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Posted
2 hours ago, Red Five said:

And Eric is supposed to actually be the smart one.

Never heard anyone say that before. Not that it makes any difference because they’re all morons. 

Posted
3 minutes ago, immamac said:

they have him pretty dead to rights on the charges here. 

You sure about that? 

I don't even know what the alleged illegality is, but you think it's a fine deal? 

Paying off a chick to keep her from talking about an affair doesn't sound like election interference to me... But you think 12 people will all not have a reasonable doubt that it is? 

 

 

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Posted

They literally paid her to shut up nearing an impending election.  That's of material value to the campaign, and well above allowable limits.  How is that not a violation?

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Posted

He's on trial for falsifying business records to cover up the payoff.  All the election interference, affair cover up stuff is just to make it look more interesting.

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Posted
28 minutes ago, ChiTownDoc said:

We don’t even know what all underlying issues could potentially lead to dementia - we do know that stress makes pretty much everything worse.  
As for stress…fatfuck thrives in chaos - that’s not necessarily stress for him. But sitting in court with people talking shit on you all day and actual peasants (how he sees them) deciding your fate?  Thats maximum stress for this POS.  MOARRRR

And a lot of these witnesses are people whom he either employed or worked with and thought we’re loyal to him. While he believes he has the right to turn on people and throw them under the bus to save his ass, it clearly drives him crazy that these same people might throw him under the bus to save their asses.

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Posted
15 minutes ago, Slacks said:

You sure about that? 

I don't even know what the alleged illegality is, but you think it's a fine deal? 

Paying off a chick to keep her from talking about an affair doesn't sound like election interference to me... But you think 12 people will all not have a reasonable doubt that it is? 

 

 

Have you read the charges? It’s not gonna matter that he’s convicted or found guilty. 

Posted
19 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Yeah it’s not THAT she got paid, it’s HOW she got paid that is the alleged illegality. 

 Because the the statute of limitations expired on his very obvious and concrete felony violation of campaign finance laws. 

Posted
On 4/23/2024 at 7:42 PM, LTbear said:

I had the same reaction to that tweet. All his stupidity but much better grammar. Am I stupid or is there an insanity where he starts claiming he didn't actually write the tweets and that therefore whatever his Truth Social Manager types doesn't have any bearing on a gag order...

Maybe he installed Grammarly on his phone?

Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

I’m curious to how they can even bring supporting character witnesses in. They can all be proven to be completely full of shit on cross rather easily. Trump is indefensible and they have him pretty dead to rights on the charges here. 

I’m hoping the prosecution reads trump’s mean tweets about the person that is his character witness during their cross examination followed by the question: what is your reaction to this?

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Posted
20 minutes ago, Superhero said:

Maybe he installed Grammarly on his phone?

Does Grammarly have an angry malignant narcissist tone in the latest version?

Posted
1 hour ago, Felix said:

He's on trial for falsifying business records to cover up the payoff.  All the election interference, affair cover up stuff is just to make it look more interesting.


all dumb ass had to do was pay CASH 

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Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

I’m curious to how they can even bring supporting character witnesses in. They can all be proven to be completely full of shit on cross rather easily. Trump is indefensible and they have him pretty dead to rights on the charges here. 

Character witnesses aren't a big deal in criminal trials, or really any trials because putting them on opens the door to the prosecution to bring its own character evidence in.

And, they may serve a purpose with a defendant unknown to the jury, but not with Trump.  There's no character witness alive that could change anyone's mind on Trump.

The incongruous bits of the case are that the records in question were falsified, but to whom?  They aren't public records or of a publicly traded company. The answer to that one is to anyone investigating the books, like here.

But the real rub may be using the federal crime (election/campaign violations) as the "predicate" to raise the falsifying businesits records to a felony. The jury may not bite on that.

Posted
2 hours ago, Slacks said:

You sure about that? 

I don't even know what the alleged illegality is, but you think it's a fine deal? 

Paying off a chick to keep her from talking about an affair doesn't sound like election interference to me... But you think 12 people will all not have a reasonable doubt that it is? 

