Jump to content

Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty Guilty


Recommended Posts

Posted (edited)

Pecker is asked about the nature of Cohen’s relationship to the Trump campaign. Pecker says Cohen always said he didn’t work for the campaign, and that he was instead “Mr. Trump’s personal attorney.” But jurors just heard that Cohen was central to feeding the tabloid negative information about campaign opponents.


“Michael was physically in every aspect of whatever the campaign was working on,” Pecker says. He adds that because Cohen wasn’t officially employed by the campaign, he may have heard things “informally” or “injected himself into it.”


Pecker finally says something mildly helpful to the defense. He says he doesn’t know who Cohen spoke to, and adds that Cohen may have essentially been freelancing, acting of his own volition as he tried to get more involved with the campaign.

 

Now, we are discussing negative headlines attacking three of Trump's Republican opponents in 2016, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, which prosecutors argue illustrate the outcome of the agreement reached during the Trump Tower meeting. Pecker says that Cohen would feed him negative information and that The National Enquirer would “embellish” and add onto it.


Trump jumped on the negative coverage of Ted Cruz, especially about his father, in 2016. The campaign promoted it like it had come about organically and Trump was simply responding to it.

 

Trump just leaned in toward the monitor in front of him and squinted to look closer at a collection of headlines from The National Enquirer that praised him. They included: “Donald Trump — Cruzin to victory! Ted endorses Donald” and “Obama’s Half Brother — Cheering on Donald at Debate.”

 

 

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 2
Posted

Trump’s lawyers have objected all along to prosecutors couching Trump’s relationship with Pecker and Michael Cohen as a conspiracy — after all, Trump is not facing a conspiracy charge. But Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, just noted for the first time in court that one of the election statutes the case is based on does in fact have a conspiracy provision. That could prove important later when the jury is instructed on the laws they must consider in reaching a verdict.

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
Posted
6 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Trump’s lawyers have objected all along to prosecutors couching Trump’s relationship with Pecker and Michael Cohen as a conspiracy — after all, Trump is not facing a conspiracy charge. But Joshua Steinglass, one of the prosecutors, just noted for the first time in court that one of the election statutes the case is based on does in fact have a conspiracy provision. That could prove important later when the jury is instructed on the laws they must consider in reaching a verdict.

that's an odd caveat.  both sides just realized what the statute says?

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

Trump pulls down the lapels of his jacket sharply and walks out, again looking frustrated. To me, he’s looked far angrier yesterday and today than he did during all of last week, during jury selection.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 2
  • Haha 3
  • Drool 2
Posted
1 minute ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

that's an odd caveat.  both sides just realized what the statute says?

Doubtful.  Trump's lawyers are just trying to downplay any malfeasance possible.

Posted
Trump pulls down the lapels of his jacket sharply and walks out, again looking frustrated. To me, he’s looked far angrier yesterday and today than he did during all of last week, during jury selection.

He is angry because he is losing control of the narrative. Defending himself has nothing to do with presenting facts that support his arguments.
  • Hook 'Em 8
  • Like 1
Posted

So, it was kicked around on this thread -- or maybe another -- what happens with SS detail if the orange dipshit goes to jail, soon for breaking gag order or later if he's convicted. Well, the SS goes to jail too!

https://dnyuz.com/2024/04/23/could-trump-go-to-prison-if-he-does-the-secret-service-goes-too/

Quote

The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of protecting the president, whether he’s inside the Oval Office or visiting a foreign war zone.

But protecting a former president in prison? The prospect is unprecedented. That would be the challenge if Donald J. Trump — whom the agency is required by law to protect around the clock — is convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan and sentenced to serve time.

Even before the trial’s opening statements, the Secret Service was in some measure planning for the extraordinary possibility of a former president behind bars. Prosecutors had asked the judge in the case to remind Mr. Trump that attacks on witnesses and jurors could land him in jail even before a verdict is rendered.

(The judge, who is holding a hearing Tuesday to discuss whether Mr. Trump should be held in contempt for violating a gag order, is far more likely to issue a warning or impose a fine before taking the extreme step of jailing the 77-year-old former president.)

Last week, as a result of the prosecution’s request, officials with federal, state and city agencies had an impromptu meeting about how to handle the situation, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

That behind-the-scenes conversation — involving officials from the Secret Service and other relevant law enforcement agencies — focused only on how to move and protect Mr. Trump if the judge were to order him briefly jailed for contempt in a courthouse holding cell, the people said.

