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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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 Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2024 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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great point if Wesel-burg or Trump will not testify and or takes the 5th, and Cohen does doesn't that prove to the jury that trump and the weisel are guilty.
this is a felony charge...
again trump did not pardon or ever have Barr go after Cohen for lying about when he told the truth to congress under oath.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-hush-money-witnesses-weisselberg-cohen-rcna139991?
What it means for Trump if Cohen testifies and Weisselberg does not
| Quote: | Just as Donald Trump’s 30-day window to appeal the ruling in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud trial is about to begin — and with it, his time to post an appeal bond of 100% to 120% of the $450 million-plus judgment (including interest) — the opening of his next trial looms just over 30 days from now.
That case — brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and revolving around Trump’s alleged fake business records to conceal interference with the 2016 presidential election — is set to open with jury selection on March 25. But by the time testimony is underway, you might feel an eerie sense of déjà vu.
Why? Because as with much of Trump’s pre-presidential activities and his early White House behavior, the two people best equipped to say what Trump knew and intended with his allegedly criminal conduct are once again his former lawyer turned sworn enemy, Michael Cohen, and the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer turned favorite fall guy, Allen Weisselberg.
Team Trump repeatedly crowed that Cohen was the AG’s star witness in the civil fraud trial — and a disappointing, lying one at that. But as my MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin wrote this week, Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that Cohen, despite his own criminal history, was a comfortable, credible witness who told the truth.
Meanwhile, the judge characterized Weisselberg, who was both witness and defendant, as evasive and strangely forgetful — and his testimony as “highly unreliable,” due to a $2 million severance agreement with the Trump Organization signed on the eve of his sentencing in yet another Trump fraud case. Under that agreement, as Engoron noted, “he was not permitted to cooperate voluntarily with any law enforcement agency adverse to the Trump Organization, including the Attorney General’s Office.”
And both assessments bode well for the Manhattan DA. Because as much as Trump’s lawyers tried to inflate Cohen’s role in the civil fraud trial, his testimony will be far more central in Bragg’s upcoming criminal prosecution. After all, the statement of facts that accompanied Bragg’s indictment not only details how Trump allegedly directed Cohen’s payoff of adult film star Stormy Daniels, but it also describes alleged conversations involving Cohen, Trump and Weisselberg in which they devised — and Trump agreed to — the repayment arrangement and the false classification of those payments as “legal expenses” in Trump Organization records.
Now, with Judge Engoron’s endorsement of his credibility, Cohen is poised to provide significant testimony for the DA in the trial starting next month. Weisselberg, on the other hand, seems increasingly unlikely to get anywhere near the witness stand. Not only was he found liable on all seven claims in the AG’s civil fraud case, but The New York Times has reported that Weisselberg has been in plea negotiations with the DA’s office over his alleged perjury during that trial. That could mean we’d see Weisselberg plead guilty for the second time in two years to a felony prosecuted by the Manhattan DA — and earn a perjury conviction — near the beginning of Trump’s trial.
More importantly, however, all of those developments are likely weighing on Trump’s defense team. Could they really call Weisselberg as a witness after two convictions and a massive liability finding, all of which stem from his association with the former president? But if they don’t call him, would Cohen’s testimony about his conversations with Trump and/or Weisselberg stand unrebutted, even if subject to a withering cross-examination? Or could it potentially be countered only by America’s most undisciplined, unpredictable witness, Trump himself?
The one-two punch of Cohen’s successful testimony in the civil fraud trial and Weisselberg’s mounting misfortunes present some tough choices for Team Trump. What will they do? Watch this space. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2024 1:36 am Post subject: |
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really trump does not want his own words heard in a trial?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hush-money-da-wants-to-use-trump-s-incessant-bragging-about-how-sexy-thrifty-and-fussy-he-is-against-him-at-trial/ar-BB1jomOx?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=661c4af8b5d44887b7de6572271f2bb4&ei=6
Hush money DA wants to use Trump's incessant bragging — about how sexy, thrifty, and fussy he is — against him at trial
| Quote: |
On March 25, Trump faces trial in NY on 34 state felony counts of falsifying business records.
The DA said Tuesday that 82 things Trump has said, from as far back as 1987, are admissible.
