Trump trial turns rowdy as defense mounts its case in hush money trial

Trump complained that the hush money trial was preventing him from meeting with prospective running mates for November’s election.

“We have 15 people that I’m supposed to be meeting about being, who is going to be our vice president,” Trump said. “But I am stuck in the refrigerator all day.”

— Brett Samuels

Trump referred to Costello by name in comments to reporters after court adjourned for the day.

“You saw what happened to a highly respected lawyer today, Bob Costello. Wow,” Trump said.

It was a rare instance of Trump mentioning a witness by name. He is under a gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff and the judge’s family.

— Brett Samuels

Trump ripped Judge Merchan in the aftermath of Monday’s chaos involving defense witness Robert Costello.

“You saw what we saw. That was an incredible — I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom. “A tyrant. And everyone is talking about it.”

— Brett Samuels

After a heated back-and-forth between Trump’s attorneys and prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, the judge adjourned the trial for the day.

The defense asked for a dismissal of the 34 counts of falsifying business records Trump faces and urged the judge to deem prosecutors’s star witness, Michael Cohen, uncredible.

Prosecutors forcefully pushed back on the matter, claiming there is “no argument” for a dismissal.

Merchan reserved a decision on the matter before dismissing the parties.

The proceedings concluded Monday afternoon at about 5 p.m. Trump spent a few minutes talking to his legal team in the court room before leaving with his group of allies.

Court will resume tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.

— Ella Lee and Lauren Sforza

Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked the judge Monday to dismiss the 34 charges of falsifying business records against the former president.

Blanche argued that prosecutors did not meet the bar of proving that 11 invoices Cohen filed to Trump, 12 ledger entries and 11 checks Trump signed for Cohen were false.

He also pushed back on the prosecution’s broader theory of the case, insisting that the state’s description of several so-called “catch-and-kill” schemes, where negative stories about Trump were kept from becoming public, was not illegal.

“How is keeping a false story from the voters criminal?” Blanche said.

Blanche took specific aim at Cohen, asserting that he “lied in this courtroom” and asking the judge to deem him an uncredible witness as a matter of law.

“You want me to take it out of the jury’s hands?” Merchan asked. “It shouldn’t even be considered by the jury?”

“That’s exactly what we want the court to do,” Blanche said.

It is typical for defense attorneys to seek the dismissal of the case against their client when the prosecution rests and has presented all its evidence.

Prosecutors pushed back on the defense’s request, contending there is “extensive evidence of false records.”

“There’s just no argument,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said.

The judge reserved a decision on the matter.

— Ella Lee

The judge has dismissed the jury for the day, and Costello will retake the stand tomorrow.

Prosecutors said they have “45 minutes at the most” left of questioning, though Trump’s attorneys said they will have some questions afterward.

But they indicated the defense will rest early in the morning.

— Zach Schonfeld

Hoffinger sought to lay out reasons Cohen went with counsel other than Costello to represent him when cross-examining the lawyer.

She suggested to Costello that Cohen’s criminal prosecution was “traumatic,” which Costello originally denied before conceding that most criminal defendants find prosecution to be emotionally distressing.

“You thought he was being a drama queen,” Hoffinger said of Costello, which he denied.

“I didn’t know Michael Cohen. He was putting on quite a show,” Costello said, noting that Cohen had been suicidal at the time.

“You don’t like drama queens, do you?” Hoffinger further pressed.

“I didn’t know him,” Costello replied.

— Ella Lee

Emil Bove, Trump’s attorney, asked Costello if he put any pressure on Cohen to do anything.

Costello responded no. Moments later, Bove concluded his questioning, limited by the restrictions set by the judge.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger is now questioning Costello on cross-examination.

— Zach Schonfeld

The jury hearing Trump’s criminal case was dismissed for a second time so the judge could admonish Costello over his courtroom behavior.

Addressing the lawyer, Merchan said he wanted to discuss “proper decorum” in his courtroom.

