Catch up on key takeaways after concluding day nine of Donald Trump's historic hush money trial.
Trump is fined and faces more later this week: Before the jury was convened Tuesday morning, Judge Juan Merchán fined Trump for nine violations ($1,000 each, the maximum allowed by law) of the judge's gag order prohibiting public discussion of the witnesses to the case or the jury. This came after prosecutors filed a motion to hold Trump in contempt over his social media posts and public comments about Cohen, Daniels and the makeup of the jury.
This won't be Trump's last run-in with Merchan's gag order. Last week, the district attorney's office cited four more comments by Trump that allegedly violated the order. Merchan has scheduled a hearing on those violations for Thursday. In his order, the judge warned Trump that he could be jailed if he continues to intentionally violate the gag order. Merchan could jail Trump for 30 days for finding him in contempt.
Daniels' lawyer takes the stand: keith Davidson, a Los Angeles-based attorney, represented Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels as they sought stories about her romantic relationships with Trump in 2016. He described in detail his conversations with then-American Media Inc. chief content officer Dylan Howard: Helped by text message exchanges between the two rich in details to help jog Davidson's memory, as he struck a $150,000 deal with AMI for the McDougal story and then struck a $130,000 deal directly with then-Trump fixer , Michael Cohen, for Daniels after AMI backed out.
The jury learns the documentary trail of Stormy Daniels' payment: Cohen's former banker, Gary Farro, returned Tuesday morning to explain to the jury Cohen's banking activity surrounding the payment to Daniels. Records show it took Cohen less than 24 hours to open an account for a shell company and use it to wire the money to Daniels' attorney. The banker also said that First Republic Bank closed all of Cohen's accounts, leaving only his existing mortgages with the institution, after news of Daniels' money payment became public.
Trump videos played for jury in court: Prosecutors used records custodians to introduce several video clips into evidence Tuesday morning.
- Three C-SPAN clips of Trump speaking at public events were played for the jury.
- Two clips from campaign events from October 2016 showed then-candidate Trump vehemently denying accusations from women who publicly accused him of sexual assault after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released earlier that month.
- In a clip from January 11, 2017, President-elect Trump praised Cohen.
- Fragments of Trump's October 2022 deposition taken for his defamation lawsuits against E. Jean Carroll were also admitted into evidence and presented to the court.
- Prosecutors also played a clip from the deposition where Trump described Truth Social as a platform he opened as an alternative to Twitter.
- In another clip, Trump answers questions confirming that he has been married to Melania Trump since 2005.
- Jurors also saw Trump identify himself as the speaker of the speech. “Access Hollywood” tape during that statement, although no video clip was played in relation to the question about the “Access Hollywood” tape, nor the tape itself. (The judge previously ruled that only a transcript of the audio could be admitted as evidence – not the video.)
Trump allies in court: Trump's son, Eric Trump, attended the trial, being the first relative of the former president to appear during the trial. Others present included: Trump campaign senior adviser Susie Wiles, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and David McIntosh, co-founder of conservative political groups including the Club for Growth.
Trump can attend his son's graduation: Before the trial began, Trump's lawyers had asked for May 17 to be taken off so that Trump could attend his son Barron's graduation. The judge had said he didn't yet know if that was possible, but on Tuesday Merchan said things were moving quickly enough that he felt comfortable not having court that day so Trump could attend graduation. Trump had previously attacked the judge for blocking him from attending Barron's graduation, even though the judge had only previously said that he was withholding a decision on the request.