They include his boasts about his intellect and a 2018 admission that the hush money "came from me."
Who's flipped on Trump: A full list of aides, employees, and yes-men who appear to have suddenly had a change of heart in the face of legal issues
©Shannon Stapleton
Former President Donald Trump is facing multiple legal challenges.
He faces 91 criminal charges in an array of state and federal investigations and lawsuits.
Some of his former associates and co-defendants have turned on him to defend themselves.
Unless you're living under a rock — which sounds like a relief at this point — then you've heard former President Donald Trump is slogging his way through multiple court cases.
From election tampering charges in Georgia to the business fraud charges stemming from alleged hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels: Trump faces 91 criminal counts overall, in addition to a civil fraud trial in New York.
The civil fraud trial, brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accuses Trump of falsely inflating his net worth. Another judge previously ruled that Trump committed fraud, but the current trial is meant to determine if his actions were intentional.
A win for the AG office could mean millions of dollars in possible penalties. An order stemming from the first fraud ruling already essentially dissolved Trump's companies, but years of appeals are likely to make the process extremely slow.
Amid his legal battles, Trump's once-loyal court seems decidedly less confident. Large conservative groups, like Americans for Prosperity Action and Club for Growth, have said they will fight Trump's potential GOP nomination; other current Republican candidates, like former Vice President Mike Pence, and former Governor Chris Christie, have also disavowed Trump after years of supporting him.
But, despite being hit with a gag order in New York, Trump has refused to let his keyboard rest as he continues to erroneously claim that the entire world — especially the US legal system — is conspiring against him. The conspiratorial thinking may be exacerbated by multiple one-time allies turning on the former President, often when facing legal trouble of their own.
Donald Trump's lawyers and New York prosecutors are warring over the trial admissibility of 82 things he's said over the years, including dozens of boasts about how sexy, smart, thrifty, and fussy he is — plus his incriminating 2018 admission that the hush-money payment "came from me."
The defense says the statements are "irrelevant, stale, and cumulative." But prosecutors say they are absolutely relevant, especially this one, from an August 23, 2018 interview Trump gave Fox & Friends reporter Ainsley Earhardt:
"They didn't come out of the campaign," Trump said in the interview, referring to the payment at the center of the upcoming hush money trial, set to start March 25 in Manhattan.
"They came from me, and I tweeted about it," Trump told Earhardt.
In the Fox interview, Trump brushed off the $130,000 he paid to silence Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 election, calling it merely a personal expenditure, and not a campaign expense he'd have been obligated to report.
"In fact, my first question when I heard about it was, did they come out of the campaign, because that could look a little dicey and they didn't come out of the campaign and that's big, but they weren't, that's not a, it's not even a campaign violation," Trump told the Fox host.
Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg want the option of showing Trump's "it came from me" admission to jurors as proof, in the former president's own words, that he personally handled the payment.
Prosecutors also want the option of showing jurors dozens of Trump's public boasts from over the years, in which he brags about his sex appeal, his knowledge of tax and campaign finance law, and his obsessive micromanagement of money.
Read the 82 Trump statements prosecutors want to show hush money jurors here.
Such statements could come into play if Trump claims at trial he is not a womanizer and was too busy or too ignorant to have intentionally falsified Trump Organization records to hide an illegal payment to Daniels.
"I think nobody knows more about campaign finance than I do, because I'm the biggest contributor," reads one statement, from Trump's 1999 interview with Larry King, that prosecutors say they may use at trial.
In several of the statements prosecutors may use, Trump boasts of how attractive he is.
"I think of myself as the best-looking guy and it is no secret that I love beautiful women," reads one, from Trump's 2007 book, "Think Big — Make it Happen in Business and in Life."
The 82 statements include descriptions of Trump's vigilant penny-pinching that border on the ridiculous.
In "The Art of the Deal," in 1987, Trump said that when he bought the building, Trump Parc East on Central Park South, he switched to lower-wattage hallway lightbulbs and "saved a small fortune in dry-cleaning bills" by getting rid of the "fancy uniforms" worn by doormen.
"I always sign my checks, so I know where my money is going," he said in his 2004 book, "Think Like a Billionaire."
He spent "a good eight months" choosing the ballroom chairs for Mar-a-Lago, he said in the same book.