The far more substantial challenge — how to safely incarcerate a former president if the jury convicts him and the judge sentences him to prison rather than home confinement or probation — has yet to be addressed directly, according to some of a dozen current and former city, state and federal officials interviewed for this article.

That’s at least in part because if Mr. Trump is ultimately convicted, a drawn-out and hard-fought series of appeals, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, is almost a certainty. That would most likely delay any sentence for months if not longer, said several of the people, who noted that a prison sentence was unlikely.

But the daunting challenge remains. And not just for Secret Service and prison officials, who would face the logistical nightmare of safely incarcerating Mr. Trump, who is also the presumptive Republican nominee for President.

“Obviously, it’s uncharted territory,” said Martin D. Horn, who has worked at the highest levels of New York’s and Pennsylvania’s state prison agencies and served as commissioner of New York City’s correction and probation departments. “Certainly no state prison system has had to deal with this before, and no federal prison has had to either.”

Steven Cheung, the communications director for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the case against the former president was “so spurious and so weak” that other prosecutors had refused to bring it, and called it “an unprecedented partisan witch hunt.”

“That the Democrat fever dream of incarcerating the nominee of the Republican Party has reached this level exposes their Stalinist roots and displays their utter contempt for American democracy,” he said.

Protecting Mr. Trump in a prison environment would involve keeping him separate from other inmates, as well as screening his food and other personal items, officials said. If he were to be imprisoned, a detail of agents would work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, rotating in and out of the facility, several officials said. While firearms are obviously strictly prohibited in prisons, the agents would nonetheless be armed.

Former corrections officials said there were several New York state prisons and city jails that have been closed or partly closed, leaving wings or large sections of their facilities empty and available. One of those buildings could serve to incarcerate the former president and accommodate his Secret Service protective detail.

Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, declined in a statement to discuss specific “protective operations.” But he said that federal law requires Secret Service agents to protect former presidents, adding that they use state-of-the-art technology, intelligence and tactics to do so.

Thomas J. Mailey, a spokesman for New York State’s prison agency, said his department couldn’t speculate about how it would treat someone who has not yet been sentenced, but that it has a system “to assess and provide for individuals’ medical, mental health and security needs.” Frank Dwyer, a spokesman for the New York City jails agency, said only that “the department would find appropriate housing” for the former president.

The trial in Manhattan, one of four criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump and possibly the only one that will go to a jury before the election, centers on accusations he falsified records to cover up a sex scandal involving a porn star. The former president is charged with 34 counts of felony falsifying business records. If convicted, the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, could sentence him to punishments ranging from probation to four years in state prison, though for a first-time offender of Mr. Trump’s age, such a term would be extreme.

If Mr. Trump is convicted, but elected president again, he could not pardon himself because the prosecution was brought by New York State.

Under normal circumstances, any sentence of one year or less, colloquially known as “city time,” would generally be served on New York City’s notorious Rikers Island, home to the Department of Correction’s seven jails. (That’s where Mr. Trump’s former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, 76, is currently serving his second five-month sentence for crimes related to his work for his former boss.)

Any sentence of more than a year, known as state time, would generally be served in one of the 44 prisons run by New York State’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

The former president could also be sentenced to a term of probation, raising the bizarre possibility of the former commander in chief reporting regularly to a civil servant at the city’s Probation Department.

He would have to follow the probation officer’s instructions and answer questions about his work and personal life until the term of probation ended. He would also be barred from associating with disreputable people, and if he committed any additional crimes, he could be jailed immediately.

 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
  • Drool 1
Posted
1 minute ago, Woland said:


He is angry because he is losing control of the narrative. Defending himself has nothing to do with presenting facts that support his arguments.

Attacks are the only defense he understands, in keeping with his narcissism.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

So, we are 2 hours or so into some testimony, from one witness.  And it's not going well for Trump.   Cross will be interesting, of course, but really, I don't think they will be able to refute much, if anything that Pecker has testifed to already.

Is there any wonder why his counsel kept stalling and delaying as much as possible?  Imagine, if we ever get a chance, what a federal trial will be like for Trump.

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Drool 3
Posted
4 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

So, we are 2 hours or so into some testimony, from one witness.  And it's not going well for Trump.   Cross will be interesting, of course, but really, I don't think they will be able to refute much, if anything that Pecker has testifed to already.

