squistion

The first criminal trial of a former President begins today in New York with jury selection. Post any trial news, updates or your commentary on the proceedings in this thread. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/15/1238536885/trump-hush-money-trial Trump's criminal trial, a first for a former president, begins Monday For the first time in U.S. history, a former president will sit in a courtroom for the first day of his criminal trial. Former President Donald Trump faces 34-count felony counts alleging that he falsified New York business records in order to conceal damaging information to influence the 2016 presidential election. Monday kicks off an 18-person jury selection for the trial that is expected to last about six weeks — even as Trump campaigns to be president once again. The trial begins after a 20-day delay was granted by New York Judge Juan Merchan to give both legal teams time to review 31,000 records provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office. In recent weeks, Merchan also issued a gag order on Trump that specifically bars him from making, or directing others to make, public statements about witnesses, prosecutors or jurors. He later extended the order to cover the families after Trump went after the judge's daughter by name on the former president's social media site. [...] The district attorney hopes to make this case about 2016 election interference A grand jury indicted Trump in the spring of last year, marking the first time a former or sitting president faced criminal charges. Republicans quickly dismissed the indictment as an overreach of power by District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had brought the charges. Trump has pleaded not guilty. At the center of the trial are 11 "hush money" payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels who, at the time Trump was first running for president, threatened to go public with accusations she'd had an affair with him not long after he married Melania Trump. The lawsuit alleges that payments were made from Trump's flagship Trump Organization to Michael Cohen, then a vice president and counsel at the company. The payments were described by the Trump Organization falsely as "legal retainers"; they were, in fact, reimbursements to Cohen for paying Daniels. Cohen transferred that money to Daniels less than two weeks before the 2016 election. After Trump won, he reimbursed Cohen, including with his own personal checks. Trump has denied an affair with Daniels, but in 2018 he admitted reimbursing Cohen for money paid to her, arguing it had nothing to do with the campaign. The indictment also includes a separate $150,000 payment to another woman – the Playboy model Karen McDougal, who has spoken openly about her experience – who claimed to have had an intimate relationship with Trump. The fact of the payments and the false records isn't in dispute. What Bragg has to prove is that Trump made them in order to further other crimes, such as violating campaign finance law and mischaracterizing the payments for tax purposes.

What does Darwin Style mean in this context?

I don't believe Hillary ever claimed she lost because of voter or election fraud. And she did concede right after the election, unlike Trump who still claims that he actually won in 2020.

No, you can't help him.

Which you shouldn't do because people can quote it months or years later and then the burden is on me to prove that it's a fake quote.

https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1793385095811706882 Nikki Haley just said she's voting for Trump.

Don't change my quotes to make it appear I made a statement that I didn't.

His family is directly enriching itself off this trial because his daughter is employed at a Democratic consulting firm? You have got to be kidding.

No, Strawman.

With the bolded he was joking or being sarcastic. The second one was just a typical Biden gaff he has made as long he has been in politics.

And also, possibly Huey Long.

Black on black violence, Darwin Style?

No, we keep telling you they were Democrats then but that is not where the Democratic Party is now and blacks know it which is why they overwhelmingly vote for Democratic Party candidates.

Yes and no.

Well, yeah, it is his party affiliation, but you would never know it from his public statements in recent years.

https://x.com/TheDailyShow/status/1792979565679128989 "Enjoy the PTA bitches" is not the thing graduates want to hear at graduation. @jonstewart on Harrison Butker

Yes, Avenatti is a trusted source.

Did Hell Toupee get his $60 Trump Bible yet?

How else do you get him to stop if he thinks the worse that can happen is being sent to the pokey for contempt?

It wasn't just an eye roll, there were a bunch of other things besides that. Merchan gave a list of what Costello was doing that he found objectionalbe (among them - loudly sighing, and muttering under his breath "Jesus" that was audible to the jury (the list can be found in a Katie Phang tweet I posted yesterday (I believe).

So, no, she wasn't admonished by the judge for her behavior or threatened with being in contempt of court. Thank you.

What she threatened by a judge with being cited for contempt? I don't think so.

Maybe I missed that part, but I don't believe she was the criminal defendant in a trial and it was not before a jury.

https://x.com/KatiePhang/status/1793024110546571392 BOVE: Next on my list is a proposed jury instruction about involvement of counsel, despite Merchan's pre-trial rulings that Trump himself could not argue that he was convinced of the lawfulness of his conduct because lawyers were involved/he relied on his lawyers. MERCHAN: This is an issue that’s been going on for a very long time. Going back to I think it was December of '23, I’m not sure. The People filed a motion asking this court to require the defense to require and give notice whether defense was going to rely on advice of counsel. I wrote a decision on this on Feb 7 and I directed defense to provide disclosure by March 11, and to produce all discoverable statements and comms by same date. In response, the answer was we are not relying on advice of counsel. Later on, defense advice of counsel morphed into something called presence of counsel, which I had never heard of, not familiar with, but addressed it in a motion in limine. MERCHAN: I ordered that you were precluded from arguing this legal claim. There was no such thing. Just a way to get around having to turn over docs. MERCHAN: Now it’s morphed into involvement of counsel. I understand why you want this instruction from the court. But my answer hasn't changed and I find it disingenuous. MERCHAN: It was concerning when the terms changed to "presence of counsel." I couldn't believe when i saw it again now calling it "involvement of counsel." MERCHAN: My ruling is the jury will not hear that instruction from the bench nor are you permitted to make that argument. Period.

Rolling your eyes at the judge is considered contempt of court and if it were to be allowed again it would show disrespect to the court and to the proceedings.