Trump has also bragged about pinching literal pennies: 50 of them, to be exact.
"When Spy magazine started years ago, they decided to do a 'Who Is the Cheapest Millionaire" test, Trump said some 30 pages later in the book.
"They sent checks in amounts from fifty cents to five dollars to a list of millionaires throughout the country.
"I received a check for fifty cents, and we at the Trump Organization deposited it," he said, adding, "They may call that cheap. I call it watching the bottom line."
In "Trump: How to Get Rich," another 2004 book, he advised, "If you don't know every aspect of what you're doing, down to the paper clips, you're setting yourself up for some unwelcome surprises."
He adds some 100 pages later, "It's a good thing I'm an active type, or this might tire me out."
In other statements prosecutors say they may use as trial evidence, Trump shows his vindictive side, including his warnings, "I just can't stomach the disloyalty," and "I love getting even when I get screwed by someone."
Trump's past warnings of swift retribution against all who wrong him could come into play at trial if he argues that Daniels was quietly paid a six-figure sum to silence her claims of having had an affair with him in 2006, even though her claims were false.
If Daniels was shaking him down unjustly, why go along with it? Why part with $130,000? Why not go on the attack?
"There are many bad people out there who want to take you for every penny you have," Trump complained in a statement prosecutors want to use, also from his book "Think Big."
"If you are stupid and gullible it is only a matter of time before someone takes your money," he wrote. "So watch your step and pay attention."
Trump's side has argued that the 82 statements, some of them decades old, should be excluded from the trial.
Failing that, they have asked state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who will be the trial judge, to make prosecutors explain, statement by statement, how each would be used at trial.
Trump has also argued that the books he sold under his name were actually written by ghostwriters.
But any defense objections to any of Trump's own statements being used against him should be raised "if and when the People move to admit this statement, and the Court can address it then," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo wrote the judge.
The judge has not said when he will rule on the statements. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2024 11:03 am Post subject: |
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lock him up lock him up...
wondering where the confidential agreement is...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-faces-potential-secret-witness-in-new-york-trial/ar-BB1jqQX3?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=1f6d70fd8a4646ebae7824545f61143a&ei=4
Donald Trump Faces Potential Secret Witness in New York Trial
| Quote: |
A potential secret witness may give evidence in former President Donald Trump's Stormy Daniels trial, a former federal prosecutor said.
In his latest court filing, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that the mystery witness' handwritten notes about Trump's alleged hush money payments should be admissible in court.
Trump is due to go on trial on March 25 to face 34 charges over allegations he instructed attorney Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep an alleged affair between her and the former president a secret ahead of the 2016 election. Trump is accused of listing the payment to Cohen as "legal fees."
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Wednesday.
Bragg's court submission is heavily redacted to avoid publicly identifying the potential witness, who wrote something on a bank statement of Essential Consultants, the company owned by Cohen.
It raises the possibility that the person is an associate of Cohen, who is now an enemy of Trump and will be testifying at the trial.
Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, wrote in her Civil Discourse blog on Wednesday that such heavy redaction is likely to prevent the public from knowing the identity of the witness. Vance said Bragg's submission was "intriguing."
"This argument is about whether handwritten notes from an individual who isn't named will be admissible," she wrote. "Anytime we see these redaction boxes in a document, we always wonder what's behind them.
"Here, the DA is likely protecting the identity of a witness from the public for as long as possible. If they weren't already aware, discovery would have revealed the identity to Trump's team."
In his court filing, Bragg said that the unnamed witness' handwritten notes should be admissible.
"The evidence at trial will show that as one part of defendant's election fraud scheme, Cohen wired $130,000 from his Essential Consultants LLC bank account to Keith Davidson in order to suppress Stormy Daniels' account of her alleged sexual encounter with defendant," Bragg wrote.
"Handwritten notes on the [Essential Consultants] bank statement show that amount was combined with other amounts to reach a total of $420,000, the full amount that was paid to Cohen in association with the business records at issue.
"Despite the fact that this exhibit was 'introduced without objection' during the evidentiary hearing on defendant's effort to remove this case to federal court, defendant now seeks to exclude it from trial on hearsay grounds.
