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Adult film actor Stormy Daniels is expected to face more cross-examination from Donald Trump’s lawyers – after fiery exchanges at his hush money trial.
Ms Daniels – who is set to take the stand again on Thursday – has already regaled jurors with how she met Trump, their now-infamous sexual encounter in July 2006, and events leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
After lunch on Tuesday, the defence moved for a mistrial given her “prejudicial” evidence, which was denied by Judge Juan Merchan.
As cross-examination began, Ms Daniels was confronted about whether she hates Trump and wants to see him in jail — to which she replied she wants to see him held accountable.
On Monday, the jury heard from Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, about the paper trail within the Trump Organization leading to Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels to ensure her silence about the sexual encounter, which his inner circle feared could sink his campaign.
Earlier that day, the former president was found in contempt of court for a tenth time, fined another $1,000 and warned that the next violation of his gag order would result in jail time. Mr Trump has asked an appeals court for a speedy appeal of the gag order.
Trump romps home in Indiana presidential primary, but…
You may not have noticed it given the game-over nature of the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, but people are still voting in the primary race in states across the nation, even though the nominations are all but certainly in the bag for Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Yesterday, it was Indiana’s turn and it was good news for both candidates who romped home with victories across every district in the state.
HOWEVER… Even though she dropped out of the GOP primary race in early March, former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley still got 22 per cent of the Republican vote, denying Mr Trump the total victory he doubtless wanted.
Why does this matter?
While some of those Haley voters will begrudgingly grit their teeth and vote for Trump in November out of party loyalty, the Biden campaign is doing its best to lure never-Trumpers over to the Democrats, if only for this election. Given the narrow margins of victory in key swing states in 2020 this group could potentially swing the election to Biden if the trend is repeated elsewhere either with a vote for the Democrat ticket or by staying home.
Just this week in the key battleground state of Georgia, Republican former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan wrote an op-ed expressing his intention to vote for Biden and encouraged other members of the party to join him to thwart a possible Trump victory in 2024.
He wrote in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life,” he wrote. “This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”
Here’s Amelia Neath reporting on Mr Duncan’s decision:
Trump called out for ‘cursing audibly’ during Stormy Daniels testimony
Amelia Neath reports:
Trump ‘considers plan to send hit squads to Mexico to kill cartel leaders’
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is privately considering a plan to deploy American assassination squads to Mexico to take out drug cartel leaders if he is re-elected in November, according to a report.
Three sources familiar with the former president’s proposal told Rolling Stone that he has insisted that the American military has “tougher killers than they do” and is mulling a similar plot to that carried out when US forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi back in 2019.
The deployment would be covert, the outlet reported, and would not rely on the Mexican government’s consent.
Kelly Rissman has the story:
Feature: The women trying to take down Trump
“People are really vicious, and no place are they more vicious than in their relationships with the opposite sex,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1997 book Trump: The Art of the Comeback.
Based on his own personal, professional and private life, the former president may never have said a truer word.
Kelly Rissman reports:
Yesterday in court: Defiant Stormy Daniels comes face to face with Trump
Alex Woodward reports from the courthouse:
“It’ll make a great story,” she said, according to Ms Daniels. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Read on…
Trump ‘considers plan to send hit squads to Mexico to kill cartel leaders’
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is privately considering a plan to deploy American assassination squads to Mexico to take out drug cartel leaders if he is re-elected in November, according to a report.
Three sources familiar with the former president’s proposal told Rolling Stone that he has insisted that the American military has “tougher killers than they do” and is mulling a similar plot to that carried out when US forces killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi back in 2019.
The deployment would be covert, the outlet reported, and would not rely on the Mexican government’s consent.
Here’s Kelly Rissman with the details:
Rep Mike Collins creates fresh outrage on X with RFK joke
Mike Bedigan reports:
Read on to see what he said…
Trump asks for quick ruling on his challenge to hush money gag order
Donald Trump is trying to fast-track a court’s decision on whether to overturn a gag order that blocks him from publicly attacking witnesses and jurors during his hush money trial in New York.
Lawyers for the former president filed a motion on Wednesday asking a state appeals court to quickly issue a ruling on his challenge, or to get permission to appeal to the state’s highest appeals court.
The motion comes after the judge presiding over the trial in Manhattan directly warned Mr Trump that he could be jailed for any future violations of the gag order, which he was already found to have violated 10 times within the trial’s first few weeks.
Lawyers with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have filed an objection, which remains under seal on the appellate court docket.
Here’s our most recent reporting on the former president’s latest violation and what Judge Merchan has threatened:
Trump’s appeal of Fani Willis disqualification hearing to be heard by Georgia court
A Georgia appeals court has granted Donald Trump’s request for an appeal challenging the ruling that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis can stay on the state’s election interference case against the former president and his allies.
The former president and eight of his co-defendants then filed for an appeal of the decision, calling the court’s refusal to disqualify her a “plain legal error”.
Kelly Rissman reports:
BREAKING: Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson
Katie Hawkinson reports from Washington, DC:
Source: independent.co.uk
