If they were real charges it would be Fed Court not State. A crème brule lawyer would know that but we have a pizza lawyer commenting.
Donald Trump Announces 2016 White House Bid
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
It's going to cost Trump Millions until the coordination between the White House and these BS court cases are fully proven
Unless he is also awarded costs when they are turned over on appeal .
Trump tried to 'corrupt’ the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker and Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — Donald Trump tried to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, a prosecutor told jurors Monday at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial.
“This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behaviour,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
A defence lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who’s now the government’s star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
It is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury. Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to a porn actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
The trial, which could last up to two months, will require Trump to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail, a reality he complained about Monday when he lamented to reporters after leaving the courtroom: “I’m the leading candidate … and this is what they’re trying to take me off the trail for. Checks being paid to a lawyer.”
Trump has nonetheless sought to turn his criminal defendant status into an asset for his campaign, fundraising off his legal jeopardy and repeatedly railing against a justice system that he has for years claimed is weaponized against him. In the weeks ahead, the case will test the jury’s ability to judge him impartially but also Trump’s ability to comply with courtroom protocol, including a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign.
The opening statements served as an introduction to the colorful cast of characters that feature prominently in that tawdry saga, including Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who says she received the hush money; Michael Cohen, the lawyer who prosecutors say paid her; and David Pecker, the tabloid publisher who agreed to function as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” and who served as the prosecution’s first witness on Monday.
Pecker is due back on the stand Tuesday, when the court will also hear arguments on whether Trump violated Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order with a series of Truth Social posts about witnesses over the last week.
In his opening statement, Colangelo outlined a comprehensive effort by Trump his allies to prevent three separate stories — two from women alleging prior sexual encounters — from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign. That undertaking was especially urgent following the emergence late in the race of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard boasting about grabbing women sexually without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Stormy Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.”’ So, he added, “they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Those alleged falsified records form the backbone of the 34-count indictment against Trump.
Blanche, the defence lawyer, sought to preemptively undermine the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role in the hush money scheme, as someone with an “obsession” with Trump who cannot be trusted. He said Trump had done nothing illegal when his company recorded the checks to Cohen as legal expenses and that it was not against the law for a candidate to try to influence an election.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.
Blanche challenged the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his campaign. Instead, he characterized the transaction as an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass Trump and his loved ones.
“President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche told jurors.
The efforts to suppress the stories are what’s known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Besides the payment to Daniels, Colangelo also described arrangements to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
He said jurors would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they will hear Trump in his own voice saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
The first and only witness Monday was Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer and a longtime Trump friend who prosecutors say met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
Pecker described the tabloid’s use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.
“I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a story without getting his approval, Pecker said Tuesday.
The New York case has taken on added importance because it may be the only one of the four against Trump to reach trial before the November election. Appeals and legal wrangling have delayed the other three cases.
— Tucker reported from Washington.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker and Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 22, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — Donald Trump tried to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, a prosecutor told jurors Monday at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial.
“This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behaviour,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said. “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
A defence lawyer countered by attacking the integrity of the onetime Trump confidant who’s now the government’s star witness.
“President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan district attorney’s office should never have brought this case,” attorney Todd Blanche said.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury — and the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
It is the first criminal trial of a former American president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury. Befitting that history, prosecutors sought from the outset to elevate the gravity of the case, which they said was chiefly about election interference as reflected by the hush money payments to a porn actor who said she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election. Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again,” Colangelo said.
The trial, which could last up to two months, will require Trump to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail, a reality he complained about Monday when he lamented to reporters after leaving the courtroom: “I’m the leading candidate … and this is what they’re trying to take me off the trail for. Checks being paid to a lawyer.”
Trump has nonetheless sought to turn his criminal defendant status into an asset for his campaign, fundraising off his legal jeopardy and repeatedly railing against a justice system that he has for years claimed is weaponized against him. In the weeks ahead, the case will test the jury’s ability to judge him impartially but also Trump’s ability to comply with courtroom protocol, including a gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s not clear if the judge would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign.
The opening statements served as an introduction to the colorful cast of characters that feature prominently in that tawdry saga, including Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who says she received the hush money; Michael Cohen, the lawyer who prosecutors say paid her; and David Pecker, the tabloid publisher who agreed to function as the campaign’s “eyes and ears” and who served as the prosecution’s first witness on Monday.
Pecker is due back on the stand Tuesday, when the court will also hear arguments on whether Trump violated Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order with a series of Truth Social posts about witnesses over the last week.
In his opening statement, Colangelo outlined a comprehensive effort by Trump his allies to prevent three separate stories — two from women alleging prior sexual encounters — from surfacing during the 2016 presidential campaign. That undertaking was especially urgent following the emergence late in the race of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard boasting about grabbing women sexually without their permission.
“The impact of that tape on the campaign was immediate and explosive,” Colangelo said.