"Handwritten notes on the bank statement are admissible as a business record, and the Court should deny this motion."
Much of the rest of Bragg's submission about the witness is heavily redacted with dozens of black rectangles blocking out the details from public view.
Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and Trump's attorneys would be able to access an unredacted version of Bragg's submission.
Trump is now the presumptive Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election after his last challenger, Nikki Haley, announced on Wednesday that she is pulling out of the race. It follows Trump's strong performance in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2024 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/stormy-documentary-trailer-shows-stormy-daniels-chaotic-life-battling-donald-trump/ar-BB1jviY5?cvid=ec03e252627248feb2081d1d7a823cf1&ocid=winp2fptaskbar&ei=25&sc=shoreline
‘Stormy' Documentary Trailer Shows Stormy Daniels' Chaotic Life Battling Donald Trump
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Peacock has released the first trailer for its Stormy Daniels documentary, which reveals plenty of never-before-seen footage showing Daniels' roller coaster life amid her legal sparring with Donald Trump.
"Every time I stood up I got kicked down even harder, and I hit rock bottom," Daniels says in the trailer below, which includes Daniels reading a death threat on her phone. "I just wanted to stand up for myself. I won't give up because I'm telling the truth."
The footage also includes Daniels reacting in real time to discovering her celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti was stealing from her book proceeds. "Michael Avenatti betrayed me in every way," she declares. "You're in prison b****!"
The project, Stormy, is directed and produced by Emmy nominee Sarah Gibson (Orgasm inc: The Story of OneTaste) and executive produced by Erin Lee Carr (Britney vs Spears), along with Judd Apatow, Sara Bernstein and Meredith Kaulfers. The film is set to have its world premiere at South by Southwest on Friday.
The description: "From director and producer Sarah Gibson, the Peacock Original documentary Stormy delves into the life and times of Stormy Daniels, as she shares her story and account of events that have become part of American history … the film takes the audience behind the curtain as Stormy navigates being a mother, an artist, and an advocate working hard to reinvent herself, while still grappling with the bombshell that went off in her life five years earlier. From reporters to lawyers to politicians, many have attempted to define Stormy Daniels. Stormy tells the unvarnished truth about an unlikely American icon - this time, in her own words."
The former adult film star became a household name in 2018 when The Wall Street Journal reported that Daniels had had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 in "hush money" in 2016 to keep quiet about it. Trump denied the affair happened.
Trump is currently facing a 34-count Federal criminal indictment in New York charging him with falsifying business records in connection with the payoff. The case is expected to be the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial, though is also considered by legal experts to be the weakest of the cases against him. This week, Trump locked up the Republican nomination for president to run against Joe Biden in the November election.
Peacock will premiere the documentary Stormy on March 18. |
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/trump-s-hush-money-trial-jurors-will-be-kept-secret-from-public-judge-rules/ar-BB1jvPKu?cvid=0aaa6887baee4581c05a1fc85baad185&ocid=winp2fptaskbar&ei=24&sc=shoreline
Trump’s Hush Money Trial Jurors Will Be Kept Secret From Public, Judge Rules
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he identity of jurors in former President Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly paying adult film star Stormy Daniels “hush money” payments will be kept secret, New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan ruled Thursday, citing potential threats of tampering or harassment.
Merchan issued a protective order keeping the jurors anonymous, but Trump and his lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney’s office will still know their identities.
Merchan found that there was the a “likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of jurors,” and in a footnote added that Trump “has an extensive history of attacking trial jurors and grand jurors.”