Is there any wonder why his counsel kept stalling and delaying as much as possible?  Imagine, if we ever get a chance, what a federal trial will be like for Trump.

eLEctIon INterFeREnCE!

  • Haha 2
Posted
11 minutes ago, C-Man said:

The trial in Manhattan, one of four criminal cases pending against Mr. Trump and possibly the only one that will go to a jury before the election

This statement is why folks are questioning the justice system’s ability to defend our Republic from a known and, perhaps existential, threat.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 2
Posted
23 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Steven Cheung, the communications director for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said the case against the former president was “so spurious and so weak” that other prosecutors had refused to bring it, and called it “an unprecedented partisan witch hunt.”

“That the Democrat fever dream of incarcerating the nominee of the Republican Party has reached this level exposes their Stalinist roots and displays their utter contempt for American democracy,” he said.

 

This fat fuck (Cheung, not the orange one) has never made a comment that wasn't some bullshit like this. If this is all he can say, the "journalists" need to stop quoting him. 

 

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
45 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

It should be pointed out that Pecker’s testimony isn’t just damaging to Trump. He is, in effect, laying waste to his own professional career by going through headline after headline and suggesting he attacked Trump’s rivals to aid Trump.

 

Pffft ... Tabloid exec?  

I have more respect for McDonald's Fry cooks.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Haha 1
Posted (edited)

And we are back after a break

 

Pecker says Cohen called him furiously denying that the child in question was Trump's, saying that he offered to take a DNA test and that because he was German-Irish and the woman was Hispanic, it was impossible for the child to be his.

To be clear, Pecker appeared to be saying that Cohen indicated that a child with a Hispanic mother couldn’t be Trump’s.


Trump has often talked about “good genes” and blood lines. While running for president, he has denigrated immigrants from Latin American countries and said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

 

Pecker is now being asked about Dino Sajudin, a doorman who worked at a Trump building and looked to sell a story — which was apparently false — about Trump fathering a child out of wedlock. This is the first of three catch-and-kill deals that Pecker is expected to describe and we will likely get a fair amount of detail on each of them.


This story clearly bothers Trump. Just like yesterday when it came up during opening statements, he frowned and shook his head.


Pecker says the love child story would have been a big story, and he believed it was important to have it “removed from the market.” Cohen told him “the boss would be very pleased.”

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Posted

Regardless of whether the allegation about Trump fathering the child was true or not, the jury is now being shown a contract the National Enquirer reached with Dino Sajudin, the doorman, in which the words “Donald Trump’s illegitimate child” feature prominently. Things like that can leave a mark.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Haha 6
Posted
5 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Regardless of whether the allegation about Trump fathering the child was true or not, the jury is now being shown a contract the National Enquirer reached with Dino Sajudin, the doorman, in which the words “Donald Trump’s illegitimate child” feature prominently. Things like that can leave a mark.

Is it just me, the simulation, or just the fact that trump hates the story so much that makes me wonder if Trump has fathered a child out of wedlock?

 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Haha 1
  • Drool 1
Posted

Steinglass, the prosecutor, is asking Pecker why he paid so much for this story. “I made the decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it would have to the campaign and Mr. Trump,” Pecker responds. This is catch-and-kill in a nutshell and Pecker just said several times in different ways that he was acting on Trump’s behalf.

  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
Posted
Just now, Dnaguy said:

Is it just me, the simulation, or just the fact that trump hates the story so much that makes me wonder if Trump has fathered a child out of wedlock?

 

considering his penchant for banging porn stars I'd bet it's more likely than not that he has at least one illegitimate child

  • Hook 'Em 6
Posted (edited)

We are fifteen minutes — at most — away from the end of the day. Steinglass, the prosecutor, appears to be putting a bow on the story of the doorman who sought to sell Trump’s story. But he moves on immediately to the second catch-and-kill deal, which involved the former Playboy model Karen McDougal. She, too, had story about Trump to sell.

 

Prosecutors like to end the day with the most intriguing question-and-answer series they can. I’d expected Steinglass to finish with the doorman, and perhaps allow the jurors to leave early. But by moving onto this next deal, he could be setting up a nice cliffhanger to leave jurors with, that he'll pick back up when we return Thursday morning.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 8
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

David Pecker tells the courtroom that he asked Dylan Howard, the former editor of The National Enquirer, to investigate Karen McDougal’s story and that he told Cohen he had done so. He seems to indicate his conversations with Cohen soon increased in frequency and the two men began to talk multiple times daily. Cohen said they should communicate over Signal, an encrypted app, which is often used for conversations that a person wants to keep private.