Within days of the “Access Hollywood” tape becoming public, Colangelo told jurors that The National Enquirer alerted Cohen that Stormy Daniels was agitating to go public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
“At Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated a deal to buy Ms. Daniels’ story to prevent American voters from hearing that story before Election Day,” Colangelo told jurors.
But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.”’ So, he added, “they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
Those alleged falsified records form the backbone of the 34-count indictment against Trump.
Blanche, the defence lawyer, sought to preemptively undermine the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges related to his role in the hush money scheme, as someone with an “obsession” with Trump who cannot be trusted. He said Trump had done nothing illegal when his company recorded the checks to Cohen as legal expenses and that it was not against the law for a candidate to try to influence an election.
Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels.
Blanche challenged the notion that Trump agreed to the Daniels payout to safeguard his campaign. Instead, he characterized the transaction as an attempt to squelch a “sinister” effort to embarrass Trump and his loved ones.
“President Trump fought back, like he always does, and like he’s entitled to do, to protect his family, his reputation and his brand, and that is not a crime,” Blanche told jurors.
The efforts to suppress the stories are what’s known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
Besides the payment to Daniels, Colangelo also described arrangements to pay a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump. Colangelo said Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election.”
He said jurors would hear a recording Cohen made in September 2016 of himself briefing Trump on the plan to buy McDougal’s story. The recording was made public in July 2018. Colangelo told jurors they will hear Trump in his own voice saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
The first and only witness Monday was Pecker, the then-publisher of the National Enquirer and a longtime Trump friend who prosecutors say met with Trump and Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s campaign identify negative stories about him.
Pecker described the tabloid’s use of “checkbook journalism,” a practice that entails paying a source for a story.
“I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000” on a story without getting his approval, Pecker said Tuesday.
The New York case has taken on added importance because it may be the only one of the four against Trump to reach trial before the November election. Appeals and legal wrangling have delayed the other three cases.
— Tucker reported from Washington.
Trump tried to 'corrupt’ the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway
Donald Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt” the 2016 presidential election, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
Key takeaways from opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money trial
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Alanna Durkin Richer, Jennifer Petlz And Michael R. Sisak
Published Apr 22, 2024 • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — Monday’s opening statements in the first criminal trial of a former American president provided a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Donald Trump broke the law, and how the defence plans to fight the charges on multiple fronts.
Lawyers presented dueling narratives as jurors got their first glimpse into the prosecution accusing Trump of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to squelch negative stories about him during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Still to come are weeks of what’s likely to be dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s personal life as he simultaneously campaigns to return to the White House in November.
Here’s a look at some key takeaways from opening statements:
ELECTION FRAUD VS. ‘BOOKKEEPING’ CASE
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. But prosecutors made clear they do not want jurors to view this as a routine paper case. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo repeatedly told jurors that that at the heart of the case is a scheme to “corrupt” the 2016 election by silencing women who were about to come forward with embarrassing stories he feared would hurt his campaign.
“No politician wants bad press,” Colangelo said. “But the evidence at trial will show that this was not spin or communications strategy. This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.” He added: “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
The business records charges stem from things like invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organization records when prosecutors say they were really reimbursements to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels. Daniels was threatening to go public with claims she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump. He says it never happened.
Prosecutors’ characterizations appear designed to combat suggestions by some pundits that the case — perhaps the only one that will go to trial before the November election — isn’t as serious as the other three prosecutions he’s facing. Those cases accuse Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden and illegally retaining classified documents after he left the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, sought to downplay the accusations while leaving the courtroom on Monday, calling it all a “bookkeeping” case and “a very minor thing.”
TRUMP’S DEFENCE COMES INTO VIEW
Trump’s attorney used his opening statement to attack the case as baseless, saying the former president did nothing illegal.
The attorney, Todd Blanche, challenged prosecutors’ claim that Trump agreed to pay Daniels to aid his campaign, saying Trump was trying to “protect his family, his reputation and his brand.”
Blanche indicated the defense will argue that after all the very point of a presidential campaign is to try to influence an election.
“It’s called democracy,” Blanche told jurors. “They put something sinister on this idea, as if it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”
Blanche also portrayed the ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions performed by a Trump Organization employee. Trump “had nothing to do with” the allegedly false business records, “except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country,” Blanche said.
PROSECUTORS AIM TO PUT TRUMP AT THE CENTRE
The 34 counts in the indictment are related to the payment to Daniels. But prosecutors plan to introduce evidence about a payoff to another woman — former Playboy model Karen McDougal — who claimed a sexual encounter with Trump, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. Trump says they were all lies.
