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Cairn Horn88

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3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Ok then I guess he’s dumb and also it must be difficult to post with a phone in one hand and a shovel in the other digging a ditch. 

Yup.

OK... this is it and I'm out

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4 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

If I were a jurist, that redirect showing the full context of the tweets from cross would piss me off bigly, that the defense was being intentionally disingenuous. 

Essentially reinforcing what we already know to be true about tfg. 

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1- He did bang her.

2- She ain't that hot.

3- He got caught, so he is not that smart.

4- No McDonalds in the NY Prison system.

5- If god-fearing GOP still vote for this fucker, damn,

6- As our ledge loving legal eagle reminds us, Liberals also have guns, and we know how to use them. I laugh at idiots who think their 15 rifles, all different caliber, are good for a civil war. Damn cleetus, I am taking them all, can you help carry ammo?

 

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Necheles will do more work in this case now.  Even if it was seen negatively by the jury, she took it to Stormy in Trumpian style, often unfair and childish, which I think will please him.  

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3 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

But if it weren’t true, Daniels replies, “I would have written it to be a lot better,” drawing laughter in the courtroom.

Lulz

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1 hour ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

Pressing her on the details of the sexual encounter and repeatedly suggesting it didn’t happen is a really stupid tack and must have been done at Trump’s insistence and over the objections of his counsel. 

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13 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

So - he’s stupid too?

Hey that's not nice!   This poor guy is doing the best he can, but he's up against woke ass Dunning Kruger.

I mean shouldn't we all trust the economic, global political, and sociological analysis of a guy who's worked hard to rent his own place?   He's supporting himself and his landlord.  Lazy woke libs could never do that!

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1 minute ago, Gatorubet said:

Necheles will do more work in this case now.  Even if it was seen negatively by the jury, she took it to Stormy in Trumpian style, often unfair and childish, which I think will please him.  

Stormy gave back.  So much so, it's not even in question whether they had sex.  All she really needs to reiterate is I was paid to keep the sex part quiet.  We can disagree about whether both of us held up our ends of the bargain, but the sex part isn't in question.  As far as being rehearsed by the prosecution, she could ask why do you refer to your client as President Trump?  She very well could've said they had sex twice if she were making things up.  What was a pornstar doing at his place at all?  I mean, porn would make someone better at sex and the man was calling her all the time afterwards.  Maybe woulda helped if he had been a pornstar, too, at some point so that he would've been better.  Use that shit.  The defense should want her off the stage.   

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7 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Necheles will do more work in this case now.  Even if it was seen negatively by the jury, she took it to Stormy in Trumpian style, often unfair and childish, which I think will please him.  

It seems like that whole cross gives the prosecution carte blanche to go scorched earth on Trump in redirect if they want. I don’t know if that would help the prosecution’s case at all but I’m all for it 

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Necheles will do more work in this case now.  Even if it was seen negatively by the jury, she took it to Stormy in Trumpian style, often unfair and childish, which I think will please him.  

She knows, at the end of the day, she has an audience of one...and if they lose, she and he can just blame it on New York and the jury.

Edited by DixonHur
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33 minutes ago, Kyrie Eleison said:

 

I Trump's defense, I also often have women, I've never slept with, sign NDA's and then pay them hush money.  He who hasn't cast the first stone...

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I Trump's defense, I also often have women, I've never slept with, sign NDA's and then pay them hush money.  He who hasn't cast the first stone...

Think the other play was Cohen did this on his own to get ahead of it all, unbeknownst by Trump.  Trump is always the innocent, dumb ass that is unaware of all the nefarious activities committed by his personnel and rogue people he's given his private banking info to.  But sure, elect the guy surrounded by idiots and bad actors, to be leader of the free world.  

Edited by Mdhorn
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31 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

 must have been done at Trump’s insistence and over the objections of his counsel. 

I'm not so sure. I feel like he could tell you to do something and then you could just pretend you did it and he wouldn't know the difference.

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Posted (edited)

Afternoon session:

We're done with Madeleine Westerhout for the day and Susan Necheles will continue cross-examining her tomorrow. So far, Necheles has sought to use her testimony to paint a humanizing portrait of Trump as a kind boss and family man. She has also tried to portray Westerhout as somebody who was young, out of her depth and unfamiliar with the details of the materials she was handling on Trump’s behalf.