Tell us you have no idea about anything without telling us you have no idea about anything.  Low info citizens are the death of the republic.  

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Posted
Tell us you have no idea about anything without telling us you have no idea about anything.  Low info citizens are the death of the republic.  
It's crazy all the career ending shit that Trump just stumbles through and it's considered NBD. Gary Hart, Howard Dean, Al Fraken, comedian, with an I'll advised tittie honk. Toast; career over. Trump- polls improve . Nutso.
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Posted (edited)

A good piece on Pecker's final day of testimony and an opinion that "standard operating procedure" is too sleazy to work on the jury. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/standard-operating-procedure-sure-seems-criminally-sleazy

Also contains something I think was missing from the day-by-day narrative posted by Francisco:  

All of which is why AMI consulted with an election law attorney before the McDougal agreement was finalized, Pecker explains. 

But as far as Pecker knows, the election law attorney only reviewed the plain text of McDougal’s contract, which didn’t mention anything about Pecker’s arrangement with Trump and Cohen or his expectation that he would be reimbursed for buying McDougal’s story.

Kaboom.

Also, a good piece, citing to Jack Balkin's (a real, live crit, by the way, meaning CLS scholar) and Steve Vladeck's blogs. on why the reportage of the immunity argument at SCOTUS was hysterical and catastrophizing.  https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/catastrophizing-the-oral-argument-in-trump-v.-u.s

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
3 hours ago, Slacks said:

Paying off a chick to keep her from talking about an affair doesn't sound like election interference to me.

Holy fuck! It doesn’t? What in the fuck does if that doesn’t?

I can’t believe anyone would say what you just said.

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Posted
1 hour ago, TheRealRonWeaver? said:


There’s a “smart one?”

I picture Trump's legal team prepping Eric for testimony in one of these trials like the dumbass in 'Stripes'

"Here's what we need you to say, Eric.  As the smart one in the family."

Eric, "Uh, there was one?"  

Posted
5 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

They literally paid her to shut up nearing an impending election.  That's of material value to the campaign, and well above allowable limits.  How is that not a violation?

I didn't have the law in front of me, but I bet proving the intent to subvert / interfere with the election is not easy.

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Posted
3 hours ago, Born to Run said:

It's crazy all the career ending shit that Trump just stumbles through and it's considered NBD. Gary Hart, Howard Dean, Al Fraken, comedian, with an I'll advised tittie honk. Toast; career over. Trump- polls improve . Nutso.

it’s really fucking nuts when you think about what Gary Hart did on the Monkey Business.

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Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Born to Run said:

It's crazy all the career ending shit that Trump just stumbles through and it's considered NBD. Gary Hart, Howard Dean, Al Fraken, comedian, with an I'll advised tittie honk. Toast; career over. Trump- polls improve . Nutso.

I read something about that guy somewhere...

Spoiler

RIP  Compleat Angler 

also nsfw

Spoiler

2351706055_d0a759449b_b.jpg

 

 

Edited by locodos
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Posted (edited)

Good morning from the Manhattan courthouse where the third week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, and the second week of testimony, is set to begin in less than an hour. Today’s first witness will be Gary Farro, a banker who worked with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, as Cohen initiated the series of transactions that would result in a hush money payment to a porn star just weeks before Election Day in 2016. Farro began testifying on Friday.

 

There are more pro-Trump protesters outside the courthouse than we’ve seen so far, a few dozen or so. But it’s still a relatively small gathering.

 

Several dozen raucous Trump supporters gathered in Collect Pond Park across the street from the courthouse, wearing red hats and waving big flags. They cheered for a small procession of vehicles flying Trump flags, led by a large pickup truck with a decal of a bound President Biden on the back gate. But the arrival of Trump’s motorcade just before 9 a.m., blocked from view by N.Y.P.D. vehicles, elicited no reaction.

