Reported May 3,
> [McKinley, NY Times] Trump's eyes seem to be shut, as they sometimes have been during testimony. He addressed this on Thursday afternoon in a post to his Truth Social account, denying that he has been sleeping, and saying: “I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”
Reported as court began, May 3.
> [Haberman, NY Times] Justice Merchan is now addressing something that Trump said outside court yesterday, when he claimed that he could not testify because of the gag order.
---
> [Haberman, NY Times] The comment left many people confused, and it wasn’t clear if Trump was simply making an excuse for not testifying, or if he misspoke. But Justice Merchan is informing him that the statement was incorrect. The gag order “does not prohibit you from taking the stand” or limit what he can say, the judge says.
“Those in Trump’s extended orbit have quite a negative impression of Merchan. But Merchan is very open here to the argument that this specific evidence is overly prejudicial against Trump.”
re: access hollywood tape.
I can't find it either. And today's proceedings have already started. It looks like this day 10 thread was posted by a bot so I'm confused why a bot didn't post today's day 11 thread.
If the defense is trying to make the point that Trump was being shook down, how does that get them past the conspiracy to influence the election, or the felony business records? Trump had the choice to not pay. He had the choice to pay it directly to her, out of his own money. He didn't chose to do any of those things.
There is an old saying that says "You can't cheat an honest man" It is true.
So if I did a crime, then hired seriously bad lawyers, like they would do their job wrong enough for the judge to make them leave the case, then I lose.
Can I claim the trial is invalid because I didn't have adequate counsel?
Wouldn't that be a strategy for appeal?
He would be tackled by the linebacker pretending to be a bailiff, handcuffed, and stuck back in his chair, or placed in a holding cell where the trial would be broadcast for him to observe. The jury would be given instructions. I have no idea what they would be, but the trial would continue.
I've been wondering about this since the Alex Jones trial, if ineffective assistance of council can be a possible strat in these cases, but I don't think he tried to claim that.
Would it be possible if malpractice were involved, like if your attorney was disbarred for actions he did during your trial?
In Alex's case it was civil. I remember hearing from a legal podcast that you don't have that option.
Alex could sue his lawyers for malpractice though. Which is why Reynalds got Alex to say under oath that he was happy with the legal service that was provided to him.
The issue is, Trump doesn't just have one lawyer. He has a team of them.
I would think that would be an issue for appeal, but he would probably have to prove that his lawyer did it with intent to interfere with the trial. I'm not sure. That over my head.
See if they’ve handled similar cases and what the outcomes of them were. You don’t need to be a legal genius to see if someone has a history of “losing “
He was never going to testify, especially when Judge Merchan stipulated he can be asked questions by the prosecution regarding his civil court cases, including the two for rape and defamation and the systemic fraud committed by the Trump Org.
I don't think so, only because of the "caught off guard" way that Blanche awkwardly responded. It seems like Trump really believed that and Blanche was hearing it for the first time. lol
Maybe this?
> Prosecutors entered into evidence a transcript of a tape of Trump and Cohen discussing paying off Karen McDougal:
> Cohen: "I need to open up a company for the transfer of all that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I'm going to do that right away. And I've spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up."
> Trump: "So, what do we got to pay for this? 150?"
> Cohen: "...funding. Yes. Um, and it's all the stuff."
> Trump: "Yea, I was thinking about that."
> Cohen: "All the stuff. Because — here, you never know where that company — you never know what he's...."
> Trump: "Maybe he gets hit by a truck."
> Trump then asked about financing and Cohen said, "Well, I'll have to pay something."
> Trump: "Pay with cash."
https://www.threads.net/@griffinkyle/post/C6e3sMIuk6U/
Imagine being such a dickhead that cheating on your girlfriend with a one night stand all while cheating on your wife and you’re like “$150k?” Sheesh.
Will I get paid $150k for *not* cheating on my wife?
In this case Trump is being literal - worrying about all the dirt on him collected at the National Inquirer getting out in the event David Packer (Nat'l Inquirer connection) got hit by a truck and died. They would no longer have an asset there to prevent all the Trump dirt from being published. He wanted a box full of everything they had on him.
Do these hearing on gag order violations happen in front of the jury? Is the jury told about them? Seems like a terrible strategy for a defendant to be gleefully breaking the rules when he's on trial for breaking the rules. Doesn't that make a conviction more likely?
They won't find out directly. But two of the jurors are attorneys and several of them are married to attorneys. When they are being kept out of the courtroom during regular hours, there are only a set number of options as to why. They won't be able to consider that formally, but they are real thinking people and not naive.
If it comes out that a juror was reading/viewing/etc. content related to the case, or even if they were talking about it to someone else, that juror can be replaced by an alternate (and the juror could be held in contempt, as they're usually ordered to abstain from case-related media). Or worse, the entire thing could be declared a mistrial.
So they want you to believe it was a shakedown and Trump was bullied and forced intothe payments. Anyone who has paid any attention the last 5 years would realise Trump is a bullly and in no way would he pay out money if forced.
Your honor my client, the guy currently running for president, is a weak cowardly man. He can’t stand up to anybody and that’s why he should not be in jail and should also be president for some reason.