The former president is preparing to go to trial on March 25 in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—the first indictment the former president faced after leaving office. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
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| Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvfm7wtjaIo
'Trump’s effort to keep Michael Cohen from testifying smacks of desperation' says Weissmann
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Andrew Weissmann, former top prosecutor at the Justice Department and Lisa Rubin MSNBC Legal Correspondent join Nicolle Wallace to discuss the upcoming and likely only criminal trial that Donald Trump will face this year, with prosecutors for Alvin Bragg asking the a court to reject attempt by Donald Trump’s legal team to exclude evidence, as well as testimony from Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
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| Posted: Sun Mar 10, 2024 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/stormy-review-at-sxsw-a-documentary-about-the-stormy-daniels-saga-wonders-where-the-outrage-is/ar-BB1jAmMD?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=3bd9bac38d3c471a87761d82b1e8063c&ei=24
‘Stormy' Review: At SXSW, a Documentary About the Stormy Daniels Saga Wonders Where the Outrage Is
| Quote: | "Where's the outrage?" That's the theme that underlies just about every news report on Donald Trump, and nearly every documentary that spins around him. That would include "Stormy," a reasonably absorbing film that presents the Stormy Daniels saga from Daniels' point-of-view, revealing her to be a compelling and highly conflicted figure. The movie, which premiered tonight at SXSW (it drops on Peacock on March 1 , replays the scandal with a kind of breathless, furrowed-brow, tabloid-meets-serious-news propulsive documentary "excitement." It casts Stormy Daniels as a liberal folk hero, a soldier in the culture wars, and a post-MeToo tabloid-ready figurehead of the resistance (even though she is, in fact, a red-state Republican). The whole intention of the movie is to stoke the outrage.
Yet somehow, the outrage is never quite there - or, rather, it's there in a film like "Stormy," but it's never where it's supposed to be, which is in the hearts of the people who look at Donald Trump's transgressions, his crimes and outrages, and react with numb indifference, even as the rest of us are going: How does he keep getting away with it?
There are answers to that, and some of those answers are not the ones that liberals want to hear - notably Trump's preeminence as a fire-breathing entertainer, and how that quality has made him a paragon of power in an America that's become a kind of National Entertainment State. (I glaze my mind over with streaming content, therefore I am.) Neil Postman's visionary 1985 book was entitled "Amusing Ourselves to Death," and the truth is that even those of us who hate Trump have colluded, to a degree, in creating an America where the most entertaining candidate wins.
The Stormy Daniels saga, revolving around Trump's brief dalliance with the noted adult-film star and director, has been two things at once: a legal drama that ensnared Trump, and an old-fashioned all-American sex scandal (think Elmer Gantry meets Gary Hart) that anyone who wants attention, or who wants to drive clicks and ratings, can hitch a ride on. Trump and Daniels met at a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006. They became friendly and had a brief hookup (one night of unenthusiastic-on-her-part-but-consensual sex, according to Daniels), and when news of it surfaced during the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had his buddy David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer, buy the story and squelch it, in what became known as the catch-and-kill method. But the story was so sensational that it wouldn't go away, and that's when Trump offered Daniels $130,000 to sign an NDA. All of which was perfectly within the law.
The legal drama spun around the question of whether Trump's lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, who had made the payoff to Daniels by drawing on his home equity, was reimbursed illegally with campaign funds. On March 30, 2023, when Trump was indicted by a grand jury for violating campaign-finance law in the Daniels case, it was the first indictment ever of a former U.S. president. And just one year ago, to borrow a phrase from Ron Burgundy, that seemed like kind of a big deal. It was the kickoff to the widespread hope that Trump might be found guilty and serve time for this or any other of his 91 alleged crimes.
According to a piece in yesterday's New York Times, the Daniels case, which is about to go to trial, "has often been dismissed by experts and observers as old, legally dubious and lacking in the sort of weighty issues that sit at the heart of, say, [Trump's] two election interference cases." But here's where the sordid circus comes in, not to mention a certain liberal contradiction. If you watch "Stormy," which presents Daniels as a charismatic no-nonsense professional, one aspect of the film's message - it's one I wholeheartedly agree with - is that it's antiquated thinking to view Stormy Daniels as a "tawdry" celebrity, to denigrate her for being part of the adult-film industry. If you're progressive in your beliefs, none of this should make you see her as a morally tainted person. Yet the thrust of the case (and the media coverage of it), beneath the fig leaf of campaign-finance infraction, is that it's milking the "He paid hush money to a porn star!" angle for all it's worth. Which kind of lets us have our sleaze and eat it too.
Most of "Stormy" was shot in 2018, after Trump became president but when the scandal was still hanging over him. Daniels, at the time, was transitioning from starring in adult films and videos to directing them. Following the trail blazed by figures like Candida Royalle, she had become the second highest-paid director in porn, even as she embarked on a national tour as a stripper (I use that word, rather than "sex worker," because it's the one that Daniels uses).