“When there is an eyewitness on the stand, if you don’t like a ruling, you don’t say ‘Geez,’” Merchan said, later adding, “You don’t give me a side eye. You don’t roll your eyes. You understand that?”

Press had also been cleared from the courtroom before being let back in a short time later.

— Ella Lee

Defense attorneys’ questioning of Costello is already chipping away at the testimony Cohen gave earlier in the trial.

Costello described an April 2018 meeting with Cohen where the then-Trump fixer was “absolutely manic” and “pacing” as he detailed being federally investigated.

“He explained, ‘My life was shattered, my family life is shattered,’” Costello said of Cohen.

Trump attorney Emil Bove asked Costello what, if anything, Cohen said about Trump at that meeting. The lawyer said Cohen swore, “I don’t have anything on Donald Trump.”

“Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about the payments,” Costello said, adding that Trump’s then-fixer said he “did this on his own.”

Costello’s first minutes of testimony drew several objections from prosecutors, and Merchan appeared frustrated.

— Ella Lee

Costello, the former legal adviser to Cohen, will be allowed to testify, despite objections from prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Merchan said he did not wish for Costello’s testimony to become a “trial within a trial,” but ultimately decided to let the lawyer take the stand. Prosecutors can cross-examine him on prior existing statements, and the judge will give them “some latitude” to question him over the so-called “pressure campaign” Cohen accused him of carrying out regarding loyalty to Trump.

Costello is now back on the witness stand, wearing a blue tie.

— Ella Lee

Prosecutors are seeking to block Costello’s testimony, or at least severely limit the topics he can discuss.

Shortly after Trump’s lawyers called Costello to the stand, the jury was led out of the room so the judge can sort out what to do.

“If his testimony is admitted, it needs to be limited and restricted,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger told the judge. “They are not entitled to elicit Costello’s opinions about [Michael] Cohen’s credibility.”

Emil Bove, Trump’s attorney, said prosecutors had opened the door to Costello’s testimony.

“This testimony is being offered to rebut the government’s argument about a supposed pressure campaign. It’s the government’s theory,” Bove said.

— Zach Schonfeld

Robert Costello, a lawyer who once advised Cohen and acted as a go-between Trump’s White House and his exiled fixer, has been called as the defense’s second witness.

During the state’s case-in-chief, jurors saw emails from Costello to Cohen encouraging him to stay loyal to the former president as his legal woes mounted. Cohen described Costello’s behavior as a “pressure campaign” to keep him in line.

Danny Sitko, the legal analyst, testified for only about 10 minutes, mainly to confirm call records between Michael Cohen and Robert Costello.

— Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld

Trump has called to the stand as his first witness Danny Sitko, a legal analyst who works on the defense team with the former president’s main lawyers.

Sitko has attended the duration of the trial, often passing notes to the other lawyers. He works at Blanche Law, the eponymous law firm of Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche.

— Zach Schonfeld

Michael Cohen has been excused from the stand after four days of testimony.

— Zach Schonfeld

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger concluded her redirect examination of Cohen after asking him about the recording.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, is now back up questioning Cohen as his testimony nears a close.

— Zach Schonfeld

Jurors heard part of Michael Cohen’s audio recording of an October 2016 phone call with Keith Davidson, who represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal as they negotiated their hush money payments.

“I can’t even tell you how many times he said to me, you know, ‘I hate the fact that we did it,’” Cohen said in the recording.

On the stand, Cohen told prosecutors that he was referring to Trump.

“And my comment to him was, ‘But every person that you’ve spoken to told you it was the right move,’” Cohen continued in the recording.

— Zach Schonfeld

Prosecutors’ questioning of a C-SPAN employee did not provide a strong enough foundation to allow the introduction of a critical screenshot from an Oct. 24, 2016, video showing Trump and his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, together at the time Cohen testified they were, the judge said.