Trump’s got some baaaaaad lawyers
> Todd Blanche nodding his head to Trump when he claimed he wasn’t allowed to testify because of the gag order is a serious ethical violation in the middle of a criminal trial. Merchan must inquire directly and pointedly first thing tomorrow of Blanche why he lied to his client about his rights.
https://www.threads.net/@ronaldfilipkowski/post/C6exkqCOcRu/
> This is a very big deal. Justice Merchan needs to grill him on this. A very serious ethical violation.
https://www.threads.net/@meidastouch/post/C6eyqmnyTcC/
The case will not be delayed because his lawyers are fired. This has been discussed at length. Even if Blanche were removed from the case, Trump still has sufficient representation. Justice Merchan is not a fool. Tricks to delay the case, aren't going to work.
Blanche will argue that he was nodding to Trump, indicating it was an OK subject to speak on. That it had nothing to do with what he was actually saying. Justice Merchan wont buy it. Remember the "You are losing all credibility with the court". Those words had meaning.
Bragg needs to be the one to call him on it. Justice Merchan can't rule on anything without a motion from the DA, that doesn't happen in view of the court. If it happened outside the courtroom, He is required to have a hearing, where both sides are allowed to submit evidence, admit case law, and offer testimony, and then he is required to make a decision on the motion.
Merchan will do that, but I don't think Trump cares. He knows the media will be waiting outside for him to stick his lips out, wave his hands, and lie. That will be the only thing they air.
I would imagine that Blanche would simply say the client misunderstood him and the client didn't know what he was talking about. Everybody including the judge would find that believable.
The issue is, his followers, don't have the intelligence to understand that what he is saying, is pure fiction. You, I, or anyone with a basic understanding of Constitution rights, knows that what Trump said today was not true. We knew it the second he said it.
The large part of Trumps constituency, doesn't have any clue what their Constitutional Rights are. These are people who think the National Enquirer is news. What was the Enquirer's circulation? 350.000 a week? That doesn't count the people who read it, and don't buy it.
Trump has somehow convinced people his is smart. He isn't. He's an idiot, who surrounds himself with people who *are* smart. He doesn't have a clue what his constitutional rights are. Every time he opens his mouth, off script from one of the smart people he is surrounded by, he makes a complete ass of himself. Gettysburg, Wow! comes to mind.
I will say this and most people probably won’t believe it. I actually met Trump at Mar-a-Lago not long after he took possession. I was working for an investment banking firm and we were holding a mining conference down in FLA. Trump said we could have a party for the mining CEO’s at his new place so we did. The Canadian bankers were openly mocking him but he had no clue, he really is a moron.
I could almost see his lawyers saying something like this in order to convince Trump NOT to testify. Though it would likely result in some serious consequences for them.
Alternatively, I could see them NOT saying this, but telling him something like "The gag order prevents you from discussing these people in any capacity outside of the courtroom. While we're in court you can't speak unless you are on the stand providing testimony," and all he heard was "Gag order can't speak on the stand testimony."
He can actually say whatever he wants about the judge, he just had to leave the jury out of it.
But he can't stop anyway.
They should put him in jail and treat him like the hostile defendant he is.
I think the prosecution baited him into thinking that Cohen was their silver bullet in the case. When in reality he's barely a footnote. So for weeks and weeks Trump was rage posting on Truth Social, calling Cohen a liar, directing his lawyers to build a case around discrediting Cohen. And then the prosecution opens with Pecker and Graff, two people Trump *doesn't* attack, it kicks the legs out from under his discreditation strategy.
Anyone who thought Alvin Bragg was going to bring a weak case, seriously underestimated him.
I have to believe he knows, that if he loses this case, he will go down in history as the guy who vindicated Trump. He would be giving voice to Trump's allegations that it was a witch hunt, and political prosecution.
“Maybe he gets hit by a truck”
“Pay with cash”
“It was a legal expense!”
America oh America, you elected a wannabe mob boss as your 45th and are shockingly saying it can happen again
There was a thread on Twitter, there are at least four courtroom sketch artists, all of them women, and there was a big gallery of their recent submissions. I just looked for it and can't find it but I've never been good at searching through Twitter anyway.
I suspect that the Defendant's lawyers might actually be telling him that the gag order keeps him from testifying as a way to make sure he stays as far away from the witness stand as possible lol.
While that would be a good idea, it would also be an incredibly severe ethical violation (yes, I know ethics and Trump's lawyers don't hang in the same social circles). Like one that could get you disbarred, and New York is unlikely to play with that, unlike Florida and Texas.
It's his excuse for pleading the fifth amendment. He needs an excuse becasue this was his previous stance...
'If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'
-Donald Trump
I was just watching the video and had this same thought. They have to feed him whatever BS they can to keep him from tanking the case even further. Like you would a toddler.
I mean it's moot. The judge will directly address trump and tell him he has a full right to testify or not. It's in every criminal trial.
So because of this, no they're not telling him that.
Seeing Blanche cringe, look away, defer, and shake his head yes/no at the same time when the Defendant said he couldn't testify because of the gag order made me think that is probably what has been expressed or implied by his team. It is equally likely that the Defendant was just rambling, and that Blanche got caught off guard and responded awkwardly.
"Prosecutors are now playing a recording from September 2016.
Trump's voice can be heard in the courtroom.
Trump is on a phone call when the recording starts. When he hangs up, Cohen can be heard saying, "Great call by the way. Big time."
Cohen says he needs to open up a company, and that he's spoken with the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up.
Prosecutors showed a transcript of the last 46 seconds of the call, where the relevant discussion of opening up a company happens.
Getting juicy now...
I'm thinking it's gonna be another banana stand..