Prosecutors said they will show Trump was at the center of the scheme to silence the women, telling jurors they will hear Trump in his voice talking about the plan to pay McDougal. Cohen arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000 but not print the story in a practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Colangelo told jurors prosecutors will play for them a recording Cohen secretly made during a meeting with Trump weeks before the 2016 election. In the recording, which first became public in 2018, Trump is heard saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election,” Colangelo said.
COHEN’S CREDIBILITY IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Trump’s opening statement previewed what will be a key strategy of the defense: trying to discredit Cohen, a Trump loyalist turned critic and expected star witness for the prosecution. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments in 2018 and and served prison time.
Whether jurors believe Cohen, who says he arranged the payments to the women at Trump’s direction, could make or break the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Trump’s lawyer highlighted Cohen’s criminal record, describing him as a serial liar who turned against Trump after he was not given a job in the administration after Trump’s 2016 victory and found himself in legal trouble. Blanche said Cohen’s “entire financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction,” noting he hosts podcasts and has written books bashing his ex-boss.
“He has a goal and an obsession with getting Trump,” Blanche said. “I submit to you that he cannot be trusted.”
Anticipating the defense attacks on Cohen, the prosecution promised to be upfront about the “mistakes” the former Trump attorney has made. But Colangelo said “you can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony” despite his past.
“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” the prosecutor said.
BUT UP FIRST: DAVID PECKER
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is the first witness for prosecutors, who say that Trump’s alleged scheme to conceal potentially damaging information from voters began with a 2015 Trump Tower meeting among the then-candidate, Pecker and Cohen. Pecker took the witness stand Monday before court broke for the day and his testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.
At the meeting, Pecker — a longtime Trump friend — agreed to aid Trump’s campaign by running favorable pieces about him, smearing his opponents, scouting unflattering stories about him and flagging them to Cohen for “catch-and-kill” deals. Those included the claims made by Daniels, McDougal and the former Trump Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, prosecutors say. Trump says all were false.
Pecker will likely be asked about all the alleged efforts made by the Enquirer’s then-owner, American Media Inc., on Trump’s behalf. Federal prosecutors agreed in 2018 not to prosecute American Media in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea, and the Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, calling the McDougal deal a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”
Pecker’s brief turn on the stand Monday was mainly just about his background and other basic facts, though he did say the Enquirer practiced “checkbook journalism” — paying for stories — and that he had the final say on any story about a famous person.
‘THE DEFENDANT’ OR ‘PRESIDENT TRUMP’?
The prosecutor referred to Trump throughout his opening statement as “the defendant.” Trump’s lawyer took a different tack, calling him “President Trump.”
“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche said. At the same time, Trump’s lawyer sought to portray Trump as an everyman, describing him as a husband, father and fellow New Yorker.
“He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defending himself,” Blanche said.
Trump sat quietly while listening to opening statements, occasionally passing notes to his lawyers and whispering in their ears. But outside of the courtroom, he continued his pattern of trying to capitalize politically on the case that will require him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail.
“This is what they’re trying to take me off the trail for. Checks being paid to a lawyer,” Trump said.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Alanna Durkin Richer, Jennifer Petlz And Michael R. Sisak
Published Apr 22, 2024 • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — Monday’s opening statements in the first criminal trial of a former American president provided a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Donald Trump broke the law, and how the defence plans to fight the charges on multiple fronts.
Lawyers presented dueling narratives as jurors got their first glimpse into the prosecution accusing Trump of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to squelch negative stories about him during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Still to come are weeks of what’s likely to be dramatic and embarrassing testimony about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s personal life as he simultaneously campaigns to return to the White House in November.
Here’s a look at some key takeaways from opening statements:
ELECTION FRAUD VS. ‘BOOKKEEPING’ CASE
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. But prosecutors made clear they do not want jurors to view this as a routine paper case. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo repeatedly told jurors that that at the heart of the case is a scheme to “corrupt” the 2016 election by silencing women who were about to come forward with embarrassing stories he feared would hurt his campaign.
“No politician wants bad press,” Colangelo said. “But the evidence at trial will show that this was not spin or communications strategy. This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior.” He added: “It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
The business records charges stem from things like invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organization records when prosecutors say they were really reimbursements to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels. Daniels was threatening to go public with claims she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump. He says it never happened.
Prosecutors’ characterizations appear designed to combat suggestions by some pundits that the case — perhaps the only one that will go to trial before the November election — isn’t as serious as the other three prosecutions he’s facing. Those cases accuse Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden and illegally retaining classified documents after he left the White House.
Trump, meanwhile, sought to downplay the accusations while leaving the courtroom on Monday, calling it all a “bookkeeping” case and “a very minor thing.”
TRUMP’S DEFENCE COMES INTO VIEW
Trump’s attorney used his opening statement to attack the case as baseless, saying the former president did nothing illegal.
The attorney, Todd Blanche, challenged prosecutors’ claim that Trump agreed to pay Daniels to aid his campaign, saying Trump was trying to “protect his family, his reputation and his brand.”