In the documentary, she's unabashed about capitalizing on the fame the case brought her. At the same time, this was her profession before she became a global headline, so who would question her right to keep doing it? The stripper tour drew a dangerous element (people trying to get into the clubs with weapons), and even resulted in her being arrested in Columbus, Ohio, by a cop who was a Trump supporter. (She sued the state for violating her civil rights and was awarded $450,000.) We also observe her marriage to Glen Crain, a rock musician who clearly adores her (they live in a McSuburban Home in the Dallas area and have a young daughter), and then we see how the glare of the media spotlight melts down their relationship.
As "Stormy" makes clear, there has been opportunism at every level of the Stormy Daniels saga. Trump, before he was running for president, reveled in the aura that hanging out with a porn star gave him - and then, when he decided to run, that was no longer convenient. Daniels herself, after being threatened in a parking garage unless she let the story die, spent time living in fear of her life. Yet she never stopped playing the media. And the media itself, in the midst of its performative tut-tutting, never stopped exploiting the story for profit.
"Stormy" was directed by Sarah Gibson, but some of the footage we see was shot in 2018 by Denver Nicks, a filmmaker who was directing a documentary about Daniels, and who briefly became romantically involved with her (that's one of the reasons her marriage ended). We see how Daniels, riding high for a while on the scandal, becomes a symbol of the resistance, yet she also becomes the scandal's extreme victim. This happens around the time that Trump files a $20 million lawsuit against her for defamation. It's not a fair fight: He's got the money to keep her entangled in legal costs, and he also has the power of the presidency. The Stormy Daniels saga may be history as tabloid fodder, and as high-priced political chicanery, but for Daniels it became a car-wreck-in-slow-motion tragedy. For Trump, the scandal has been an ongoing embarrassment. Yet "Stormy" shows you what the scandal looks like from inside the sensationalist bubble of fame, and by the end of the film you may be a little bit ashamed of us all. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2024 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/nyregion/alvin-bragg-trump-trial-delay.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20240314&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline®i_id=115919677&segment_id=160811&user_id=f730a3b9531f5b2c781c5ff7996dd05c
finally the federal investigation documents were sent to NY on the stormy payoff that Barr for some reason with held from the public or appoint a special prosecutor on these crimes. Ya Clinton had a right wing ultra partisan special prosecutor for a land deal years before he was president that involved in a private lawsuit Paula Jones. He was only there for 6 years. And Barr would not appoint one for this multiple porno star payoffs. .
Manhattan Prosecutors Propose a 30-Day Delay of Trump Trial
| Quote: | The Manhattan district attorney’s office, likely the first to take Donald J. Trump to trial on criminal charges, said the delay would allow his lawyers time to review a new batch of records.
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152
Alvin Bragg speaking at a lectern while gesturing with his hands.
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, brought the case accusing Donald J. Trump of covering up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times
By Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman and William K. Rashbaum
March 14, 2024
Updated 4:00 p.m. ET
Less than two weeks before Donald J. Trump is set to go on trial on criminal charges in Manhattan, the prosecutors who brought the case proposed a delay of up to 30 days, a startling development in the first prosecution of a former American president.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which accused Mr. Trump of covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, said the delay would give Mr. Trump’s lawyers time to review a new batch of records. The office sought the records more than a year ago, but only recently received them from federal prosecutors, who years ago investigated the hush-money payments at the center of the case.
In response to the new records — tens of thousands of pages of them — Mr. Trump’s lawyers requested that the trial be delayed 90 days. While the former president frequently requests such delays, prosecutors consenting makes a postponement far more likely.
Mr. Trump, who clinched the Republican presidential nomination for the third time this week, faces four criminal trials and several civil lawsuits. The Manhattan case had been the only one of the four criminal cases not mired in delays.
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Now it too appears likely to be postponed, though it remains on track to reach trial before Election Day. |
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real-human
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| Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2024 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-permitted-to-testify-on-donald-trump-hush-money-judge-rules/ar-BB1k78je?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=d695c0a53e854925cecacf470faa9482&ei=51
Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen permitted to testify on Donald Trump hush money, judge rules
| Quote: | Adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former lawyer Michael Cohen, two potential star witnesses in former President Donald Trump's upcoming New York criminal hush money trial, will be allowed to testify, a judge ruled Monday.