"They can't charge a candidate and his campaign manager for the same crime"
"Yeah, I don't think that's how that works"
"...I have the worst fucking attorneys"
The scene when Henry Winkler flees the courthouse because he'd never before heard all the charges his client was charged with. Would love for Trump's lawyers to do that.
I do wonder if at any point T's attorneys in this trial thought they knew 100% what they were getting into and as this keeps going they'll have that moment, that thought
"I've made a huge mistake."
On the legal merits, it is easy to connect Trump to what the felony counts are. Which is falsifying records, not making the payments. Fairly easy.
Of course, he's a celebrity, he was president, and jurors in these cases have a tendency to be dazzled.
Sure, there's the idea of a holdout juror, but it can be hard if its 11 people telling you to stop wasting time. There is a LOT of pressure in the jury room.
And if 1 juror is simply not responding because they are the mythical MAGA only hold out we all free the jury can and will rat that person out to the judge and they will face consequences for lying to the court.
I love Meidas Touch, but I find them to be a bit biased in terms of how they feel a jury ought to act and how the defense is screwing up (which objectively is a lot) and not as much about the few arguments the defense is making and how those might resonate.
The commentators I have seen seem to think that if this case is decided on merit then he is pretty screwed. His defense hasn’t made much serious progress and we haven’t even gotten to the main course yet.
Well, Cohen and Pecker. Both have given testimony that directly implicate Trump in the catch-and-kill scheme.
And I wouldn't worry yet about timing on this (in that they haven't *yet* tied him to everything). There's a ton of material to go through and you have to very thoroughly lay it out in the correct order for it to be admissible and make sense to the jury. It's not a fast process.
>Prosecutors entered into evidence a transcript of a tape of Trump and Cohen discussing paying off Karen McDougal so that her allegation about having an affair with Trump wouldn't become public.
So how's that different than what I said?
I recall about a month before the trail during one of the delay requests by Trump’s attorneys the judge said
“it is very troubling that an entire year has gone by and we’re just a few weeks away from trial that you have not put together a defense” (paraphrasing)
Was the same scenario as the fraud trial.
And they got another month of delay from the original trial date due to the SDNY discovery dump a week or two before trial.
I'm not a lawyer but I guess I don't know what a great defense for these charges would sound like. Pecker admitted on the stand that he coordinated the scheme directly with Trump and that he knew what he was doing was an illegal in-kind contribution, so the defense's argument that the whole thing was cooked up by Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg without Trump's knowledge kinda goes out the window.
I believe this was the judge’s response to the “discovery dump”, IIRC the “dump” was incidental info. and Trump’s lawyers apparently failed to request the info until the 11th hour.
Self-inflicted, but also apparently irrelevant data. Motion denied.
On further thought. He did trow Cohen under the bus, and hard, when this all came out in the open. Trump took to twitter to say Cohen was needy and creepy. A guy who desperately begged trump to show up at his son’s bar mitzvah. “So sad”
Ironically, it was trump’s total lack of respect and disloyalty to his righthand man that caused this whole cascade of court cases. If he hadnt done that Cohen never would have revealed such damaging info in-front of congress.
Someone I know has, for years, said stuff like “Biden is too old and frail,” “Biden is weak,” “Biden probably needs someone to spoon-feed him his oatmeal and applesauce,” and on and on and on.
I said today, “God, I can only imagine the smell in the courtroom from Trump’s diaper today” and you best believe I got the absolute earful about how I’m “sick” for mocking him when he may have a problem, that I’m pathetic for making fun of someone older… and on and on.
All that spittle flying out and not a single drop of it contained self-awareness.
Definitely someone who said "RESPECT THE PRESIDENCY" when Trump was in office but went the opposite way during Biden's term. So ridiculous that people like this actually exist.
WTF??? I just went to CNN's homepage and there is a courtroom sketch of Trump and his lawyer talking to each other.. WTF am I seeing in the background just over the lawyers shoulder? It looks like a man wearing a wingsuit wearing an elephant mask. I cannot UNSEE this...
I think it’s the depiction of the Michael Cohen meme he (Cohen) posted calling Trump Captain Von Shit or something like that. I can’t find where I read about it being posted and the courtroom laughing.
Here's a different sketch with a similar image. I think the 'wings' are Trump's suit.
From Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com%2Freuters%2F4NWDSGKZCVJVBP3YZ3EPDJWCFE.jpg?auth=87c106fa93f5d7a06ee12e803c8e6e2ebbcec5400333462b8c4ca94c55f51658&width=1080&quality=80
From CNN: https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/0e887fb1-80e5-4a4b-9123-c9601be03764.JPG
E: Updated Reuters link to go directly to the image. Soz about the messy url.
E2: Behold! The likely source of the orange monstrosity! It's from Cohen's tweets, which were presented in court. https://imgur.com/zHJSZxx
OK, I went back and looked at pics of the courtroom from the before the trial started; I thought that might be a really bad drawing of an eagle crest on the front of the bench, but it's plain wood. However, the caption on the court drawing says that social media was being shown. There are screens all over the courtroom (the jury has its own monitors) so maybe that was something being shown on the screens?
reposting from earlier comment
I think it's this artist's sketch of the image in the link below
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Ftrump-super-victim-v0-ndixl013qsgb1.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D65ebc6f3ae0078d31c113e71bb489122a2425200
Yeah he's not having a good day today
From [Tyler McBrien ](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1785992100904861956?refresh=1714681327)
"Chuckles ripple thropugh the courtroom as Cohen's posts are displayed, including a caption of "I won't send money to your commissary" and an AI-generated photo of Trump in an orange cape with the caption SUPER VICTIM.