Blanche indicated the defense will argue that after all the very point of a presidential campaign is to try to influence an election.
“It’s called democracy,” Blanche told jurors. “They put something sinister on this idea, as if it’s a crime. You’ll learn it’s not.”
Blanche also portrayed the ledger entries at issue in the case as pro forma actions performed by a Trump Organization employee. Trump “had nothing to do with” the allegedly false business records, “except that he signed the checks, in the White House, while he was running the country,” Blanche said.
PROSECUTORS AIM TO PUT TRUMP AT THE CENTRE
The 34 counts in the indictment are related to the payment to Daniels. But prosecutors plan to introduce evidence about a payoff to another woman — former Playboy model Karen McDougal — who claimed a sexual encounter with Trump, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. Trump says they were all lies.
Prosecutors said they will show Trump was at the center of the scheme to silence the women, telling jurors they will hear Trump in his voice talking about the plan to pay McDougal. Cohen arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000 but not print the story in a practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Colangelo told jurors prosecutors will play for them a recording Cohen secretly made during a meeting with Trump weeks before the 2016 election. In the recording, which first became public in 2018, Trump is heard saying: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”
Trump “desperately did not want this information about Karen McDougal to become public because he was worried about its effect on the election,” Colangelo said.
COHEN’S CREDIBILITY IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Trump’s opening statement previewed what will be a key strategy of the defense: trying to discredit Cohen, a Trump loyalist turned critic and expected star witness for the prosecution. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money payments in 2018 and and served prison time.
Whether jurors believe Cohen, who says he arranged the payments to the women at Trump’s direction, could make or break the case for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Trump’s lawyer highlighted Cohen’s criminal record, describing him as a serial liar who turned against Trump after he was not given a job in the administration after Trump’s 2016 victory and found himself in legal trouble. Blanche said Cohen’s “entire financial livelihood depends on President Trump’s destruction,” noting he hosts podcasts and has written books bashing his ex-boss.
“He has a goal and an obsession with getting Trump,” Blanche said. “I submit to you that he cannot be trusted.”
Anticipating the defense attacks on Cohen, the prosecution promised to be upfront about the “mistakes” the former Trump attorney has made. But Colangelo said “you can credit Michael Cohen’s testimony” despite his past.
“I suspect the defense will go to great lengths to get you to reject his testimony precisely because it is so damning,” the prosecutor said.
BUT UP FIRST: DAVID PECKER
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is the first witness for prosecutors, who say that Trump’s alleged scheme to conceal potentially damaging information from voters began with a 2015 Trump Tower meeting among the then-candidate, Pecker and Cohen. Pecker took the witness stand Monday before court broke for the day and his testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.
At the meeting, Pecker — a longtime Trump friend — agreed to aid Trump’s campaign by running favorable pieces about him, smearing his opponents, scouting unflattering stories about him and flagging them to Cohen for “catch-and-kill” deals. Those included the claims made by Daniels, McDougal and the former Trump Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, prosecutors say. Trump says all were false.
Pecker will likely be asked about all the alleged efforts made by the Enquirer’s then-owner, American Media Inc., on Trump’s behalf. Federal prosecutors agreed in 2018 not to prosecute American Media in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to Cohen’s guilty plea, and the Federal Election Commission fined the company $187,500, calling the McDougal deal a “prohibited corporate in-kind contribution.”
Pecker’s brief turn on the stand Monday was mainly just about his background and other basic facts, though he did say the Enquirer practiced “checkbook journalism” — paying for stories — and that he had the final say on any story about a famous person.
‘THE DEFENDANT’ OR ‘PRESIDENT TRUMP’?
The prosecutor referred to Trump throughout his opening statement as “the defendant.” Trump’s lawyer took a different tack, calling him “President Trump.”
“We will call him President Trump, out of respect for the office that he held,” Blanche said. At the same time, Trump’s lawyer sought to portray Trump as an everyman, describing him as a husband, father and fellow New Yorker.
“He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom, doing what any of us would do: defending himself,” Blanche said.
Trump sat quietly while listening to opening statements, occasionally passing notes to his lawyers and whispering in their ears. But outside of the courtroom, he continued his pattern of trying to capitalize politically on the case that will require him to spend his days in a courtroom rather than on the campaign trail.
“This is what they’re trying to take me off the trail for. Checks being paid to a lawyer,” Trump said.
Key takeaways from opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money trial
Monday's opening statements provided a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Donald Trump broke the law.onts.
Tabloid publisher says he pledged to be Trump campaign’s ’eyes and ears’ during 2016 race
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker And Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 23, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump ’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase a doorman’s silence.
The testimony from David Pecker was designed to bolster prosecutors’ assertions of a decades-long friendship between Trump and the former publisher of the National Enquirer that culminated in an agreement to give the candidate’s lawyer a heads-up on negative tips and stories so they could be quashed.
