Florida Judge Jeff Swartz praised ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker as an “outstanding” first witness in former President Trump’s hush money trial, stating he was “incredibly credible.” “I think David pecker was an outstanding choice for the first witness,” Swartz said during his Saturday appearance on CNN. “He set the stage and he set the
Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig was flabbergasted by the sheer number of times former President Donald Trump appears to have violated Judge Juan Merchan's gag order in his Manhattan criminal trial — and emphasized on a CNN panel on Thursday that in all his years of trying cases, he had never seen anything like it.Trump, who is charged with felony business fraud for trying to conceal alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels to effectively defraud the 2016 presidential...
Former President Donald Trump is going to employ a new "risky" defense strategy at his Manhattan criminal hush money trial, former Manhattan prosecutor Rebecca Roiphe argued to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Wednesday evening. Specifically, she argued, the former president is going to not deny the payment brokered by his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen happened, but that there wasn't anything illegal about it in the first place. "We think we're going to get a few more witnesses this week,"...
Prosecutors on Friday called Rhona Graff, a longtime executive assistant to Donald Trump, as their second witness in the former president’s hush-money trial after the conclusion of marathon testimony from former National Enquirer executive David Pecker.
Donald Trump has spent the past several years lashing out at his former lawyer. Michael Cohen went to prison after pleading guilty to crimes surrounding the hush money scheme that Trump now faces in court. The first two days of the trial, former AMI chief David Pecker revealed details about the so-called "catch and kill" operations that he and Trump cooked up as early as the fall of 2015 to help aid him in the run for president. Pecker's details confirmed that the actions taken were about the...
Judge Juan Merchan, the jurist overseeing Donald Trump's criminal case in New York over an alleged hush-money cover up scheme, is hanging something over the head of the former president's attorneys, a former prosecutor said on Saturday. Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti appeared on MSNBC, where he was asked why Merchan hasn't ruled on whether Trump has violated an expanded gag order imposed upon him in the case. The order limits Trump's attacks on potential witnesses...
Is Rhona Graff, Donald Trump's former assistant, the key witness in his Manhattan trial? Graff's testimony has shed light on her pivotal role at Trump Tower. read more
For a quarter of a century Rhona Graff ran point at Trump Tower and was his trusted gatekeeper. So when she took the stand under subpoena on Friday in former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial — it was significant. Tristan Snell, who was a former assistant attorney general for the state of New York and helped bring a $25 million dollar settlement from Trump University, believes Graff is a game-changer because she is such a longstanding player in Trump world. "Trump exec...
New York Attorney General Letitia James is urging state Judge Arthur Engoron to reject the $175 million bond former President Donald Trump is posting in his civil fraud case.According to MSNBC legal analyst Adam Klasfeld, James' filing says that Trump's bond fails to meet "requirements of trustworthiness and competence" and should therefore be held "without effect."Trump was found liable for over $450 million in the case earlier this year, after James demonstrated the former president and his...
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon has denied Donald Trump's classified document co-defendants' motions to dismiss. In her eight-page order, Cannon rejected efforts by Trump's aide Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira to get the cases against them tossed, reported MSNBC host and legal analyst Katie Phang. She tweeted that Cannon shot down Nauta's request to be spared of a trial and instead "finds that the indictment puts him on enough notice so that he can adequately...
Former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says the judge in the Donald Trump trial is setting the rules for everybody.
David Pecker, a key figure in the hush-money scandal involving former President Donald Trump, is set to be the first witness in Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan. The New York Times first reported that Pecker would be the prosecution's initial witness. Pecker, the former CEO of the company that published The National Enquirer, is expected to provide crucial testimony about his role in suppressing stories detrimental to Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. According to sources...