 

The paralegals for the prosecution have arrived, wheeling their cartful of exhibits. It feels tense in here this morning, the start of a new week. Three sketch artists are arrayed on the bench in front of me, preparing the backdrops of their drawings now, before the main characters arrive.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Good morning from the Manhattan courthouse where the third week of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial, and the second week of testimony, is set to begin in less than an hour. Today’s first witness will be Gary Farro, a banker who worked with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, as Cohen initiated the series of transactions that would result in a hush money payment to a porn star just weeks before Election Day in 2016. Farro began testifying on Friday.

 

There are more pro-Trump protesters outside the courthouse than we’ve seen so far, a few dozen or so. But it’s still a relatively small gathering.

So those protesters are ok, it’s the students and brown people that aren’t? Trying to understand conservative protesting rules 

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Posted

Let's just wait until a few heavily armed people show up determined to stop the trial and shoot a few dozen bystanders, cops, and legal staff.  Then maybe we can decide how to handle it...not!

Posted
10 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

A good piece on Pecker's final day of testimony and an opinion that "standard operating procedure" is too sleazy to work on the jury. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/standard-operating-procedure-sure-seems-criminally-sleazy

Also contains something I think was missing from the day-by-day narrative posted by Francisco:  

All of which is why AMI consulted with an election law attorney before the McDougal agreement was finalized, Pecker explains. 

But as far as Pecker knows, the election law attorney only reviewed the plain text of McDougal’s contract, which didn’t mention anything about Pecker’s arrangement with Trump and Cohen or his expectation that he would be reimbursed for buying McDougal’s story.

Kaboom.

Also, a good piece, citing to Jack Balkin's (a real, live crit, by the way, meaning CLS scholar) and Steve Vladeck's blogs. on why the reportage of the immunity argument at SCOTUS was hysterical and catastrophizing.  https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/catastrophizing-the-oral-argument-in-trump-v.-u.s

The lawfare piece is very good. Thanks.

Posted
So those protesters are ok, it’s the students and brown people that aren’t? Trying to understand conservative protesting rules 

Free speech is a-ok as long as it’s speech they agree with.
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Posted (edited)

Gary Farro, the banker who testified Friday and is continuing today, is back on the stand. Farro is testifying about Michael Cohen’s efforts to set up a financial account that was used to pay Stormy Daniels. The jurors have just been let in.

 

Juan Merchan, the judge, begins by saying Trump can have May 17 to attend the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron. Trump had complained about not immediately being given permission. “I don’t think the May 17 date is a problem,” the judge says.

 

Trump had been upset about potentially missing the graduation, and had attacked the judge in the hallway after Justice Merchan put off a decision about it.

 

The judge had said from the beginning that Trump could attend the graduation ceremony if he felt the trial was moving ahead quickly. Clearly, he feels the trial is on schedule.

 

Justice Merchan says he has reached a ruling on whether Trump violated the gag order. We don’t know what it is yet.

 

The judge says the people have met their burden of proof on some violations and fines Trump $2,000 to begin with. There are more fines coming.

Justice Juan M. Merchan cruised over that quickly, but what just happened should not be overlooked. Trump has been found in contempt and fined what seems to be at least $5,000. The way it was presented was very hard to follow so we’ll confirm the number as soon as we can.

 

 

Trump has arrived in court, with a much larger entourage than usual in tow, including his son Eric, the first family member to join him during this trial.

 

Trump is also joined by Susie Wiles, his top campaign adviser, and Dan Scavino, his longtime aide. Trump is now whispering to his son Eric.

 

This is the first time we’ve seen such a group of supportive people around Trump, and it adds to the tension in the room. Trump is whispering to his lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, while sitting at the defense table.

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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Posted
Just now, Francisco 2.0 said:

The judge says the people have met their burden of proof on some violations and fines Trump $2,000 to begin with. There are more fines coming.

That'll teach him.

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Posted (edited)

During the break, the lawyers have continued to discuss the case with the judge. Now, a prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, rises and says that if Trump testifies, the prosecution would seek to cross-examine him about the judge’s ruling on the gag order. This issue will be argued at length sometime later — and possibly not even today — but Colangelo raises it now.

