozen online posts, including at least three posted on Truth Social.

Several of the posts involved an article that referred to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen as a “serial perjurer,” and one from Wednesday repeated a claim by a Fox News host that liberal activists were lying to get on the jury, said prosecutor Christopher Conroy.

By the Associated Press

Trump left the courtroom after Monday’s proceedings ended and began speaking to reporters stationed inside the courthouse.

By the Associated Press

Court has adjourned for the day.

Judge Merchan had originally planned to adjourn at 2 p.m. because of Passover but agreed to adjourn early to accommodate an alternate juror’s emergency dental appointment.

Merchan plans to adjourn court on Tuesday at 2 p.m. for the holiday.

By the Associated Press

He’s the first person ever to testify at a criminal trial of a former US president, and David Pecker is doing so under subpoena, with his lawyer in the courtroom.

But the weighty occasion still had a lighthearted moment on Monday afternoon.

It came when a prosecutor asked Pecker to recite parts of phone numbers he’d had during the time period when the allegations in Donald Trump’s hush money case took place — from 2015 to about 2017. It was a question that might have been asked in order to authenticate phone records later on.

But after Pecker rattled off the closing digits of four different cellphone and office phone numbers from memory, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass assured him, “This isn’t a quiz.”

Pecker responded with a cackling laugh.

By the Associated Press

Pecker testified about the National Enquirer’s use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.

Pecker said he “gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000″ on a story without getting his approval.

He went on to describe the publication’s coverage meetings — in which he had final say over celebrity stories — and his editorial philosophy.

“The only thing that is important is the cover of a magazine,” Pecker said.

By the Associated Press

David Pecker, the National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime friend of Trump, was the first witness to take the stand.

Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help the campaign identify negative stories about him.

Pecker took the stand just after noon, sporting a charcoal suit, yellow tie and glasses. The 72-year-old now consults, including for his old employer, the company formerly known as American Media Inc.

By the Associated Press

Defense attorneys concluded their opening statements by downplaying expected testimony from porn actor Stormy Daniels, as well as emphasizing that prosecutors have not charged him with conspiracy despite describing the allegations against him as such in their opening statements.

“There’s nothing illegal about what you will hear happened among the National Enquirer, AMI, David Pecker and Donald Trump,” Blanche said, adding: “It’s not a scheme, unless a scheme means something that doesn’t matter, that’s not illegal.”

Blanche concluded by urging jurors to pay attention to all of the testimony and to use common sense, observing, “We’re all New Yorkers here.”

“If you do that, there will be a very swift ‘not guilty’ verdict,” Blanche said.

By the Associated Press

One of Trump’s defense attorneys zeroed in during opening statements on the credibility of one of the prosecution’s key witnesses: Michael Cohen.

Attorney Todd Blanche provided an extensive account Monday of Cohen’s criminal record and his history of lying under oath. He said that Cohen turned against the former president only after he was not given a job in the administration and found himself in legal trouble.

Blanche accused Cohen of being “obsessed with President Trump,” saying “his entirely financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction.”

“You cannot make a serious decision about President Trump relying on the words of Michael Cohen,” Blanche said.

Anticipating the defense’s likely attacks on their star witness, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo acknowledged Cohen’s criminal record earlier in the day.

“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” Cohen said.

“We will be very upfront about it,” he continued, adding that Cohen, “like other witnesses in this trial, has made mistakes.”

“You can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony despite those past mistakes,” he added.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s defense attorneys said that he had nothing to do with payments that were made to prevent stories about his sex life from being made public near the end of the 2016 presidential election.

Todd Blanche portrayed the business ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions performed by a Trump Organization functionary.

Trump “had nothing to do” with the invoice, the check being generated or the entry on the ledger, Blanche said.

While prosecutors allege Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen $420,000 — more than double what Cohen paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels — because the cover-up was crucial to the campaign, Blanche said the excess payments are proof that Trump had nothing to do with the scheme.

“Ask yourself, would a frugal businessman, a man who pinches pennies, repay a $130,000 debt to the tune of $420,000?” Blanche asked.

“President Trump had nothing to do with any of the 34 pieces of paper, the 34 counts, except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country.”

Blanche took particular issue with the prosecution’s insinuation that attempting to influence an election connotes illegality.

“I have a spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy,” Blanche said. “They put something sinister on this idea as if it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”

By the Associated Press

Following the prosecution’s opening statements, the defense called Trump “innocent” and said the Manhattan district attorney’s office “should never have brought this case.”

“He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defending himself,” Todd Blanche said as Trump looked on with interest. He went on to describe Trump as a former president but also an everyday person — a man, a husband, a father.

In the prosecution’s openings, Trump was referred to as “the defendant.” But his own lawyers are referring to him as “President Trump.”

“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche said.

Other Trump lawyers have used the same language in previous legal cases.

By the Associated Press

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche began to make his opening statement in the case.

By the Associated Press

After the 2016 election, Trump invited David Pecker, then publisher of the National Enquirer, to Trump Tower to thank him for his contribution to the campaign, prosecutors said Monday. He also invited the publisher to the inauguration and later to the White House, where a dinner was held to honor Pecker and then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.

But prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said Trump still had a few “loose ends” to tie up at the time, including reimbursing his then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for the payments he had given to Stormy Daniels.

“Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star pay-off,’” Colangelo said. “So they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”

Colangelo added that the evidence would show that while Trump is a “very frugal businessman,” when it came to reimbursing Cohen, Trump paid him double.

“This might be the only time it ever happened,” Colangelo said. Trump’s willingness to part with so much cash showed how important it was to him to keep the hush money scheme under wraps, the prosecutor posited.

By the Associated Press

Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape involving Trump becoming public, Colangelo told jurors, The National Enquirer alerted Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen that porn actor Stormy Daniels wanted to go public with her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump.

“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors, referring to the scheme as a “conspiracy” and “election fraud, pure and simple.”

By the Associated Press

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors that The Washington Post’s publication of the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, where Trump was heard on a hot mic “bragging about sexual assaults,” had an immediate and “explosive” impact on his presidential campaign.

Colangelo told jurors that prominent Trump allies withdrew their endorsements and condemned his language. The prosecutor said evidence would show the Republican National Committee even considered whether it was possible to replace Trump with another candidate.

As Colangelo read aloud words from the tape, Trump showed no reaction.

By the Associated Press

Speaking of the arrangements made to pay former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to suppress her claims of a nearly year-long affair with the married Trump, Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information ... become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”

Colangelo told jurors they would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they would hear Trump in his own voice, saying, “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

By the Associated Press

Prosecutors in Trump’s criminal trial honed in on what they called a “catch-and-kill” operation at the center of the allegations in the hush money case.

The plan was hatched at Trump Tower shortly after the then-presidential candidate had announced his candidacy. During that meeting, prosecutors say that David Pecker, then-publisher of the National Enquirer, agreed to “help the defendant’s campaign by working as the eyes and the ears of the campaign.”

By the Associated Press

“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors.

By the Associated Press

While allowing for Trump — if he testifies — to be questioned to a limited extent about his recent civil business fraud trial and writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuits against him, Merchan declined prosecutors’ requests to bring up two other legal cases.

One was the 2022 New York criminal tax fraud trial of Trump’s business, the Trump Organization. The company was convicted by a jury. Trump wasn’t charged in that case.

The other is the nearly $1 million fine that a federal judge in Florida last year ordered Trump and one of his attorneys to pay. The judge levied the penalty after finding that Trump filed a “completely frivolous” lawsuit against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.

By the Associated Press

Prior to the start of opening statements, the judge is giving jurors instructions about trial procedure, the burden of proof and other aspects of their role. The jurors looked on attentively.

By the Associated Press

Members of the jury have entered the courtroom. Trump turned in his seat and looked briefly in their direction.

“Good morning, jurors. We are about to proceed with the trial of the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump,” said Judge Merchan.

Because the panel was selected over several days, this is the first time the full jury has been together. It’s also the first time jurors are seeing the courtroom packed with reporters, a departure from last week when the gallery was full of prospective jurors — or empty seats, as the groups were whittled down — and there were just a few reporters permitted inside.

By the Associated Press

Trump shook his head as Judge Merchan ruled that prosecutors could ask him about the outcome of his recent civil business fraud trial, in which another judge found that Trump, along with his business and key executives, fraudulently inflated his wealth on paperwork used to secure loans and insurance.

Merchan said prosecutors could challenge the former president’s credibility by questioning him about six legal determinations in four cases, including his $88.3 million in judgments for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.

Strict limits will be placed on what prosecutors can question Trump about regarding those cases, including prohibiting them from eliciting the amounts of the monetary penalties imposed, said Merchan.

By the Associated Press

He will not allow them to show the actual video in court.

Trump’s lawyers object to the use of a transcript. But Merchan said that in his view there is “no reason” why a transcript of the video, where Trump boasted about grabbing women’s genitals without permission, “should not be admitted into evidence.”

By the Associated Press

An alternate juror has an emergency dental appointment this afternoon and court will adjourn at 12:30 p.m.

Before the juror’s tooth issue, Judge Merchan had previously planned to adjourn the trial at 2 p.m. because of Passover. He plans to end at 2 p.m. on Tuesday for the holiday.

By the Associated Press

Judge Juan M. Merchan said his understanding was “that the juror was concerned about the media attention” to the case and wasn’t “100% sure they wanted to be here today.”

The juror did show up to court Monday, he said, and was questioned further in the judge’s robing room, out of the view of the press.

Merchan announced that the juror will remain on the case after questioning the individual behind closed doors.

By the Associated Press

Trump filled his cheeks with air and exhaled before sitting down. Photographers quickly crowded around him, snapping photos ahead of the proceedings.

The gallery is packed with reporters, and the temperature in the courtroom is slightly warmer than on previous days, where the chill was a subject of much discussion.

Before heading into the courtroom, Trump addressed a camera in the hallway, once again saying that it’s “unfair” he has to be there, rather than out campaigning.