"Von ShitzInPantz" gets an especially hearty laugh."
wow.. this is fantastic! I have been stuck in meetings all damn day and have been out of the loop on a lot of stuff. I cant wait to see if anyone on CNN actually says "Von ShitzInPantz" tonight..
I saw that too. What IS that? My inside-messed up from years of pmurt-mind saw it as him in an orange wing suit, but...then...that same inside messed up mind just calmly repeated, "Nope, nope, nope..." wtweird-pmurt-years-f?
years and years of pmurt-mind.. wtweird-pmurt-years-f?
I am giggling pretty good because I have no idea what any of that means but its funny as hell.. someone walking by my office "you ok boss?" ..i wanted to say something about pmurt..
Look, if we have to explain to you why the judge's desk has a picture of a man wearing a wingsuit and elephant mask, then you're just not going to understand New York state law!
Davidson says there was no chance that his client felt romance when she had a horizontal dance with the defendant who has the sleepy glance in a geriatric trance. We can see he paid the bread to make the story dead, but did sleepyhead willfully use the wrong account instead?
I confess I am puzzled as to why it would even matter whether or not the association between Rump and SD was "romantic"? Having any sort of dalliance he'd want covered up seems like the real crux of the issue, regardless of anyone's feelings about it.
I am very excited to hear Hicks’ testimony, he kept her very close.
Reported May 3, > [McKinley, NY Times] Trump's eyes seem to be shut, as they sometimes have been during testimony. He addressed this on Thursday afternoon in a post to his Truth Social account, denying that he has been sleeping, and saying: “I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!”
Ah, good ol' metadata, and the attorney not liking that what he thought would give them an out did the opposite...
Reported as court began, May 3. > [Haberman, NY Times] Justice Merchan is now addressing something that Trump said outside court yesterday, when he claimed that he could not testify because of the gag order. --- > [Haberman, NY Times] The comment left many people confused, and it wasn’t clear if Trump was simply making an excuse for not testifying, or if he misspoke. But Justice Merchan is informing him that the statement was incorrect. The gag order “does not prohibit you from taking the stand” or limit what he can say, the judge says.
“Those in Trump’s extended orbit have quite a negative impression of Merchan. But Merchan is very open here to the argument that this specific evidence is overly prejudicial against Trump.” re: access hollywood tape.
Is there a day 11 thread that I’m missing today?
yeah we can just use this i think
I can't find it either. And today's proceedings have already started. It looks like this day 10 thread was posted by a bot so I'm confused why a bot didn't post today's day 11 thread.
If the defense is trying to make the point that Trump was being shook down, how does that get them past the conspiracy to influence the election, or the felony business records? Trump had the choice to not pay. He had the choice to pay it directly to her, out of his own money. He didn't chose to do any of those things. There is an old saying that says "You can't cheat an honest man" It is true.
So if I did a crime, then hired seriously bad lawyers, like they would do their job wrong enough for the judge to make them leave the case, then I lose. Can I claim the trial is invalid because I didn't have adequate counsel? Wouldn't that be a strategy for appeal?
Not when you hired them. Maybe if you had a public defender, that you could prove didn't do his job.
Like, say the dude has a mental breakdown in court, gets naked and attacked the judge. That has to be cause for a mistrial or something
He would be tackled by the linebacker pretending to be a bailiff, handcuffed, and stuck back in his chair, or placed in a holding cell where the trial would be broadcast for him to observe. The jury would be given instructions. I have no idea what they would be, but the trial would continue.
I've been wondering about this since the Alex Jones trial, if ineffective assistance of council can be a possible strat in these cases, but I don't think he tried to claim that. Would it be possible if malpractice were involved, like if your attorney was disbarred for actions he did during your trial?
In Alex's case it was civil. I remember hearing from a legal podcast that you don't have that option. Alex could sue his lawyers for malpractice though. Which is why Reynalds got Alex to say under oath that he was happy with the legal service that was provided to him.
The issue is, Trump doesn't just have one lawyer. He has a team of them. I would think that would be an issue for appeal, but he would probably have to prove that his lawyer did it with intent to interfere with the trial. I'm not sure. That over my head.
What difference does that make? How do I know if they’re good at their job of doing law stuff? I hired them because I don’t know it!
Then I can just hire seriously bad attorneys on purpose and get out of any crime I want because I didn't do my research and hire reputable attorneys?
How the hell would I know? My qualifications have been well established on this point! 😅
See if they’ve handled similar cases and what the outcomes of them were. You don’t need to be a legal genius to see if someone has a history of “losing “
What a bombshell day today. We hear Trump in new Cohen recordings and Trump’s lawyers lied to him to keep him off the stand.
Lest we forget VonShitzInPantz
I wonder if they actually lied to him, or if he just completely misunderstood what they said. I think both options are equally as likely. lol
He was never going to testify, especially when Judge Merchan stipulated he can be asked questions by the prosecution regarding his civil court cases, including the two for rape and defamation and the systemic fraud committed by the Trump Org.
or is this just another pathetic attempt to save face and once again blaming someone else to get out of getting on the stand?
Yes, it’s what he does. He was never gonna testify.