And we are on a break. The jurors are excused.

After briefly consulting with his defense team and leaning down to whisper to Trump, Todd Blanche asked Gary Farro directly if he ever had any communications with Michael Cohen about Trump and if he ever spoke with Trump himself. Farro said no.

 

We are done with Gary Farro and he steps down from the witness stand.

Todd Blanche has finished his cross-examination of Gary Farro, and Rebecca Mangold, a prosecutor, has returned for re-direct questioning.

And Blanche is back up for a quick re-cross-examination.

 


Todd Blanche has seemed most comfortable when attacking Michael Cohen. That was true of his opening statement, and it’s true here, too. It was really interesting to see the way he redirected Farro’s irritation toward Cohen. Now Farro himself seems a bit calmer, almost as if he understands it’s not his credibility the defense is challenging; it’s Cohen’s.

Todd Blanche offers up a term that's new to me: “PEP,” or “politically exposed person.”

Jurors are hearing a lot of bank lingo today. Todd Blanche isn’t asking Gary Farro to spelling out all the acronyms he is using.

 

Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, has now hit upon a clever line of questioning, harnessing Gary Farro’s irritation to the defense’s advantage. The lawyer suggests that Farro opened up a shell corporation, and Farro bites back: “I dont open up shell corporations. I open up L.L.C. accounts.” Blanche is directing jurors' focus to what Michael Cohen did -- that is, effectively start a shell corporation that was used to pay Stormy Daniels. This is a savvy way to attack Cohen through Farro, making the former fixer sound deceptive and potentially criminal.

One thing to underscore for readers: it is impossible to discern or know how the jurors are interpreting what they’ve heard in testimony over the last two weeks.

Trump nodded along affirmatively to this line of questioning.

Todd Blanche’s cross-examination of Gary Farro is a bit difficult to follow, as he tries to cast doubt on Michael Cohen but gets stuck in the weeds of the financial documents about which Farro testified. Other than casting doubt on Cohen here, it’s not always clear what Blanche is trying to accomplish. But he seems to have succeeded in irritating Farro, who is a bit punchy on the witness stand.

 

Blanche is now trying to separate Cohen's actions from Trump's, arguing that the account was never established as related to Trump. We are in many ways seeing the crux of the defense's argument laid out here: that Cohen was freelancing.


Eric Trump, in the courtroom today, is sitting directly behind his father (who has been listening to much of this morning’s testimony with his eyes closed). He has been following along, in part, by watching monitors in the room, which display some of the documents in the case.

 

Todd Blanche, in what I expect may be a short cross-examination, is trying to do a couple of different things -- both cast some doubt on Gary Farro’s testimony and use him to criticize Michael Cohen. He asks Farro to say again that Cohen was a “difficult client.” Farro agrees that he was.

In his cross-examination, Todd Blanche seems to be trying to plant in the jurors’ minds that Michael Cohen was a volatile, unreliable client, unworthy of the bank’s business.

 

Trump shook his head pointedly when the banker Gary Farro talked about a meeting with prosecutors he had in Washington ahead of his testimony today.

Gary Farro has been seemingly unfazed during his time on the stand, and even occasionally funny. For example, when Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer, asked him about speaking with “the people,” i.e. the prosecutors, Farro said he didn't know what that term meant. The “people” at the prosecutors’ table smiled.

Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, will now cross-examine Gary Farro. It’s Blanche’s first cross-examination during this trial.

This is the first time we’ve seen Blanche speak since the hearing last week in which he sought to argue that Trump had not violated the judge’s gag order. Blanche lost that hearing, and though he got a small victory in the judge’s warning to potential witnesses, he ultimately failed: Trump was held in contempt.

 

Rebecca Mangold, one of the prosecutors, is walking the banker Gary Farro through a wire transfer that occurred immediately after Essential Consultants L.L.C. was created. The documents being displayed in court show that on Oct. 27, 2016, Michael Cohen and the L.L.C. wired $130,000 to Keith Davidson, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer at the time. Cohen wrote that the purpose of the wire transfer was for a “retainer.”