Susan Necheles is now describing the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape as one of a number of events that rattled the Trump campaign, and through which he stayed calm while others were “freaking out.”

It’s an interesting approach, as she tries to normalize the reaction to the “Access Hollywood” tape while also sneaking in some praise for her client.

The prosecution is done. Susan Necheles, the Trump lawyer now cross-examining Madeleine Westerhout, brings up something she elided — that Trump wasn’t her preferred candidate when he was elected president. Many people have described her as unhappy on election night.

There are two types of people around Trump. Some, like Hope Hicks, were true believers from the very beginning. Others, like Westerhout, were extreme skeptics turned converts. And we are seeing her trying to show proof of that conversion on the stand.

Madeleine Westerhout is the second former close Trump aide to break down in tears during this trial. The first was Hope Hicks, whose desk was right near Westerhout’s just outside the Oval Office.

That dynamic shows how the district attorney’s office reached into the ranks of people who were very close to Trump in order to build their case that he committed crimes. Both Westerhout and Hicks were witnesses sympathetic to Trump who nonetheless delivered damaging testimony against him.

Westerhout has made it very clear in the last five minutes or so how much she cares about and respects Trump. But her testimony — including about the email scheduling the meeting with Michael Cohen and about Trump’s close attention to his finances while in the White House — could be very bad for her former boss.

Madeleine Westerhout is testifying about how important Trump's wife, Melania, is to him, echoing Hope Hicks a bit as she says they had a relationship of “mutual respect” and that Trump cared a lot about his wife’s opinion. “There was really no one else who could put him in his place,” she laughs, addressing the jury directly. “He was my boss but she was definitely the one in charge.”

Then Westerhout starts to cry as she recounts her experience of being forced out of the White House for indiscreetly sharing details about the Trump family in an off-the-record session with reporters.

We are looking at an exchange in which Rhona Graff, Trump's former assistant, asked him whether he wanted to suspend a golf club membership or pay his dues, which totaled about $6,000. Madeleine Westerhout says she passed this questino along to him in a stack of checks he was given. Trump responded himself, by hand, asking that Graff pay the membership. This seems funny, but it’s also important: We’re seeing that Trump —while president! — did not ignore anything to do with money, and he responded in his unmistakable sharpie.

The point, as the prosecution has so often made, is that Trump paid attention to financial minutiae. The cost of the golf membership that he was personally signing off on was less than one-fifth of the amount of each check he sent to Michael Cohen to reimburse the hush-money payment.

The prosecution is effectively asking the jury to consider whether it’s plausible that Trump would scrutinize a minor payment in the $6000 range but be ignorant of the details of multiple checks for $35,000 each.

While we expected Westerhout to be a significant witness with respect to with Cohen’s reimbursement checks, she’s also describing Trump’s day-to-day frugality and his attentiveness to his bottom line.

Not only is Madeleine Westerhout corroborating a lot of the testimony we've heard already, but she’s linking that testimony to what she saw Trump do while he was in the White House. We’ve already heard that stapled packets of checks and invoices were sent to the White House to sign. But Westerhout is able to tell us that she sometimes saw Trump sign checks in his office, and that he signed them individually by hand.

We are now looking at a text exchange between Madeline Westerhout and Hope Hicks, who has already testified. It’s from March of 2017, and says that Trump wanted to know if Pecker had been called. We are seeing the way that Trump was dealing with the hush-money payments and their agents from the White House.

A different email is on screen right now, from Westerhout to Rhona Graff, saying that Trump — who often calls the media “the enemy of the people” — proudly sent a New York Times photo of himself boarding Air Force One for the first time to his family and wanted Weisselberg to see it.

We’re now getting to the main reason Westerhout was called as a witness. The prosecutor asks her: “Was it your understanding that Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen had a close relationship in 2017?” She replies: “At that time, yes.” She’s now reading an email between herself and Michael Cohen in which she’s asking for his information in order to have him cleared to enter the White House. “Mr. Cohen was coming in to meet with the president,” she adds.