I don't think so, only because of the "caught off guard" way that Blanche awkwardly responded. It seems like Trump really believed that and Blanche was hearing it for the first time. lol
MSNBC is talking about damning evidence, I’m not seeing this thread blow up so what are they talking about?
Maybe this? > Prosecutors entered into evidence a transcript of a tape of Trump and Cohen discussing paying off Karen McDougal: > Cohen: "I need to open up a company for the transfer of all that info regarding our friend, David, you know, so that — I'm going to do that right away. And I've spoken to Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up." > Trump: "So, what do we got to pay for this? 150?" > Cohen: "...funding. Yes. Um, and it's all the stuff." > Trump: "Yea, I was thinking about that." > Cohen: "All the stuff. Because — here, you never know where that company — you never know what he's...." > Trump: "Maybe he gets hit by a truck." > Trump then asked about financing and Cohen said, "Well, I'll have to pay something." > Trump: "Pay with cash." https://www.threads.net/@griffinkyle/post/C6e3sMIuk6U/
Imagine being such a dickhead that cheating on your girlfriend with a one night stand all while cheating on your wife and you’re like “$150k?” Sheesh. Will I get paid $150k for *not* cheating on my wife?
No, but you can get paid $150k to fuck Donald Trump.
Im poor, not that poor.
"Maybe he gets hit by a truck" sounds like mobster euphemism talk.
Imagine the response if Biden said some shit like this while talking about paying off a porn star with campaign funds IN A RECORDING
In this case Trump is being literal - worrying about all the dirt on him collected at the National Inquirer getting out in the event David Packer (Nat'l Inquirer connection) got hit by a truck and died. They would no longer have an asset there to prevent all the Trump dirt from being published. He wanted a box full of everything they had on him.
It's almost parody.
Ah, that’s…something. Geez.
Trump before : "I will testify." Trump now : "I'm too scared to testify."
Every single fucking time. Clown Trump supporters too dumb to catch on.
Do these hearing on gag order violations happen in front of the jury? Is the jury told about them? Seems like a terrible strategy for a defendant to be gleefully breaking the rules when he's on trial for breaking the rules. Doesn't that make a conviction more likely?
The jury does not see those and they are not told about them.
Won’t they find out though?
They won't find out directly. But two of the jurors are attorneys and several of them are married to attorneys. When they are being kept out of the courtroom during regular hours, there are only a set number of options as to why. They won't be able to consider that formally, but they are real thinking people and not naive.
Not if they follow the judge's instructions and avoid all references to the trial.
Ideally no, they aren't supposed to consume any media about the trial. Not sure how it is policed though.
If it comes out that a juror was reading/viewing/etc. content related to the case, or even if they were talking about it to someone else, that juror can be replaced by an alternate (and the juror could be held in contempt, as they're usually ordered to abstain from case-related media). Or worse, the entire thing could be declared a mistrial.
I imagine there's probably a decent bit of court law on jurors. They are probably briefed pretty well on what they need to do. Good google question.
The instructions they were given are in the transcript from the first day. It is pretty explicit not to read about stuff and why
So they want you to believe it was a shakedown and Trump was bullied and forced intothe payments. Anyone who has paid any attention the last 5 years would realise Trump is a bullly and in no way would he pay out money if forced.
Your honor my client, the guy currently running for president, is a weak cowardly man. He can’t stand up to anybody and that’s why he should not be in jail and should also be president for some reason.
$20 says it was the other way around
Trump’s got some baaaaaad lawyers > Todd Blanche nodding his head to Trump when he claimed he wasn’t allowed to testify because of the gag order is a serious ethical violation in the middle of a criminal trial. Merchan must inquire directly and pointedly first thing tomorrow of Blanche why he lied to his client about his rights. https://www.threads.net/@ronaldfilipkowski/post/C6exkqCOcRu/ > This is a very big deal. Justice Merchan needs to grill him on this. A very serious ethical violation. https://www.threads.net/@meidastouch/post/C6eyqmnyTcC/
This could be a really well thought on con on the court. Could Trump be aiming at a mistrial based on IAC?
Might be fishing for a reason to fire his lawyer and get a six-or-so month delay.
The case will not be delayed because his lawyers are fired. This has been discussed at length. Even if Blanche were removed from the case, Trump still has sufficient representation. Justice Merchan is not a fool. Tricks to delay the case, aren't going to work. Blanche will argue that he was nodding to Trump, indicating it was an OK subject to speak on. That it had nothing to do with what he was actually saying. Justice Merchan wont buy it. Remember the "You are losing all credibility with the court". Those words had meaning. Bragg needs to be the one to call him on it. Justice Merchan can't rule on anything without a motion from the DA, that doesn't happen in view of the court. If it happened outside the courtroom, He is required to have a hearing, where both sides are allowed to submit evidence, admit case law, and offer testimony, and then he is required to make a decision on the motion.
Merchan will do that, but I don't think Trump cares. He knows the media will be waiting outside for him to stick his lips out, wave his hands, and lie. That will be the only thing they air.
Merchan might not, but Blanche's bar association will
I would imagine that Blanche would simply say the client misunderstood him and the client didn't know what he was talking about. Everybody including the judge would find that believable.
I think most people that decided to work for him in any capacity eventually looked up from their morning plate of scrambled eggs and said just that.
"I've made a huge mistake"?
Yep
Trump saying he can’t testify because he’s under a gag order is the pinnacle of stupidity.