Pecker is the first witness in Trump’s history-making hush money trial in Manhattan, where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments meant to prevent harmful stories from surfacing during the final days of the 2016 campaign.
The effort to suppress unflattering information was designed to illegally influence the election, prosecutors have alleged in seeking to elevate the gravity of the first trial of a former American president and the first of four criminal cases against Trump to reach a jury.
With Trump sitting just feet away in the courtroom, Pecker detailed his intimate, behind-the-scenes involvement in Trump’s rise from political novice to the Republican nomination and then the White House. He explained how he and the National Enquirer parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy tabloid stories that smeared Trump’s opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump, including a porn actor’s claim of an extramarital sexual encounter a decade earlier.
Pecker traced the origins of their relationship to a 1980s meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and said the friendship bloomed alongside the success of the real estate developer’s TV show “The Apprentice” and the program’s subsequent celebrity version.
Their ties were solidified during a pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower involving Trump, his lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, and another aide, Hope Hicks, in which Pecker was asked what he and the magazines he led could do for the campaign.
Pecker said he volunteered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. But that wasn’t all, he said, telling jurors how he told Trump: “I will be your eyes and ears.”
“I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,” so that the rights could be purchased and the stories could be killed.
“So they would not get published?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.
“So they would not get published,” Pecker replied.
To illustrate their point, prosecutors displayed for the court a screenshot of various flattering headlines the National Enquirer published about Trump, including: “Donald Dominates!’ and “World Exclusive: The Donald Trump Nobody Knows.” The jury was also shown disparaging and outlandish stories about Trump’s opponents in the race, including the surgeon Ben Carson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Pecker painted Cohen as a shadow editor of the National Enquirer’s pro-Trump coverage, directing the tabloid to go after whichever Republican candidates was gaining in momentum.
“I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go,” Pecker said, referring to the tabloid’s then-editor.
Pecker said he underscored to Howard that the agreement he struck with the Trump operation was “highly, highly confidential.” He said he wanted the tabloid’s bureau chiefs to be on the lookout for any stories involving Trump and said he wanted them to verify the stories before alerting Cohen.
“I did not want anyone else to know this agreement I had and what I wanted to do,” the ex-publisher added.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to his role in the hush money payments. A onetime confidant of Trump’s, their relationship has deteriorated in spectacular fashion, with Cohen expected to be a star government witnesses and routinely posting profane broadsides against Trump on social media.
Trump’s lawyers are expected to make attacks on Cohen’s credibility a foundation of their defence, but in opening with Pecker, prosecutors hope to focus attention on a witness with a far less volatile backstory.
Pecker’s resumption of testimony Tuesday followed a hearing earlier in the day in which prosecutors urged Judge Juan Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $1,000 for each of 10 social media posts that they say violated an earlier gag order barring attacks on witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case.
Merchan did not immediately rule, but he seemed skeptical of a defence lawyer’s arguments that Trump was merely responding in his posts to others’ attacks and had been trying to comply with the order.
Pecker’s testimony began Monday after opening statements that offered the 12-person jury — and, just as important, the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to illegally influence the 2016 race through a practice known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
In this case, that included a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter that Trump denies.
Defence lawyers have said Trump is innocent and that Cohen cannot be trusted.
Prosecutors also described other arrangements, including one that paid a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump, which Trump also denies.
In another instance, Pecker recounted a $30,000 payment from the National Enquirer to a doorman for the rights to a rumor that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump World Tower. The tabloid concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have denied the allegations.
As Pecker described receiving the tip in court, Trump shook his head.
Pecker said upon hearing the rumor, he immediately called Cohen, who said it was “absolutely not true” but that he would look into whether the people involved had indeed worked for Trump’s company.
“I made the decision to purchase the story because of the potential embarrassment it had to the campaign and to Mr. Trump,” Pecker said.
In response to the prosecutor’s question about who he understood the boss to be, Pecker replied: “Donald Trump.”
Explaining why he decided to have the National Enquirer foot the bill, Pecker testified: “This was going to be a very big story. I believe it was important that this story be removed from the marketplace.”
If he published the story, Pecker said it would be “probably the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley.”
Trump’ s 34 felony counts of falsifying business records arise from reimbursements that prosecutors say Trump’s company made to Cohen over the hush money payments.
The charges punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s unclear if Merchan would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
— Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Eric Tucker And Jake Offenhartz
Published Apr 23, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 6 minute read
NEW YORK — A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump ’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase a doorman’s silence.
The testimony from David Pecker was designed to bolster prosecutors’ assertions of a decades-long friendship between Trump and the former publisher of the National Enquirer that culminated in an agreement to give the candidate’s lawyer a heads-up on negative tips and stories so they could be quashed.