“I’m here instead of being able to be in Pennsylvania and Georgia and lots of other places campaigning and it’s very unfair,” he said.

Trump also spoke at length about another hearing taking place at a nearby court, regarding the $175 million bond he paid in his civil fraud case.

By the Associated Press

A small group of anti-Trump protesters was outside the courthouse ahead of opening statements, chanting, “No one is above the law,” while members of the media and public lined up to get inside.

Police had discussed the possibility of closing the park across the street, Collect Pond Park, after a man set himself on fire there last week, but on Monday it remained open to the public, including protesters.

By the Associated Press

Michael Cohen: Trump’s former lawyer and fixer. He was once a fierce Trump ally, but now he’s a key prosecution witness against his former boss. Cohen worked for the Trump Organization from 2006 to 2017. He later went to federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations relating to the hush money arrangements and other, unrelated crimes.

Stormy Daniels: The porn actor who received a $130,000 payment from Cohen as part of his hush-money efforts. Cohen paid Daniels to keep quiet about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.

Karen McDougal: A former Playboy model who said she had a 10-month affair with Trump in the mid-2000s. She was paid $150,000 in 2016 by the parent company of the National Enquirer for the rights to her story about the alleged relationship. Trump denies having sex with McDougal.

David Pecker: The National Enquirer’s former publisher and a longtime Trump friend. Prosecutors say he met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.

Hope Hicks: Trump’s former White House communications director. Prosecutors say she spoke with Trump by phone during a frenzied effort to keep allegations of his marital infidelity out of the press after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape leaked weeks before the 2016 election. In the tape, from 2005, Trump boasted about grabbing women without permission.

By the Associated Press

Trump has arrived at court in Manhattan for opening statements in his hush money trial.

The former president left Trump Tower on Monday morning in his motorcade and walked straight inside the courthouse after arriving.

By the Associated Press

Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and could face four years in prison if convicted, though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to attempt to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Unfolding as Trump vies to reclaim the White House, the trial will require him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than the campaign trail. He will have to listen as witnesses recount salacious and potentially unflattering details about his private life.

Trump has nonetheless sought to turn his criminal defendant status into an asset for his campaign, fundraising off his legal jeopardy and repeatedly railing against a justice system that he has for years claimed is weaponized against him.

By Alyssa Vega, Globe Staff

The jury includes a software engineer, investment banker, English teacher, and multiple lawyers.

Here’s what we know about them.

By the Associated Press

A full jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated last Friday, days after lawyers quizzed dozens of potential jurors on whether they can impartially judge the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Over five days of jury selection, dozens of people were dismissed from the jury pool after saying they didn’t believe they could be fair. Others expressed anxiety about having to decide such a consequential case with outsized media attention, even though the judge has ruled that jurors’ names will be known only to prosecutors, Trump, and their legal teams.

One woman who had been chosen to serve on the jury was dismissed Thursday after she raised concerns over messages she said she got from friends and family when aspects of her identity became public. Another was dismissed over concerns that some of his answers in court may have been inaccurate.

On Friday, another woman broke down in tears while being questioned by a prosecutor about her ability to decide the case based only on evidence presented in court.

By the Associated Press

In an order first made in March, and then revised on April 1, Judge Juan Merchan barred Trump from making public statements about probable trial witnesses “concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”

Merchan’s order didn’t give specific examples of what types of statements about witnesses were banned. He noted the order was not intended to prevent the former president from responding to political attacks.

The gag order also barred Trump from making public statements of any type about jurors, court staff, lawyers in the case or relatives of prosecutors or of the judge. Trump is allowed to make critical comments about the judge himself and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump has taken to his Truth Social platform to disparage his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, two key witnesses in the case and assailed Merchan’s daughter and made false claims about her.

Merchan has scheduled arguments for this week on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him for social media posts they say defy limits on what he can say about potential witnesses.

By the Associated Press

Judge Juan M. Merchan is a veteran judge known as a no-nonsense, drama-averse jurist. This case is already testing his patience.

Since the Manhattan district attorney charged Trump last year, the former president has used campaign emails, social media, and repetitive legal filings to attack the judge’s integrity and family.

During the trial, Merchan will be in charge of keeping order in the courtroom and ruling on objections made by prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers. The jury will ultimately decide whether Trump is guilty.

By the Associated Press

The charges trace back to a $130,000 hush-money payment that Donald Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor, in the final days of the 2016 campaign. The payment, which Cohen said he had made at Trump’s direction, suppressed her story of a sexual liaison that she said she had with Trump.

Paying hush money is not always illegal.

But while serving as the commander in chief, Trump reimbursed Cohen, and how he did so constituted fraud, prosecutors say.

In internal records, Trump’s company classified the repayment to Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. Yet there were no such expenses, the prosecutors say, and the retainer agreement was fictional too.

Those records underpin the 34 counts of falsifying business records: 11 counts involve the checks, 11 center on monthly invoices Cohen submitted to the company, and 12 involve entries in the general ledger for Trump’s trust.