The jury is quite alert for this portion of Pecker’s testimony.

 

Trump’s body language changed when Pecker started testifying about the catch-and-kill deal involving McDougal. He started moving his head, squinting and pursing his lips, and then crossed his arms over his chest.

 

Pecker says he advised Trump to purchase McDougal’s story directly. “I think you should buy it,” he recalls having said to Trump, who was then a candidate for president. He says Trump said he’d think about it and have Cohen call Pecker back.

 

McDougal, by the way, was selling a story of having had an affair with Trump. Pecker concluded the day’s testimony by saying that Michael Cohen was becoming increasingly agitated as The National Enquirer editor, Dylan Howard, traveled to hear McDougal’s story. “It looked like he was getting a lot of pressure to get the answer, like, right away,” Pecker says of Cohen at the time.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
  • Hook 'Em 4
  • Like 1
Posted
20 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

Is it just me, the simulation, or just the fact that trump hates the story so much that makes me wonder if Trump has fathered a child out of wedlock?

 

Her name is Tiffany.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Haha 3
  • Drool 1
Posted
22 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

considering his penchant for banging porn stars I'd bet it's more likely than not that he has at least one illegitimate child

Not to insinuate that porn stars are always the brightest bulbs, but wouldn't they tend to be on birth control?

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

Francisco - just wanted to echo others and say thank you for posting these accounts of the trial. Really appreciated.

Just curious, where is this info coming from?

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
Posted
23 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

considering his penchant for banging porn stars I'd bet it's more likely than not that he has at least one illegitimate child

I mean, come on. Porn Stars probably have a pretty extensive understanding on birth control applications. 

It's much more likely that an out of wedlock child came from some poor soul he raped. Like some illegal that worked on one of his estates. 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
Posted

LOL, among the stack of articles that Trump is holding right now you could clearly see "The Daily Caller" on the masthead of one as he flipped through them.

  • Haha 2
Posted
I mean, come on. Porn Stars probably have a pretty extensive understanding on birth control applications. 

It's much more likely that an out of wedlock child came from some poor soul he raped. Like some illegal that worked on one of his estates. 

Rape, not rape, who knows. Plenty of women throw the dirty leg at dudes like him. When you are famous, they just let you grab em by the pussy (which actually is true to a certain extent).

Regardless, I’d be really surprised if he doesn’t have some extra kids somewhere.
Posted (edited)
40 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

To be fair, the justice system was never designed to or for protection of the Republic. It should work slow as state removal of liberty is big AF. 

The people through their congressional representatives were given the ability to impeach, remove, and restrict from office those who would imperil our system of government. There's no such thing as 'beyond a reasonable doubt' in politics.

However, half the people are broken in their brains. Partisan interests have trumped loyalty to the constitution due to monied gentry, religious zealots, and legally anthropomorphic corporations using their $ and power to pervert the very system of government meant to represent the people. Instead it represents entrenched wealth and ideologues who themselves prop up power hungry sociopaths who use politics as a personal means to enrich themselves. 

And therefore the only real lever designed to protect us has been perverted to the point where we have to rely of the justice system as a last resort.

I don’t agree the Justice system wasn’t designed to protect this Republic, which is based on law. Defending the law is a responsibility of the DoJ, and, thus, defends the Republic. Because of delays in starting an investigation into whether tfg engaged n insurrection, not to mention the delay, by SCOTUS, in clarifying immunity (especially compared with the CO ballot decree’s timeline,) whatever protection the 14th Amendment offers the Republic apparently will not be brought to bear.

State removal of liberty is absolutely big AF. The ability to run for office, is limited, however, and I don’t equate losing that ability to incarceration.

Edited by Willfully Horn
  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted
 
NYTimes website.  I have a sub, and they have a running narrative of the trial.  They have 3 reporters in the room (Jonah Bromwich, Maggie Haberman, Kate Christobek) and they each just add to the timeline.   Occasionally, one of them will expound upon the reporting of another.  I'm just copying/pasting; not always in chronological order.  They don't update it every minute; sometimes there might be 5-10 minutes between updates.
There's others who are reporting from the courtroom (or an annex) and using Twitter for their messaging.  I'm not including them here.
 