Pecker is the first witness in Trump’s history-making hush money trial in Manhattan, where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with payments meant to prevent harmful stories from surfacing during the final days of the 2016 campaign.
The effort to suppress unflattering information was designed to illegally influence the election, prosecutors have alleged in seeking to elevate the gravity of the first trial of a former American president and the first of four criminal cases against Trump to reach a jury.
With Trump sitting just feet away in the courtroom, Pecker detailed his intimate, behind-the-scenes involvement in Trump’s rise from political novice to the Republican nomination and then the White House. He explained how he and the National Enquirer parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy tabloid stories that smeared Trump’s opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump, including a porn actor’s claim of an extramarital sexual encounter a decade earlier.
Pecker traced the origins of their relationship to a 1980s meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and said the friendship bloomed alongside the success of the real estate developer’s TV show “The Apprentice” and the program’s subsequent celebrity version.
Their ties were solidified during a pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower involving Trump, his lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, and another aide, Hope Hicks, in which Pecker was asked what he and the magazines he led could do for the campaign.
Pecker said he volunteered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. But that wasn’t all, he said, telling jurors how he told Trump: “I will be your eyes and ears.”
“I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,” so that the rights could be purchased and the stories could be killed.
“So they would not get published?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.
“So they would not get published,” Pecker replied.
To illustrate their point, prosecutors displayed for the court a screenshot of various flattering headlines the National Enquirer published about Trump, including: “Donald Dominates!’ and “World Exclusive: The Donald Trump Nobody Knows.” The jury was also shown disparaging and outlandish stories about Trump’s opponents in the race, including the surgeon Ben Carson and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Pecker painted Cohen as a shadow editor of the National Enquirer’s pro-Trump coverage, directing the tabloid to go after whichever Republican candidates was gaining in momentum.
“I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go,” Pecker said, referring to the tabloid’s then-editor.
Pecker said he underscored to Howard that the agreement he struck with the Trump operation was “highly, highly confidential.” He said he wanted the tabloid’s bureau chiefs to be on the lookout for any stories involving Trump and said he wanted them to verify the stories before alerting Cohen.
“I did not want anyone else to know this agreement I had and what I wanted to do,” the ex-publisher added.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to his role in the hush money payments. A onetime confidant of Trump’s, their relationship has deteriorated in spectacular fashion, with Cohen expected to be a star government witnesses and routinely posting profane broadsides against Trump on social media.
Trump’s lawyers are expected to make attacks on Cohen’s credibility a foundation of their defence, but in opening with Pecker, prosecutors hope to focus attention on a witness with a far less volatile backstory.
Pecker’s resumption of testimony Tuesday followed a hearing earlier in the day in which prosecutors urged Judge Juan Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $1,000 for each of 10 social media posts that they say violated an earlier gag order barring attacks on witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case.
Merchan did not immediately rule, but he seemed skeptical of a defence lawyer’s arguments that Trump was merely responding in his posts to others’ attacks and had been trying to comply with the order.
Pecker’s testimony began Monday after opening statements that offered the 12-person jury — and, just as important, the voting public — radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
Prosecutors allege that Trump sought to illegally influence the 2016 race through a practice known in the tabloid industry as “catch-and-kill” — catching a potentially damaging story by buying the rights to it and then killing it through agreements that prevent the paid person from telling the story to anyone else.
In this case, that included a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter that Trump denies.
Defence lawyers have said Trump is innocent and that Cohen cannot be trusted.
Prosecutors also described other arrangements, including one that paid a former Playboy model $150,000 to suppress claims of a nearly yearlong affair with the married Trump, which Trump also denies.
In another instance, Pecker recounted a $30,000 payment from the National Enquirer to a doorman for the rights to a rumor that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump World Tower. The tabloid concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have denied the allegations.
As Pecker described receiving the tip in court, Trump shook his head.
Pecker said upon hearing the rumor, he immediately called Cohen, who said it was “absolutely not true” but that he would look into whether the people involved had indeed worked for Trump’s company.
“I made the decision to purchase the story because of the potential embarrassment it had to the campaign and to Mr. Trump,” Pecker said.
In response to the prosecutor’s question about who he understood the boss to be, Pecker replied: “Donald Trump.”
Explaining why he decided to have the National Enquirer foot the bill, Pecker testified: “This was going to be a very big story. I believe it was important that this story be removed from the marketplace.”
If he published the story, Pecker said it would be “probably the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley.”
Trump’ s 34 felony counts of falsifying business records arise from reimbursements that prosecutors say Trump’s company made to Cohen over the hush money payments.
The charges punishable by up to four years in prison — though it’s unclear if Merchan would seek to put him behind bars. A conviction would not preclude Trump from becoming president again, but because it is a state case, he would not be able to pardon himself if found guilty. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
— Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
Tabloid publisher says he pledged to be Trump campaign’s ’eyes and ears’ during 2016 race
A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump ’s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign.