Westerhout sent the email to Cohen on Feb. 5, 2017. It's evidence that directly helps corroborate the meeting that Cohen says that he and Trump had in the Oval Office in early 2017 to discuss reimbursements for the hush-money payment.

Also on the list: Tom Brady, Sean Hannity, Ari Emanuel, Bret Baier and Mark Burnett, the creator of The Apprentice.

The list includes some interesting names. Football figures like Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Media figures like Bill O’Reilly and Jeanine Pirro, who is also a former district attorney and was in the courthouse this morning. Business colleagues, family members and Serena Williams, the tennis star.

The jury is now being shown a “close contacts list” for Trump from early 2017. It includes Joe Scarborough, Tom Brady, Sean Hannity, Ari Emanuel, Bret Baier and Mark Burnett, the creator of "The Apprentice."

Madeleine Westerhout has begun testifying about her frequent interactions with employees of the Trump Organization. She says she would pass their questions to Trump — who said that he had cut off his relationship with his business. This may seem innocent, but it’s important testimony, that really aids prosecutors’ case. It shows how seamless the transition between Trump’s public and private lives was. Information traveled through Westerhout and, on the other side, Rhona Graff, his assistant at the company, who we’ve already heard from as a witness.

Westerhout testified that Trump would dictate tweets to her and would sometimes ask to review her work and make changes. She recalls that he liked to capitalize certain words like “country,” use exclamation points and was a fan of the Oxford comma.

Westerhout is talking about Trump wanting “the girls” to put together a list of people he normally spoke to. “The girls” were the additional assistants who worked under Graff at Trump Tower, and that's how Trump — and then his underlings — referred to them for years.

One thing that’s important to know about Madeleine Westerhout is that she is not a hostile witness at all. She resigned from the White House under difficult circumstances in 2019 after revealing personal details about the Trump family to reporters, but she has since signaled that she feels very warmly towards Trump, especially in her memoir about her White House experience. Trump himself has praised Westerhout and her book — signaling there is no longer bad blood between them.

The morning’s testimony was from a porn star who spoke about having had sex with Trump, and described the lead-up to the encounter that she's discussed for years in extensive detail. Now, we are hearing a very staid description of the Oval Office and Trump’s work habits from his former assistant. This whiplash perfectly captures the experience of late 2016, as Trump was elected and was on his way to becoming president. But it also represents this duality that people experienced with Trump long before he went into politics — a public-facing side as a business leader, and a seamier one focused on the gossip pages and being seen with models.

We just saw something really fun for those of us who have seen these prosecutors a couple of times. When Joshua Steinglass, one of the lead prosecutors here, doesn’t like the phrasing of one of his own questions, he tends to be self-deprecating, making fun of himself for how poorly the question was articulated.

Rebecca Mangold, who is newer to the role but has questioned a lot of witnesses in this trial, just pulled the same trick, insulting herself for what she called a terrible question and rephrasing. Funny to see her pick up on that tactic — seems effective.

Madeleine Westerhout has turned to describing Trump’s work habits. Rebecca Mangold, the prosecutor, asks if she developed an understanding of his preferences and Westerhout responds, “I hope so.”

She then says that he preferred to either speak with people on the phone or meet with them in person. We expect that she will testify that one person she saw him meet with in person was Michael Cohen. If she testifies as prosecutors are hoping, she will say that happened in February 2017.

Trump smiles and nods when Westerhout says he took “a lot” of calls during the day and late into the night.

Trump has always seen his extensive phone chats as evidence he’s a hard worker.

Westerhout is now explaining how Trump started working in a small dining room off the Oval Office, where he had any number of people visit him over the years.

The prosecution has established for the jury that in 2017 Madeleine Westerhout was part of Trump's very small inner circle.

We’ve got an hour left of testimony today, with the jury heading home at 4 p.m.

And here's Ms. Westerhout:

02trump-trial-madeline-westerhout-jwlc-s

Madeleine Westerhout acknowledges that she knew Michael Cohen, the fixer who paid hush money to Stormy Daniels. She then starts talking about when she began to work in the White House. She says her boss asked her if she had any interest “in sitting outside the Oval Office.”  Westerhout says she responded: “Yes, I do, that sounds like it would be a very cool job.”

