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Francisco 2.0

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Francisco 2.0 last won the day on April 22

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  1. Conroy is now describing five more examples, all versions of the same post, in which Trump shared a New York Post article about Michael Cohen and quoted its headline: “A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system.” Trump is looking ahead in the judge’s direction as Conroy ticks through these violations. As social media posts of his are read into the record, his face twitches slightly.
  2. Conroy, reminding Justice Merchan of the procedural history here, notes that a second order came after Trump “ratcheted up attacks on family members.” That impersonal language hides something the judge knows well: Those attacks were made on his own family members, including his daughter. Conroy is ticking through Trump's alleged gag order violations, including one in which he thanked Stormy Daniels’s disgraced lawyer, Michael Avenatti, for criticizing Michael Cohen. Conroy also describes how Trump called Cohen and Daniels “sleazebags.”
  3. I have more work to do today, but here's some updates from his contempt hearing: One thing striking listening to Chris Conroy, one of the prosecutors, as he calls for Justice Merchan to do something that could make Trump stop, is how evocative it is of the lawyer Roberta Kaplan’s closing arguments in Trump's defamation trial, where she asked the jury how much money it would take to get Trump to stop defaming E. Jean Carroll. A prosecutor, Chris Conroy, begins to detail his team’s argument on the gag order. He says each of the 10 Trump posts in question violated the order, and that eight of them were on Truth Social. Two were on his official campaign website. Conroy says that these violations pose a very real “threat” to the proceedings, having an “undertow” effect on witnesses and making them afraid. The witnesses, he says, “rightly fear being subject to similar vitriol.” As expected, Conroy says Trump's attacks on Michael Cohen in the hallway outside the courtroom yesterday again violated the order. So that’s 11 violations prosecutors say he commited. The prosecutors have returned. Trump, who was isolated and alone at the defense table, in what is becoming a familiar image at this trial, has also been rejoined by his lawyers. The judge is back on the bench and says that two matters are now in the record. It appears that the two matters were the two separate attempts that prosecutors have made to see Trump held in contempt of court. They say he’s violated the gag order 10 times. The judge is in and we are underway. The lawyers and the judge left the courtroom almost immediately after the session began. We do not know why.
  4. Right? There is a subset of Twitter that is still legitimate news, sports, whatnot. Then there's this whole other part of Twitter that is the absolute worst that humanity has to offer. Twitter isn't much different than the internet as a whole. Thing is, you have to actively go looking for the deplorable shit on the internet, where on Twitter it can get served up to you at will. It's a feature, not a bug. Elon is all about free speech, alright. He wanted a platform where the worst in humanity is guaranteed a online home.
  5. Once upon a time, Elon said it might be worth over $100,000 in the future. Funny how things change.
  6. FYI for those with interest: There’s some good news for people who want to follow the Trump trial in detail, but can’t make it to the courthouse. The New York state court system has just agreed to publish a transcript of each day’s proceeding by the end of the following day on its website. You can find the daily transcripts here. https://ww2.nycourts.gov/press/index.shtml
  7. Blanche equates the “catch-and-kill” scheme involving The National Enquirer, alleged by prosecutors, to ordinary editorial decisions made by newspapers. Blanche is now trying to portray The National Enquirer’s practices as similar to how other news outlets operate, in terms of deciding when and how to publish a story. That is not correct. Now Blanche turns to Stormy Daniels, who he says is also “biased” against Trump. He narrates their meeting, saying at the time, Trump was working on a very popular tv show called “The Apprentice.” “Ms. Clifford has made a life off these communications,” Blanche says, attacking Daniels by her government name, Stephanie Clifford. He says the money she made from the Cohen payoff was pure opportunism on her part, and adds that she has made a lot more money since the story came out. It certainly sounds as if Blanche expects Daniels to testify. He says that “her testimony, while salacious, does not matter,” arguing that she knew nothing about the actual crimes charged here.
  8. Blanche makes it clear that the defense will continue to deny that Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels. I’m curious whether that will affect the plan for Daniels to testify; it had seemed to be up in the air, but the defense may have just opened the door for prosecutors to ask directly. Prosecutors have objected three times during Blanche’s opening statement. Justice Merchan just called them to the bench. The prosecution wins the objection and Blanche loses a little bit of his opening. He moves back to saying that there is “nothing illegal” about entering a nondisclosure agreement.
  9. It seems as if Blanche will seek to convince the jury that everything that happened was appropriate and done by the book, not even worthy of notice. That Cohen was Trump’s lawyer, and he was paid for legal services. But he’ll also seek to distance his client from the matter: “President Trump had nothing to do with the invoice,” he says. Blanche is not addressing any of the underlying claims by prosecutors so far, focusing strictly on the payment process. Blanche downplays the 34 charges of falsfying records Trump faces as a “business records violation.” He points toward the disparity between the $130,000 hush money payment and what was repaid to Cohen. He asks them, if Trump really was so frugal, would he have repaid Cohen so much? “This was not a payback,” he says, adding of Cohen: “He was President Trump’s personal attorney.” “Ask yourself, would a frugal business man -- would a man who pinches pennies -- repay $130,000 debt to the tune of $420,000?”
  10. And now, it's time for defense. Batting first, Todd Blanche Blanche highlights that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, which is something that some of his more heated critics sometimes lose sight of. Blanche explains why they all call Trump “President Trump,” saying he’s earned it and it’s the office he’s held. Then he mentions that Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. Todd Blanche is now up, with the defense's opening statement. J “President Trump is innocent,” are the first words of Blanche’s opening. ’President Trump did not commit any crimes.” “He is cloaked in innocence,” Todd Blanche says of Trump Blanche says that the prosecution told a “clean nice story,” but that it is not as simple as they would have the jury believe. He says that many of the documents in evidence are almost a decade old. The testimony, he suggests, is similarly old. And, he says, the story that jurors just heard “is not true.”
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