What to know in the Supreme Court case about immunity for former president Trump
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Mark Sherman
Published Apr 23, 2024 • 5 minute read
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has scheduled a special session to hear arguments over whether former president Donald Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
The case, to be argued Thursday, stems from Trump’s attempts to have charges against him dismissed. Lower courts have found he cannot claim for actions that, prosecutors say, illegally sought to interfere with the election results.
The Republican ex-president has been charged in federal court in Washington with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, one of four criminal cases he is facing. A trial has begun in New York over hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an alleged sexual encounter.
The Supreme Court is moving faster than usual in taking up the case, though not as quickly as special counsel Jack Smith wanted, raising questions about whether there will be time to hold a trial before the November election, if the justices agree with lower courts that Trump can be prosecuted.
The justices ruled earlier this term in another case that arose from Trump’s actions following the election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The court unanimously held that states could not invoke a provision of the 14th Amendment known as the insurrection clause to prevent Trump from appearing on presidential ballots.
Here are some things to know:
WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
When the justices agreed on Feb. 28 to hear the case, they put the issue this way: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
That’s a question the Supreme Court has never had to answer. Never before has a former president faced criminal charges so the court hasn’t had occasion to take up the question of whether the president’s unique role means he should be shielded from prosecution, even after he has left office.
Both sides point to the absence of previous prosecutions to undergird their arguments. Trump’s lawyers told the court that presidents would lose their independence and be unable to function in office if they knew their actions in office could lead to criminal charges once their terms were over. Smith’s team wrote that the lack of previous criminal charges “underscores the unprecedented nature” of what Trump is accused of.
NIXON’S GHOST
Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace nearly 50 years ago rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate in the Watergate scandal.
Both Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s team are invoking Nixon at the Supreme Court.
Trump’s team cites Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 case in which the Supreme Court held by a 5-4 vote that former presidents cannot be sued in civil cases for their actions while in office. The case grew out of the firing of a civilian Air Force analyst who testified before Congress about cost overruns in the production of the C-5A transport plane.
“In view of the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions, we think it appropriate to recognize absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility,” Justice Lewis Powell wrote for the court.
But that decision recognized a difference between civil lawsuits and “the far weightier” enforcement of federal criminal laws, Smith’s team told the court. They also invoked the high court decision that forced Nixon to turn over incriminating White House tapes for use in the prosecutions of his top aides.
And prosecutors also pointed to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and Nixon’s acceptance of it, as resting “on the understanding that the former President faced potential criminal liability.”
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
The subtext of the immunity fight is about timing. Trump has sought to push back the trial until after the election, when, if he were to regain the presidency, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case. Prosecutors have been pressing for a quick decision from the Supreme Court so that the clock can restart on trial preparations. It could take three months once the court acts before a trial actually starts.
If the court hands down its decision in late June, which would be the typical timeframe for a case argued so late in the court’s term, there might not be enough time to start the trial before the election.
WHO ARE THE LAWYERS?
Trump is represented by D. John Sauer, a former Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. While serving as Missouri’s solicitor general, Sauer won the only Supreme Court case he has argued until now, a 5-4 decision in an execution case. Sauer also filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to repudiate Biden’s victory in 2020.
In addition to working for Scalia early in his legal career, Sauer also served as a law clerk to Michael Luttig when he was a Republican-appointed judge on the Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court. Luttig joined with other former government officials on a brief urging the Supreme Court to allow the prosecution to proceed. Luttig also advised Vice President Mike Pence not to succumb to pressure from Trump to reject some electoral votes, part of Trump’s last-ditch plan to remain in office.
The justices are quite familiar with Sauer’s opponent, Michael Dreeben. As a longtime Justice Department official, Dreeben argued more than 100 cases at the court, many of them related to criminal law. Dreeben was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and joined Smith’s team last year after a stint in private practice.
In Dreeben’s very first Supreme Court case 35 years ago, he faced off against Chief Justice John Roberts, then a lawyer in private practice.
FULL BENCH
Of the nine justices hearing the case, three were nominated by Trump — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. But it’s the presence of a justice confirmed decades before Trump’s presidency, Justice Clarence Thomas, that’s generated the most controversy.
Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, urged the reversal of the 2020 election results and then attended the rally that preceded the Capitol riot. That has prompted calls for the justice to step aside from several court cases involving Trump and Jan. 6.
But Thomas has ignored the calls, taking part in the unanimous court decision that found states cannot kick Trump off the ballot as well as last week’s arguments over whether prosecutors can use a particular obstruction charge against Capitol riot defendants. Trump faces the same charge in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in Washington.
torontosun.com
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Mark Sherman
Published Apr 23, 2024 • 5 minute read
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has scheduled a special session to hear arguments over whether former president Donald Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
The case, to be argued Thursday, stems from Trump’s attempts to have charges against him dismissed. Lower courts have found he cannot claim for actions that, prosecutors say, illegally sought to interfere with the election results.