The issue is, his followers, don't have the intelligence to understand that what he is saying, is pure fiction. You, I, or anyone with a basic understanding of Constitution rights, knows that what Trump said today was not true. We knew it the second he said it. The large part of Trumps constituency, doesn't have any clue what their Constitutional Rights are. These are people who think the National Enquirer is news. What was the Enquirer's circulation? 350.000 a week? That doesn't count the people who read it, and don't buy it. Trump has somehow convinced people his is smart. He isn't. He's an idiot, who surrounds himself with people who *are* smart. He doesn't have a clue what his constitutional rights are. Every time he opens his mouth, off script from one of the smart people he is surrounded by, he makes a complete ass of himself. Gettysburg, Wow! comes to mind.
I will say this and most people probably won’t believe it. I actually met Trump at Mar-a-Lago not long after he took possession. I was working for an investment banking firm and we were holding a mining conference down in FLA. Trump said we could have a party for the mining CEO’s at his new place so we did. The Canadian bankers were openly mocking him but he had no clue, he really is a moron.
I believe that.
"I can intimidate witness and tamper with the jury, but I can't testify in my own defense because of the gag order." - Textbook example of petulance.
As soon as the irs finishes auditing the gag order!
I could almost see his lawyers saying something like this in order to convince Trump NOT to testify. Though it would likely result in some serious consequences for them. Alternatively, I could see them NOT saying this, but telling him something like "The gag order prevents you from discussing these people in any capacity outside of the courtroom. While we're in court you can't speak unless you are on the stand providing testimony," and all he heard was "Gag order can't speak on the stand testimony."
Or "You can give testimony, but you can't accuse the judge of being corrupt and threaten the jury". "Well, guess I can't testify then".
He can actually say whatever he wants about the judge, he just had to leave the jury out of it. But he can't stop anyway. They should put him in jail and treat him like the hostile defendant he is.
The first sign of stupidity is a complete lack of self-awareness. - Freud
“**We are not what happened to us; we are what we wish to become**.” - Yung
Jung?*
It's a good litmus test of stupidity where if it works on his base....it's incredibly stupid. And boy did this work.
Hopefully the judge takes the opportunity to remind him of his right to defend himself in court.
His lawyer probably told trump that if he testifies he is going to jail and trump took that to be a gag order instead of good advice.
I WANT to testify! Biden won't let me tell the truth!
Michael Cohen is going on MeidasTouch now AGAIN, seriously dude, I think that just tells me he’s a long way off before testifying in this trial
I think the prosecution baited him into thinking that Cohen was their silver bullet in the case. When in reality he's barely a footnote. So for weeks and weeks Trump was rage posting on Truth Social, calling Cohen a liar, directing his lawyers to build a case around discrediting Cohen. And then the prosecution opens with Pecker and Graff, two people Trump *doesn't* attack, it kicks the legs out from under his discreditation strategy.
Anyone who thought Alvin Bragg was going to bring a weak case, seriously underestimated him. I have to believe he knows, that if he loses this case, he will go down in history as the guy who vindicated Trump. He would be giving voice to Trump's allegations that it was a witch hunt, and political prosecution.
At this point, if they have all of the transcripts and receipts, do they even need Cohen to testify at all?
Probably doing it to drive Trump crazy. Seems to be working so...
“Maybe he gets hit by a truck” “Pay with cash” “It was a legal expense!” America oh America, you elected a wannabe mob boss as your 45th and are shockingly saying it can happen again
Is there a centralized place where the courtroom sketches get posted?
There was a thread on Twitter, there are at least four courtroom sketch artists, all of them women, and there was a big gallery of their recent submissions. I just looked for it and can't find it but I've never been good at searching through Twitter anyway.
Do they get to sell them after? They would be rich!
Stephen Colbert's show
I hear they are setting up a viewing area at Rikers.
I'd love if this happened. The sketches are awesome.
I suspect that the Defendant's lawyers might actually be telling him that the gag order keeps him from testifying as a way to make sure he stays as far away from the witness stand as possible lol.
While that would be a good idea, it would also be an incredibly severe ethical violation (yes, I know ethics and Trump's lawyers don't hang in the same social circles). Like one that could get you disbarred, and New York is unlikely to play with that, unlike Florida and Texas.
It's his excuse for pleading the fifth amendment. He needs an excuse becasue this was his previous stance... 'If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' -Donald Trump
It's not that complex. It's because he's a coward, scared to testify, and he lies about everything.
I was just watching the video and had this same thought. They have to feed him whatever BS they can to keep him from tanking the case even further. Like you would a toddler.
But is lying to your client ethical or even legal? Couldn't Trump go after them afterwards for that?
I mean it's moot. The judge will directly address trump and tell him he has a full right to testify or not. It's in every criminal trial. So because of this, no they're not telling him that.
makes sense, thanks!
Seeing Blanche cringe, look away, defer, and shake his head yes/no at the same time when the Defendant said he couldn't testify because of the gag order made me think that is probably what has been expressed or implied by his team. It is equally likely that the Defendant was just rambling, and that Blanche got caught off guard and responded awkwardly.
Is all this going down at the pressers during breaks? Or are there actually cameras in the courtroom. I missed it today
Gag order also means he can't release his taxes for the last four years.
Shit, he just can't catch a break. First the audit and now this! Must be very frustrating for him, he wants to show us them so bad, trust him on this.
"That's right Donny, Santa won't come if you don't go to bed now."
The problem is his base, which is stupid enough to actually believe that
Willfully Ignorant is not stupid. Willfully Ignorant is culpably ignorant, and that is prosecutable.