The ruling rebuffed a call by Trump's legal team to exclude the pair's testimony. Both Daniels and Cohen have claimed that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid ahead of the 2016 presidential election to keep quiet about a sexual encounter she had with Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursing Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment. Trump repaid Cohen in 2017 through monthly checks that were disguised as payments for legal services and falsely documented at the Trump Organization, according to prosecutors.
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Judge Juan Merchan's ruling on the testimony maps out the potential contours of the trial, which was previously slated to begin March 25 but has been delayed until at least mid-April after Trump's legal team asked for more time to review new documents.
Merchan will instead hold a hearing March 25 to deal with what happened with the new documents and potentially set a new trial date. The trial is expected to last several weeks.
Related video: Judge rules Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, and Michael Cohen can testify in Trump hush money trial (MSNBC)
you know there is going to be this hearing on
Why Trump said Cohen should be kept out
"Michael Cohen is a liar," Trump's legal team wrote in their request to exclude Cohen's testimony. They said Cohen has a history of lying that ranged from minimizing his own criminal conduct to distorting his background.
The Trump team pointed specifically to Cohen's statement at Trump's New York civil fraud trial that he had previously lied to a federal judge when he pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Cohen said at the civil fraud trial that he engaged in "tax omission," not tax evasion.
"The People's desire to rush ahead with these proceedings rather than look into the ongoing criminal conduct of their star witness is troubling and violates the People's ethical and constitutional obligations," Trump's team argued, referring to the DA's office.
However, Merchan said he wasn't aware of any perjured testimony from Cohen in the hush money case.
"Defendant provides examples of situations where Cohen's credibility has been called into question. However, he offers no proof of perjury in the case at bar," Merchan wrote.
Merchan said he wasn't able to find any applicable law or court holding that blocked a prosecution witness because the witness's credibility was previously called into question.
Trump was found liable for fraud in that case and ordered to pay more than $450 million. He has appealed that ruling.
The 2024 Republican presumptive nominee's hush money case will mark the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
Why Trump said Daniels should be kept out
In trying to get Daniels' testimony blocked, Trump's legal team described her stories as "contrived" and "inflammatory," and quoted her as having said, in the context of testifying, she has "been asked to kind of behave."
Prosecutors "appear to have recognized the risks of presenting this irrelevant and untrue testimony by warning their witness," Trump's team said in their request to exclude her testimony.
In allowing Daniels' testimony, Merchan said its value is "evident."
"Locating and purchasing the information from Daniels not only completes the narrative of events that precipitated the falsification of business records but is also probative of the Defendant's intent," he wrote.
Merchan did grant Trump's request to block the jury from hearing about the results of any polygraph test Daniels took.
©Seth Wenig, AP
Former President Donald Trump sits at the defense table with his defense team in a Manhattan court, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in New York. Trump is set to appear in a New York City courtroom on charges related to falsifying business records in a hush money investigation, the first president ever to be charged with a crime.
Testimony but not video on Access Hollywood tape allowed
In a separate ruling Monday, Merchan also made several determinations about the government's requests around evidence, including about the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump stated that he kisses women without consent.
"You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful (women) — I just start kissing them," Trump said. "It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait." He added, "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the p----y. You can do anything."
Merchan said the tape "is relevant to the critical issues in this case," noting the government's argument that Trump and his campaign team were worried after the tape was released that it would hurt his candidacy.
"Thus, the tape helps establish Defendant's intent and motive for making the payment to Daniels and then" trying to hide it, Merchan wrote.
Merchan said, however, that there should be a compromise to avoid undue prejudice against Trump.
"This Court rules that the proper balance lies in allowing the People to elicit testimony about a videotaped interview which surfaced on October 7, 2016, that contained comments of a sexual nature which Defendant feared could hurt his presidential aspirations," Merchan wrote.
"However, it is not necessary that the tape itself be introduced into evidence or that it be played for the jury," Merchan added.
Merchan said he may reconsider his ruling on the tape if Trump opens the door to more evidence about it at trial.