Rebecca Mangold, the prosecutor, is eliciting testimony that fundamentally makes this witness seem like an innocent. She keeps emphasizing that many of the experiences Westerhout is describing — including her testimony here today — were new for her.

Prosecutors are using Westerhout to put into evidence a map of the first floor of the West Wing of the White House.

This could become relevant when Michael Cohen testifies. He is expected to say he met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the arrangements that had been made to repay him for the hush money sent to Stormy Daniels.

Rebecca Mangold, the prosecutor, asks Madeleine Westerhout whether she had a nickname in the press, and Westerhout acknowledges that she was known as “the greeter girl.” This is an interesting and somewhat odd note. I’m not sure what to make of it at the moment. I wonder whether it will become relevant in due time.

Madeleine Westerhout is asked about the “Access Hollywood” tape, which has come up many times, on which Trump said that women would let him grope them because of his celebrity. She testifies that while at the Republican National Committe, she was privy to conversations about whether it was possible to replace Trump as the presidential nominee after the tape was released.

Trump, who has never truly trusted the R.N.C. and has always been suspicious of the old-guard Republican establishment, watched Westerhout with intense interest as she described the organization's internal conversations after the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape.

Madeleine Westerhout was one of Trump’s most trusted aides in the early White House years. She sat at a desk right outside the Oval Office and coordinated many of his calls, meetings and communications. She was a conduit to people on the outside and she was at Trump’s side through much of the day. She abruptly left the White House in the summer of 2019 after Trump learned that she had shared details about his family. She now works for Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, who runs a geopolitical consultancy.

The people have called Madeleine Westerhout to the stand. Westerhout was Trump’s executive assistant in the White House. She was fired after she spoke out of turn about the Trump family at an off-the-record dinner with reporters.

Westerhout went on to write a book about her experiences, in which she extensively praised Trump. Prior to his presidency, she worked for the Republican National Committee. Trump is watching her, pursing his lips at times. He smirks when she says she is nervous to be here today.

The prosecution is using an excerpt of the book to show that Trump is a micromanager in his business. In it, Trump says: “get the best people, and don’t trust them,” saying it's important to watch what they do closely.

The witness is now reading a section in which Trump describes valuing “loyalty” more than anything. “We reward loyalty and everybody knows this.” In a potentially resonant excerpt, Trump writes: “This woman was very disloyal, and now I go out of my way to make her life miserable.”

Another quote: “I used to say, go out and get the best people and trust them. Over the years, I have seen too many shenanigans, and now I say, get the best people and don’t trust them.” This emphasizes the theme of Trump as a micromanager, who wouldn’t let his employees handle major transactions without closely supervising them. However, Trump does say he might trust a loyal employee, such as Allen Weisselberg, whom he name checks specifically and who prosecutors say helped orchestrate the continuing concealment of the hush-money payments.

The next excerpt also emphasizes Trump’s relish for revenge. “My motto is: always get even.” And another: “When you are wronged, go after those people because it’s a good feeling.”

This book earned Trump royalties of $1.4 million, according to tax records that The Times obtained in 2020.

Prosecutors' direct examination ended quickly, and Todd Blanche handled the brief cross-examination. He asked Menzies whether she was part of publishing this particular book.

As we did in court on Tuesday, we are reviewing a book authored by Trump. This one is called “Think Big: Make it Happen in Business and Life.” The cover image, which was briefly displayed on the screen, showed Trump shouting. The witness, Tracey Menzies, says of the cover, “His name is quite large.”

Trump is snoozing through this section of the testimony.

The witness is being asked about Bill Zanker, with whom Trump wrote this book. Zanker is still in Trump’s orbit, having a role in the former president’s current sale of NFTs. Trump had a dinner related to NFTs at Mar-a-Lago last night.

 

The cross-examination of Rebecca Manochio was extremely brief, and now we're hearing from a new witness, Tracey Menzies, who works at HarperCollins, a publishing company. We’ve already heard from another publishing executive, who read excerpts of two of Trump’s books aloud.

We’re back in the courtroom, with about 10 minutes to go before we restart. If I understood correctly, the judge suggested that some of the issues that the defense lawyers wanted to address — including a renewed call for a mistrial — won’t be taken up until a little later this afternoon.

Justice Merchan has indicated the jury will go home at 4 p.m. today, with defense motions considered after that.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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40 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Think the other play was Cohen did this on his own to get ahead of it all, unbeknownst by Trump.  Trump is always the innocent, dumb ass that is unaware of all the nefarious activities committed by his personnel and rogue people he's given his private banking info to.  But sure, elect the guy surrounded by idiots and bad actors, to be leader of the free world.  

Wasn't there testimony that the checks went to the White House for Trump to sign?  

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2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

. . . and then proceeds to post 4 more times in 15 minutes.

Hey, I wish he'd post more. That way I don't have to go looking for other posts of his to neg his ass to Bolivia!

 

1 hour ago, InkaUtexas said:

2- She ain't that hot.

Maybe not now as a 45-year-old who lived a pretty fast life but Stormy in her early '00s porn days was pretty much everything you could ask for from a porn star.

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11 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

IMG_20240509_111547_999.thumb.jpg.3552161f498fc808786fe787c786a325.jpg

While I have many issues with Christianity, this is the most confusing one to me. He is a false prophet that stands for everything Jesus was against. He even sells bibles. I know blasphemy is a big word for these people but damn how do they not see the hypocrisy in all they follow politically 

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3 minutes ago, Shut up Lou Holtz said:

While I have many issues with Christianity, this is the most confusing one to me. He is a false prophet that stands for everything Jesus was against. He even sells bibles. I know blasphemy is a big word for these people but damn how do they not see the hypocrisy in all they follow politically 

 

Oh, let us count the ways.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Shut up Lou Holtz said:

While I have many issues with Christianity, this is the most confusing one to me. He is a false prophet that stands for everything Jesus was against. He even sells bibles. I know blasphemy is a big word for these people but damn how do they not see the hypocrisy in all they follow politically 

If you were writing a movie/tv show, and needed to create an Anti-Christ character... you wouldn't even have to change anything. He's perfect.

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

It's like Fox News and Trump's legal team are unaware his defense is dependent on his claim he didn't have sex with Stormy. 

It's really not.

This brings up a point though.  There are elements of proof of an offense that the prosecution must meet to legally have proven their case.  If they fail on even one of the elements, a conviction cannot be sustained and should not be delivered by the jury's verdict or should be reversed on appeal.

That said, there are elements of persuasion that prosecutors feel they must meet in addition to the elements of proof in order to have a jury convict on the offense.  The classic example is "motive, opportunity, and means" to commit a murder.  You will find those elements nowhere in any statutory definition of murder or a related homicide offense.  Therefore, they are not elements of proof.  Some seem to think that they are required elements of persuasion, though.

Whether he fucked Stormy Daniels or not is utterly irrelevant to the case at bar.  Whether someone believes the jury must be persuaded of that in order to convict is a different story and likely an unknowable proposition.  They certainly will not be asked any jury questions on that issue.

I don't think the prosecution was really attempting to prove that he fucked her.  However, Daniels' credibility on other issues is important and it is unavoidable that one of the central issues of her credibility is the allegation that she fucked Trump.  It's an elephant in the room that is not strictly necessary for anything, but simultaneously possibly the key to her credibility on anything else on which she testifies.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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11 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Paying off porn stars in the Oval Office. This makes me so mad, because it just reminds me how unpresidential Obama was that time he rolled up his sleeves there. 

Do not... Do NOT bring up the tan suit.  

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16 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Paying off porn stars in the Oval Office. This makes me so mad, because it just reminds me how unpresidential Obama was that time he rolled up his sleeves there. 

OFFISHUL AX!  I IS IMMUNE!

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3 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

Landlord?  Let me guess...Joe Biden is the reason you can't afford to buy in some shithole little town?

Why do poor folks support Trump? This guy, that kid who came on here and begged for $2500, makes no sense.  If you're poor, you should vote D, that's always been the case...well at least in the past 100 years or so.

Now if they say, well, I supported dems my whole life and it didn't get me jack, then I can see that, but they never say that.  Instead, they think some 'rich' fat bastid from NYC is gonna save them.

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