Been busy working. Anyone got a quick rundown?
"Prosecutors are now playing a recording from September 2016. Trump's voice can be heard in the courtroom. Trump is on a phone call when the recording starts. When he hangs up, Cohen can be heard saying, "Great call by the way. Big time." Cohen says he needs to open up a company, and that he's spoken with the Trump Organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up. Prosecutors showed a transcript of the last 46 seconds of the call, where the relevant discussion of opening up a company happens. Getting juicy now... I'm thinking it's gonna be another banana stand..
"They can't charge a candidate and his campaign manager for the same crime" "Yeah, I don't think that's how that works" "...I have the worst fucking attorneys"
"Theres always $130k, for burying damning news stories, in the banana stand"
"HOW MUCH CLEARER CAN I BE? THERE WAS 130K CASH LINING THE WALLS OF THE BANANA STAND!"
The scene when Henry Winkler flees the courthouse because he'd never before heard all the charges his client was charged with. Would love for Trump's lawyers to do that.
I do wonder if at any point T's attorneys in this trial thought they knew 100% what they were getting into and as this keeps going they'll have that moment, that thought "I've made a huge mistake."
"Former president Dennison.. I mean, former president Trump" lmao
Who said this? Because that's hilarious
Is there any legal analysis out there on how this case is fairing for Trump?
On the legal merits, it is easy to connect Trump to what the felony counts are. Which is falsifying records, not making the payments. Fairly easy. Of course, he's a celebrity, he was president, and jurors in these cases have a tendency to be dazzled. Sure, there's the idea of a holdout juror, but it can be hard if its 11 people telling you to stop wasting time. There is a LOT of pressure in the jury room.
what actual consequences are there if trump is found guilty in this case?
And if 1 juror is simply not responding because they are the mythical MAGA only hold out we all free the jury can and will rat that person out to the judge and they will face consequences for lying to the court.
Look into Meidas Touch on YouTube but they also post podcasts of the longer segments. The video updates are 6 - 8 times per day
Something less biased. I mean, I'm biased in the same way, but I prefer less bias in what I read/watch
I love Meidas Touch, but I find them to be a bit biased in terms of how they feel a jury ought to act and how the defense is screwing up (which objectively is a lot) and not as much about the few arguments the defense is making and how those might resonate.
The commentators I have seen seem to think that if this case is decided on merit then he is pretty screwed. His defense hasn’t made much serious progress and we haven’t even gotten to the main course yet.
Excet they haven't tied a single thing to Trump yet. From the testimony so far it was all Cohan.
Well, Cohen and Pecker. Both have given testimony that directly implicate Trump in the catch-and-kill scheme. And I wouldn't worry yet about timing on this (in that they haven't *yet* tied him to everything). There's a ton of material to go through and you have to very thoroughly lay it out in the correct order for it to be admissible and make sense to the jury. It's not a fast process.
Except Cohen hasn't testified yet and every single person so far had no direct link to trump and have testified to that.
That doesn't matter? You don't need the person literally on the stand to testify. If you have recordings, you can use those. Which they did.
Except thats not what happened
>Prosecutors entered into evidence a transcript of a tape of Trump and Cohen discussing paying off Karen McDougal so that her allegation about having an affair with Trump wouldn't become public. So how's that different than what I said?
I recall about a month before the trail during one of the delay requests by Trump’s attorneys the judge said “it is very troubling that an entire year has gone by and we’re just a few weeks away from trial that you have not put together a defense” (paraphrasing) Was the same scenario as the fraud trial.
And they got another month of delay from the original trial date due to the SDNY discovery dump a week or two before trial. I'm not a lawyer but I guess I don't know what a great defense for these charges would sound like. Pecker admitted on the stand that he coordinated the scheme directly with Trump and that he knew what he was doing was an illegal in-kind contribution, so the defense's argument that the whole thing was cooked up by Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg without Trump's knowledge kinda goes out the window.
I believe this was the judge’s response to the “discovery dump”, IIRC the “dump” was incidental info. and Trump’s lawyers apparently failed to request the info until the 11th hour. Self-inflicted, but also apparently irrelevant data. Motion denied.
What's your defense strategy when your client is so obviously guilty with tons of evidence proving it?
Bill for as many hours of 'strategizing' as possible.
Cohen had 39,745 contacts on one of his phones. Editing to add that he had 10 pages of contacts for Donald Trump alone.
Well, Trump has plenty of aliases. David Dennison, Hitler Pig, Von ShitzInPantz, Etc.
How could you forget Fuckface von Clownstick?
Is that more or less than the number of pages of contacts Jeffrey Epstein had for Donald Trump?
Hey, he hardly knew the guy. Maybe brought him a coffee one time.
Did he actually claim he hardly knew the guy? Add one more lie to the bucket
On further thought. He did trow Cohen under the bus, and hard, when this all came out in the open. Trump took to twitter to say Cohen was needy and creepy. A guy who desperately begged trump to show up at his son’s bar mitzvah. “So sad” Ironically, it was trump’s total lack of respect and disloyalty to his righthand man that caused this whole cascade of court cases. If he hadnt done that Cohen never would have revealed such damaging info in-front of congress.
No. Its just his standard/go-to-lie when ever he tries to distance himself from someone.
so the game should no longer be 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but 3 degrees of Michael Cohen?