The Republican ex-president has been charged in federal court in Washington with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, one of four criminal cases he is facing. A trial has begun in New York over hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an alleged sexual encounter.
The Supreme Court is moving faster than usual in taking up the case, though not as quickly as special counsel Jack Smith wanted, raising questions about whether there will be time to hold a trial before the November election, if the justices agree with lower courts that Trump can be prosecuted.
The justices ruled earlier this term in another case that arose from Trump’s actions following the election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The court unanimously held that states could not invoke a provision of the 14th Amendment known as the insurrection clause to prevent Trump from appearing on presidential ballots.
Here are some things to know:
WHAT’S THE ISSUE?
When the justices agreed on Feb. 28 to hear the case, they put the issue this way: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
That’s a question the Supreme Court has never had to answer. Never before has a former president faced criminal charges so the court hasn’t had occasion to take up the question of whether the president’s unique role means he should be shielded from prosecution, even after he has left office.
Both sides point to the absence of previous prosecutions to undergird their arguments. Trump’s lawyers told the court that presidents would lose their independence and be unable to function in office if they knew their actions in office could lead to criminal charges once their terms were over. Smith’s team wrote that the lack of previous criminal charges “underscores the unprecedented nature” of what Trump is accused of.
NIXON’S GHOST
Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace nearly 50 years ago rather than face impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate in the Watergate scandal.
Both Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s team are invoking Nixon at the Supreme Court.
Trump’s team cites Nixon v. Fitzgerald, a 1982 case in which the Supreme Court held by a 5-4 vote that former presidents cannot be sued in civil cases for their actions while in office. The case grew out of the firing of a civilian Air Force analyst who testified before Congress about cost overruns in the production of the C-5A transport plane.
“In view of the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions, we think it appropriate to recognize absolute Presidential immunity from damages liability for acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility,” Justice Lewis Powell wrote for the court.
But that decision recognized a difference between civil lawsuits and “the far weightier” enforcement of federal criminal laws, Smith’s team told the court. They also invoked the high court decision that forced Nixon to turn over incriminating White House tapes for use in the prosecutions of his top aides.
And prosecutors also pointed to President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, and Nixon’s acceptance of it, as resting “on the understanding that the former President faced potential criminal liability.”
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
The subtext of the immunity fight is about timing. Trump has sought to push back the trial until after the election, when, if he were to regain the presidency, he could order the Justice Department to drop the case. Prosecutors have been pressing for a quick decision from the Supreme Court so that the clock can restart on trial preparations. It could take three months once the court acts before a trial actually starts.
If the court hands down its decision in late June, which would be the typical timeframe for a case argued so late in the court’s term, there might not be enough time to start the trial before the election.
WHO ARE THE LAWYERS?
Trump is represented by D. John Sauer, a former Rhodes Scholar and Supreme Court clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia. While serving as Missouri’s solicitor general, Sauer won the only Supreme Court case he has argued until now, a 5-4 decision in an execution case. Sauer also filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to repudiate Biden’s victory in 2020.
In addition to working for Scalia early in his legal career, Sauer also served as a law clerk to Michael Luttig when he was a Republican-appointed judge on the Richmond, Virginia-based federal appeals court. Luttig joined with other former government officials on a brief urging the Supreme Court to allow the prosecution to proceed. Luttig also advised Vice President Mike Pence not to succumb to pressure from Trump to reject some electoral votes, part of Trump’s last-ditch plan to remain in office.
The justices are quite familiar with Sauer’s opponent, Michael Dreeben. As a longtime Justice Department official, Dreeben argued more than 100 cases at the court, many of them related to criminal law. Dreeben was part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and joined Smith’s team last year after a stint in private practice.
In Dreeben’s very first Supreme Court case 35 years ago, he faced off against Chief Justice John Roberts, then a lawyer in private practice.
FULL BENCH
Of the nine justices hearing the case, three were nominated by Trump — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. But it’s the presence of a justice confirmed decades before Trump’s presidency, Justice Clarence Thomas, that’s generated the most controversy.
Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, urged the reversal of the 2020 election results and then attended the rally that preceded the Capitol riot. That has prompted calls for the justice to step aside from several court cases involving Trump and Jan. 6.
But Thomas has ignored the calls, taking part in the unanimous court decision that found states cannot kick Trump off the ballot as well as last week’s arguments over whether prosecutors can use a particular obstruction charge against Capitol riot defendants. Trump faces the same charge in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution in Washington.
What to know in the Supreme Court case about immunity for former president Trump
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over whether Donald Trump can be prosecuted over his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss.