The Latest | Defense at Trump hush money trial to cross-examine star witness Michael Cohen
NEW YORK — Prosecutors’ star witness in the hush-money case against Donald Trump will appear again on Thursday, as defense lawyers try to suppress Michael Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the former president.
The trial will resume in Manhattan with a potentially explosive cross-examination of Cohen, whose credibility could determine the fate of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the case.
Cohen is prosecutors’ last witness — at least for now — as they try to prove that Trump plotted to suppress a damaging story that he feared would torpedo his 2016 presidential campaign, and then falsified corporate records to cover it up .
The trial is entering its 18th day. The defense is not expected to call many witnesses.
During two days on the witness stand, Cohen placed Trump directly at the center of the alleged scheme to suppress negative stories and prevent damage to his bid for the White House. Cohen told jurors that Trump promised to pay him back for the money he was seeking and was kept constantly informed of efforts to silence women who alleged sexual encounters with him. Trump denies the women’s claims.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 crimes.
The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president and the first of four prosecutions against Trump to reach a jury.
Currently:
– The judges usually have a front row seat when it comes to history
– Lies, Loyalty, and a Silence Order Upheld: The Takeaways from Tuesday’s Trump Hush Money Trial
— Speaker Mike Johnson’s appearance is a remarkable moment
– Trump hush money case: A timeline of key events
– Key players: Who’s who in Trump’s hush-money criminal trial
Here’s the latest:
After months of questions about whether general election debates would take place, President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump agreed to participate in two of them: one in June and one in September.
The first debate will take place in a busy and turbulent political calendar, before one of the candidates becomes his party’s official candidate at the summer conventions.
The June 27 contest will come after the expected conclusion of Trump’s criminal hush-money trial in New York, Biden’s foreign trips to France and Italy in mid-June, and the end of the Supreme Court’s term.
The second debate would take place before most states begin early voting — although some overseas and military ballots may already have been mailed out.
Some of the most explosive moments in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial have been visible to most of the world — except for the people who actually decide his fate: the jury.
The 12-member panel will see evidence and witness statements so they can decide whether the former president engaged in a scheme to buy and bury seamy stories in an effort to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. But it’s a very curated experience; jurors don’t get the full picture of those watching every day.
They don’t even see Trump enter or leave the courtroom. By the time they are brought into the room, he is already there, and he remains there until they are sent away. This is by design.
Donald Trump wants New York’s highest court to intervene in his fight over a silence order that fined him $10,000 and threatened him with prison for violating a ban on commenting on witnesses, jurors and others who were involved in his hush-money criminal trial.
The former president’s lawyers filed an appeal on Wednesday, a day after the state’s middle court denied his request to lift or modify the restrictions. The file was on a docket at the court, but the document itself was sealed and unavailable.
Only after ten years in the ranks, after his family begged him, after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room, Michael Cohen testified Tuesday, did he finally decide to turn against Donald Trump.
The complicated rift led to a guilty plea in 2018 to federal charges related to a payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to bury her story about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump and other, unrelated crimes.
And it’s that inside knowledge of shady deals that prompted Manhattan prosecutors to make Cohen a key witness in their case against Trump over that same payment, which they say was an illegal attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election.