 
 
 

Outstanding. Thank you for your service.
  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted
31 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

considering his penchant for banging porn stars I'd bet it's more likely than not that he has at least one illegitimate child

And how many has he aborted along the way.

  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted

 

21 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

But by moving onto this next deal, he could be setting up a nice cliffhanger to leave jurors with, that he'll pick back up when we return Thursday morning.

Damn, no trial tomorrow? Also, thanks for posting, really appreciate it!!

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
Will Team Dotard also claim that he didn’t have sex with McDougal?

He ought to brag about that. She was one of my all time favorites from back in the day.
  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Drool 2
Posted

Seems like Cohen told stories about how Trump used mafia style intimidation like sending thugs to threaten in person?  Maybe that was Avenatti making some shit up.   If he was/is so frugal, seems very likely he'd send some heavy to lean on someone before buying someone out.  

I hope prosecution got some proof of that and will include it into evidence.

 

Posted
46 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Not to insinuate that porn stars are always the brightest bulbs, but wouldn't they tend to be on birth control?

it wasn't a direct correlation. my point was he has no morals so why would he stop at illegitimate children? the fact that he paid to kill the story tells me it's true. he doesn't pay for anything unless he has to. i mean, he's really frugal, after all. 🙄

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

Doubtful.  Trump's lawyers are just trying to downplay any malfeasance possible.

Well, what they were arguing is that there is not a conspiracy charge in the indictment.  But, the charged crime may incorporate an uncharged crime if the falsification of documents is in furtherance or for the purpose of committing another crime, which I think is thus far unspecified and only guessed at by the peanut gallery.

That crime might be a conspiracy between NE, Pecker and Trump to conceal information or some such.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted

Followup from the Times reporting of the trial:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/nyregion/national-enquirer-trump-trial-david-pecker.html?smid=url-share

 

The National Enquirer’s help for Trump broke norms, even for a tabloid.

 

The National Enquirer was more than a friendly media outlet for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. It was a powerful, national political weapon that was thrust into the service of a single candidate, in violation of campaign finance law.

The tabloid’s former publisher, David Pecker, testified nonchalantly on Tuesday about how the tabloid operated in tandem with the Trump campaign, “catching and killing” potentially damaging stories and running elaborate and false hit pieces on Mr. Trump’s opponents. But its practices were unusual even in the wild supermarket tabloid news game.

By the admission of The Enquirer’s own publisher — first made to federal prosecutors years ago during the prosecution of Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen — the tabloid was operating with the full intention of helping Mr. Trump’s campaign.

Under the First Amendment, newspapers are permitted to support candidates. But The Enquirer’s support went beyond journalism: The publication paid $150,000 for a story a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, was preparing to tell about an affair she said she had with the candidate. Then, it published nothing.

That sort of deal is not unusual in the tabloid news trade, even if it violates journalistic standards followed by mainstream American outlets like this one, which have rules against paying sources.

But before 2016, there had never been a known catch-and-kill deal to aid a presidential campaign. In that context, The Enquirer’s payment violated federal campaign laws prohibiting corporations from donating to presidential candidates — who are limited to receiving direct donations of $4,400 per person — and forbidding them to coordinate election-related spending with campaigns.

As The Enquirer’s parent company at the time, American Media, admitted in a “non-prosecution” deal with the federal government in 2018: “AMI knew that corporations such as AMI are subject to federal campaign finance laws, and that expenditures by corporations, made for purposes of influencing an election and in coordination with or at the request of a candidate or campaign, are unlawful.”

The deal helped secure Tuesday’s testimony.

(The Federal Election Commission later hit The Enquirer’s parent company with fines of $187,000; Mr. Trump’s campaign escaped sanction.)

The Enquirer was also providing a hidden value to Mr. Trump: By giving over its cover to his political needs, Mr. Pecker gave him the equivalent of free advertising space at most major supermarket checkout lines in the country, where the tabloid had long ago secured prime placement.

One expert said at the time that such exposure could be worth as much $3 million a month.

Worth potentially even more: The Enquirer’s agreement to keep from the checkout line not only Ms. McDougal’s story but the cache of Trump dirt it had in its own files — “tabloid gold” that would never see the light of day.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Rage+1 1


×
×
  • Create New...