Merchan also said Trump won't be allowed to offer any evidence that the Justice Department chose not to prosecute him for potential campaign finance law violations. The department's decision didn't prove anything for purposes of the hush money case, Merchan said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen permitted to testify on Donald Trump hush money, judge rules |
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| Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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what a hero, standing up to a billionaire who had her sign a confidentiality agreement .. again a billionaire who surely has the most lawsuits in the history of mankind... and he has never sued her saying it is a lie...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/stormy-daniels-trump-supporters-who-harass-her-believe-that-they-are-being-patriotic/ar-BB1knkwm?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=59d3c89e20b94decb432a5505d95c00f&ei=31
Stormy Daniels: Trump supporters who harass her ‘believe that they are being patriotic’
| Quote: | Adult film star Stormy Daniels said she’s receiving a new wave of harassment from supporters of former President Trump who “believe that they are being patriotic” after a new documentary was released about the hush money she took for an alleged affair with the former president.
“I believe that they’re more like suicide bombers this time around, where they honestly truly believe that they are being patriotic and that I am the devil,” Daniels told the hosts of “The View” on Thursday.
Daniels said Trump’s supporters have become “more vicious” because they have “been encouraged and commended” by the former president.
Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments he made during his 2016 campaign. Prosecutors argue that the money was a reimbursement for his former fixer Michael Cohen — now an open critic of Trump — who paid Daniels to stay silent over the alleged affair.
In the documentary, Daniels claimed she took the money — paid to her to avoid speaking about the affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006 — because she wanted to avoid having the story come out to protect her husband and daughter.
Related video: Stormy Daniels: I thought I’d be murdered for taking on Trump (MSNBC)
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Stormy Daniels: I thought I’d be murdered for taking on Trump
Daniels said in the film that she took the $130,000 payment because “there would be a paper trail and money trail” that linked her to Trump “so that he could not have me killed.” She said she feared for her life.
On “The View,” Daniels said she received criticism when she went public with the information about Trump in 2018, but after moving, her daughter was able to attend school. Trump was indicted in March 2023 for the hush-money scandal, and Daniels said the harassment from his supporters happened “all over again.”
She said often was called a gold digger. She clarified, noting that she didn’t get paid to do the documentary or give interviews like the one on “The View.”
“I didn’t get paid anything, but it cost me everything,” she said. |
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| Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2024 1:21 am Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/msnbc-legal-expert-clashes-with-whack-job-trump-ally-on-hush-money-judge-accusations/ar-BB1kIp10?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=1c25e4b18bdc43f1ef2f59aa590432b2&ei=18
MSNBC legal expert clashes with 'whack-job' Trump ally on hush money judge accusations
| Quote: | Former President Donald Trump's allegation that the daughter of the judge in his New York hush money case was posting anti-Trump content on social media is unsubstantiated, as there is no evidence the recently-created account is actually associated with her — and news outlets leapt to fact-check his complaints.
But far-right Trump loyalist Laura Loomer wasn't happy about this — and launched a volley of attacks on MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang, against which the latter was completely unfazed.
"@KatiePhang was also community noted for lying and saying the X account doesn’t belong to Judge Merchan’s daughter. It does. And community notes even said I brought the receipts and Katie brought nothing but insults," wrote Loomer. She posted a screenshot of what appeared to be an unapproved, nonpublic community note that simply said, "Laura brought the receipts; Kate [sic] brought nothing + insults."
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"'Not Shown on X'. Nice try, Laura," Phang replied. "Again, move on to someone who actually thinks you’ve got a point."
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"Wow you’re so triggered," wrote Loomer. "You’re also a hack. Spiraling out of control because you have been exposed for lying. Were you paid to do rapid response last night?"
"Laura: you’re a whack-job and I say that with complete sincerity," Phang shot back. "Your problem is you continue to think I care about you and your baseless opinions. I really don’t. But you continue to show everyone that you’re OBSESSED with me. It’s really unhealthy."
Loomer, a self-described "proud Islamophobe" who has defended white nationalism, had been banned from the platform, then known as Twitter, for years, before tech billionaire Elon Musk acquired the company, after which a large number of accounts banned for promoting hateful content were reinstated. She has mounted multiple unsuccessful campaigns for Congress, and Trump has even considered hiring her to his campaign, only to be talked out of it by his strategists. |
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