Trump trial to resume after witness says ex-president ‘upset’ by model affair story

Bravo to the redoubtable Maryland Democrat for this.

Well, I guess you asked for it, so here’s a complete transcript of His Majesty’s (somewhat deranged) remarks from yesterday afternoon:

“Today was breathtaking… breathtaking and amazing testimony. So this is a trial that should’ve never happened, this is a case that should’ve never been filed and was really an incredible, an incredible day. Open your eyes and we can’t let this continue to happen to our country.

“On another matter, you know, the economy has just been reported to be doing very badly the stock market’s way down. And some horrible numbers came out, including very high numbers on inflation and in particular gasoline at seven and a half dollars in California and that usually leads the way. It’s going to happen here too.

“And very importantly as you look at the various colleges all over the country and beyond colleges because it’s happening in other areas too. You see what’s happening on the front having to do with Palestine and Israel and protests and hate, anger Biden is sending an absolutely horrible message. Horrible, horrible message. He has no idea how to message. He can’t speak. He can’t put two sentences together. He doesn’t know what to do. This is not a president. This is somebody that shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing. Because he can’t do it again. He can’t do it well.

“We’re having protests all over. He was talking about Charlottesville. Charlottesville was a little peanut. And it was nothing compared, the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here. This is tremendous hate and we have a man that can’t talk about it because he doesn’t understand and he doesn’t understand what’s going on with our country. He doesn’t understand that all over the world we’re being laughed at as a country because of him and his administration.

“And today we had, I hear, because I was forced to be here and I’m glad I was because it was a very interesting day in a certain way. But the US Supreme Court had a monumental hearing on immunity and the immunity having to do with presidential immunity. I think it was made clear, I hope it was made clear, that the president has to have immunity or you don’t have a president or at most you could say it would be a ceremonial president. That’s not what the founders had in mind. We’re not talking about ceremony. We want presidents that can get things done and bring people together. So, I heard it, the meeting was quite amazing coordination as the justices were on their game. So let’s see how that all pans out. But again, I say presidential immunity: very powerful, presidential immunity is imperative, or you practically won’t have a country anymore. Thank you very much.”

The former president’s request to have a new trial in his $83m defamation case with writer E Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexual assault, was denied by a federal court on Thursday.

Judge Lews Kaplan of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected the motion.

Here’s Eric Garcia’s report.

Our man Alex Woodward is back at the Manhattan Criminal Court once more this morning and says this:

“We are going to have more cross-examination of David Pecker from Trump defence attorney Emil Bove today.

“He didn’t give the judge a timeline for how long he’s going to take, but he’s speeding through questions to cast an overall pall of untrustworthiness in an attempt to impeach Pecker’s credibility on the stand.

“We still haven’t heard from Justice Merchan about the 10 alleged gag order violations, so that could come up.

“He also scheduled a hearing on four more alleged violations for next week.”

You can see the prosecution’s filings on that here and here.

In another media phone-in last night, the defendant rowed back on one of his most notorious catchphrases and insisted again that he is on trial for no reason whatsoever.

There was also plenty of electioneering hyperbole like this, which is simply untrue. “The best economy in history”?? Is that how you remember it America?

Perhaps more significantly, he’s now saying he will only take the stand in Manhattan to defend himself “if it’s necessary”, a big retreat from his earlier posturing on the matter, presumably after being strongly advised against it by Todd Blanche and Emile Bove.

Here’s Kelly Rissman with a comprehensive round-up of Thursday’s events from Manhattan.

According to Pecker’s testimony yesterday, Trump’s interest in the Karen McDougal story did not end with its initial suppression and his victory in the 2016 election.

Instead, he continued to keep tabs on McDougal’s contractual agreement with American Media Inc to keep quiet through at least his first year in office, with Pecker recounting several incidents in which Trump asked after “our girl” and another in which he raged at the publisher after the story finally became public and the model was interviewed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper in March 2018.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward.

Pecker, who will be back on the stand for probably the final time today for more cross-examination from Trump attorney Emile Bove, also revealed on Thursday that he previously had a similar “catch-and-kill” arrangement with Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his run to be governor of California.

His name came up, along with those of other celebrities like Mark Wahlberg and Tiger Woods, when Pecker was asked about how commonplace his “checkbook journalism” antics were.

Here’s Alex Woodward on that too.

Back in Manhattan, the former National Enquirer was back on the stand for his third day of testimony about his magazine’s “catch-and-kill” game.

Pecker testified that he agreed to spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy and then bury politically compromising stories about Trump with the assurance that “the boss will take care of it”.

That promise, allegedly from Trump’s then-personal attorney Michael Cohen, gave the ex-American Media Inc chief the green light to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to buy the rights to her story of an alleged affair with the then-presidential candidate.

Alex Woodward was there and sent this report.