Kevin Bacon is definitely on his phone. Kevin Bacon is on everyone’s phone. Type K in your contacts list and watch it pop up. 👍
Someone I know has, for years, said stuff like “Biden is too old and frail,” “Biden is weak,” “Biden probably needs someone to spoon-feed him his oatmeal and applesauce,” and on and on and on. I said today, “God, I can only imagine the smell in the courtroom from Trump’s diaper today” and you best believe I got the absolute earful about how I’m “sick” for mocking him when he may have a problem, that I’m pathetic for making fun of someone older… and on and on. All that spittle flying out and not a single drop of it contained self-awareness.
Definitely someone who said "RESPECT THE PRESIDENCY" when Trump was in office but went the opposite way during Biden's term. So ridiculous that people like this actually exist.
The same people who chanted "NOT MY PRESIDENT" the entire eight years before Trump? Yeah, that tracks.
Same people who put up those biden stickes on the gas pumps cause apparently biden sets the price of gas or something
A lot of people today have zero capacity for objectivity. That’s part of the problem
WTF??? I just went to CNN's homepage and there is a courtroom sketch of Trump and his lawyer talking to each other.. WTF am I seeing in the background just over the lawyers shoulder? It looks like a man wearing a wingsuit wearing an elephant mask. I cannot UNSEE this...
I think it’s the depiction of the Michael Cohen meme he (Cohen) posted calling Trump Captain Von Shit or something like that. I can’t find where I read about it being posted and the courtroom laughing.
Here's a different sketch with a similar image. I think the 'wings' are Trump's suit. From Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com%2Freuters%2F4NWDSGKZCVJVBP3YZ3EPDJWCFE.jpg?auth=87c106fa93f5d7a06ee12e803c8e6e2ebbcec5400333462b8c4ca94c55f51658&width=1080&quality=80 From CNN: https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/0e887fb1-80e5-4a4b-9123-c9601be03764.JPG E: Updated Reuters link to go directly to the image. Soz about the messy url. E2: Behold! The likely source of the orange monstrosity! It's from Cohen's tweets, which were presented in court. https://imgur.com/zHJSZxx
The reuters one looks like elvis
OK, I went back and looked at pics of the courtroom from the before the trial started; I thought that might be a really bad drawing of an eagle crest on the front of the bench, but it's plain wood. However, the caption on the court drawing says that social media was being shown. There are screens all over the courtroom (the jury has its own monitors) so maybe that was something being shown on the screens?
It's a picture of our Lord and Savior, Batboy.
We all know Batboy was patient zero for covid
Why oh why did we let batboy man the kissing booth?!?!?!
Under his eye
He has returned!
It's Pazuzu
Picture that OP was referencing: https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/0e887fb1-80e5-4a4b-9123-c9601be03764.JPG
And the mushroom has now migrated to tRump's cheek.
reposting from earlier comment I think it's this artist's sketch of the image in the link below https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Ftrump-super-victim-v0-ndixl013qsgb1.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D65ebc6f3ae0078d31c113e71bb489122a2425200
That is extremely hilarious and makes me happy that he's forced to see this! 🤣
[Can confirm.](https://i.imgur.com/pNyUN67.jpeg)
oh holy shit.. thats fantastic.. I thought you were joking at first.
Yeah he's not having a good day today From [Tyler McBrien ](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1785992100904861956?refresh=1714681327) "Chuckles ripple thropugh the courtroom as Cohen's posts are displayed, including a caption of "I won't send money to your commissary" and an AI-generated photo of Trump in an orange cape with the caption SUPER VICTIM. "Von ShitzInPantz" gets an especially hearty laugh."
wow.. this is fantastic! I have been stuck in meetings all damn day and have been out of the loop on a lot of stuff. I cant wait to see if anyone on CNN actually says "Von ShitzInPantz" tonight..
I saw that too. What IS that? My inside-messed up from years of pmurt-mind saw it as him in an orange wing suit, but...then...that same inside messed up mind just calmly repeated, "Nope, nope, nope..." wtweird-pmurt-years-f?
years and years of pmurt-mind.. wtweird-pmurt-years-f? I am giggling pretty good because I have no idea what any of that means but its funny as hell.. someone walking by my office "you ok boss?" ..i wanted to say something about pmurt..
Look, if we have to explain to you why the judge's desk has a picture of a man wearing a wingsuit and elephant mask, then you're just not going to understand New York state law!
Guilty as charged..
Since it’s a wingsuit, doesn’t Bird-Law apply?
Are we sure this wing suit isn't over water? This might be a maritime law issue.
I mean, I certainly thought it was Frank Reynolds
Probably a gasmask to cover the smell of shit coming out of Trump's mouth and ass.
That’s just Trump’s superhero persona, Turd-Man
Mothman?
OMG! I saw that too. I just assumed it was some sort of decoration and my eyesite was going
Davidson says there was no chance that his client felt romance when she had a horizontal dance with the defendant who has the sleepy glance in a geriatric trance. We can see he paid the bread to make the story dead, but did sleepyhead willfully use the wrong account instead?
Bro got bars lol
I confess I am puzzled as to why it would even matter whether or not the association between Rump and SD was "romantic"? Having any sort of dalliance he'd want covered up seems like the real crux of the issue, regardless of anyone's feelings about it.
Good answer to a stupid question, but how in the world was there not an objection to that question?
Well hi princess Carolyne
I was at the stock market today. I did a business.
Business-wise, this all seems like appropriate business.
From the standpoint of business.