Farro’s testimony is a great reminder that moving money around always leaves an electronic footprint. There are wire transfers and so much other paperwork inside the bank. Doesn’t always stop a fraud from happening but sure comes in handy after the fact.

Michael Cohen set up Essential Consultants L.L.C. to pay Stormy Daniels, but after Trump became president he repurposed the company to trade on his purported access. He received hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees through the L.L.C. from clients including AT&T, Korea Aerospace, and Columbus Nova, an investment company run by the American cousin of a Russian oligarch. These transactions eventually caught the attention of federal investigators working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Most of these clients ultimately concluded Cohen couldn’t deliver the access to Trump he had promised.

 

Gary Farro’s testimony may be dry but it’s important. The government has to convince the jury that false financial entries were made in furtherance of another crime. Farro is walking the jury through some of that now.

We are now looking at an email from a First Republic banker to Michael Cohen, flagged as “high importance,” confirming his request to transfer $131,000 from his home equity line of credit account to the Essential Consultants L.L.C. account.

 

First Republic Bank did not do business with the porn industry, as Farro testified last week. If the paperwork Cohen submitted had made allusions to its actual purpose, “there would be a determination made by the second and third line of defense” at the bank. The payment would have been flagged by bank auditors, as “it is an industry that we do not work with,” said Farro.

Gary Farro, Michael Cohen’s former banker, is testifying. It's quite dry — he is talking about LLCs and know-your-client forms. The government lawyer questioning him has asked him to spell out what LLCs, limited liability companies, are. Know-your-client forms are used by banks to verify who a client is. 

“Everything was urgent with Michael Cohen,” Gary Farro testifies about Cohen’s interest in opening his account quickly. Cohen used the account to make the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.

This testimony from Farro is exceedingly dry. But he is establishing the subterfuge used by Cohen to set up this account, and noting that he did not make it clear that it would be used to pay a porn star.

 

Justice Merchan wrote that he was “keenly aware of, and protective of, Defendant’s First Amendment rights.” But nonetheless, he wrote that he would not tolerate continued violations of his orders and that if necessary and appropriate, he would “impose an incarceratory sentence.” In plain language, he is warning Trump that he will send him to jail if necessary.

 

It was very clear that Justice Merchan did not want to make a scene in court, and he breezed over his order so quickly that it was hard to tell just how much Trump had been fined. I did not hear him say that the former president had been held in contempt — though he was. But we zipped right over it and got back to the trial proper.

One note in the judge’s order that would be easy to miss pertains to witnesses using the gag order “as a sword instead of a shield.” This appears to be a reference mostly to Michael D. Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, who has attacked Trump online just as Trump has attacked him. The judge seems to be suggesting that, if necessary, he might consider adjusting the gag order to loosen restrictions on attacking Cohen if Cohen keeps up his own attacks.

Of note — Justice Merchan explicitly called Trump’s claim that reposts don’t count as violations of the gag order “counterintuitive and absurd.”

Justice Merchan rejected the defense’s claims that Trump had merely reposted the messages from others and that he had largely been acting in response to political attacks from two potential witnesses in the case: Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

In addition to fining Trump after finding him in contempt, Justice Merchan ordered him to remove the offending Truth Social posts today.

 

 

Edited by Francisco 2.0
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Posted
9 hours ago, Slacks said:

I didn't have the law in front of me, but I bet proving the intent to subvert / interfere with the election is not easy.

Jesus Fucking Christ.  Just try to keep up a little man. 

Posted
Just now, Red Five said:

It’s going to be hilarious when he doesn’t go to that.

Judge called his bluff.  Nobody is madder about this than Trump, except possibly Barron. (what a fucking stupid name)

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Posted
3 minutes ago, South Austin said:

$50 says he turns Baron's graduation into a fundraiser.

or go do a campaign stop and say he can't go the graduation because of the court case and needs to campaign instead.

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