The determination led to a mad dash to get the witness, who is based in Indiana, back to New York City to close out the Manhattan district attorney’s case — to which defense attorneys objected.

But, after some discussion, the parties agreed to stipulate that the screenshot did originate from a C-SPAN video, preventing the witness from having to fly in by tomorrow morning to testify.

— Ella Lee

Trump attorney Todd Blanche indicated Trump’s defense team has at least one witness who will testify.

But he said his case would be short and there is a “likelihood we will rest today,” a signal that the former president does not plan to testify.

“We have a witness in the back,” Blanche said.

The parties are still sparring over the admissibility of alleged photos showing Trump and his bodyguard physically together in October 2016 at a key moment.

Prosecutors want to recall one of their witnesses to get it admitted, but he does not live in New York, so doing so would throw the schedule up in the air.

— Zach Schonfeld

Alina Habba, Trump’s legal spokesperson, said on Fox News that the former president wants to testify but cast doubts he will actually do so.

“He’s got to listen to his attorneys. It’s not as much what he wants to do; we know he wants to testify,” Habba said. “He’s willing, he is able, he is — nothing to hide at all. He’s absolutely ready to tell the truth. Frankly, I think the truth has already spoken.”

Habba is not one of Trump’s official attorneys on hush money case, but she has sat in the courtroom to observe multiple days of the trial.

“It’s pretty quick and it would be a pretty short testimony, as far as the questions that would need to be asked, because he had no part in this,” Habba said on Fox News.

— Zach Schonfeld

After jurors left for their lunch, the judge held arguments on the admissibility of alleged photos showing Trump with his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, on the evening of Oct. 24, 2016.

The date is key. Cohen had told jurors he spoke on the phone with Trump that night to inform him the hush money deal with Stormy Daniels was being finalized. But on cross-examination, Trump’s attorneys poked holes in that story, suggesting Cohen had instead talked with Schiller about harassing messages Cohen was receiving at the time from a 14-year-old.

Prosecutors want to introduce the photos to show jurors that Schiller and Trump were physically together that night, an effort to corroborate Cohen’s account that Schiller had passed the phone along to the former president.

The “defense should not be able to argue that Trump wasn’t there,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche said the photos were inadmissible because of hearsay issues.

“We never asked or implied that Mr. Schiller was or was not with Trump on that day,” Blanche noted. “What we implied is that the phone call was made to Schiller on a completely different topic.”

The judge said “I think” the photos are relevant but would continue discussions following the lunch break.

— Zach Schonfeld

The jury is taking its usual lunch break.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office just began its redirect examination of Cohen, widely viewed as its star witness. Prosecutors’ aim is to rehabilitate his credibility before resting their case in chief.

— Ella Lee

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger raised how Cohen earlier this year got caught using fake case citations generated through artificial intelligence (AI) in court.

Using Google Bard, Cohen had cited the fake cases as part of a motion seeking to end his supervised release early.

Hoffinger asked him if he intended to mislead anyone, to which Cohen responded “no.”

“It gave me a plethora of cases that appeared to me legitimate,” Cohen said.

“It certainly looked legitimate,” he continued. “After I copied and pasted the first three, I sent them to my lawyer’s office to review and incorporate into the document. I was trying to be helpful, anticipating they would look it over to make sure the info was correct and accurate.”

Click here for a deeper dive.

— Zach Schonfeld

Cohen described the differences between his role in Trump’s trial and his own criminal trial when prompted by Hoffinger.

“Are you actually on trial?” Hoffinger asked.

“No,” Cohen replied, noting he was subpoenaed to testify in Trump’s case.

“The other one, my life was on the line,” Cohen added. “My liberty – I was the defendant in the case. Here, I am just a nonparty subpoenaed witness.”

Defense attorneys contend Cohen takes pleasure and personal benefit from testifying against his ex-client, but his testimony defending his role in the trial undercuts those arguments.

— Ella Lee

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger returned to the line of questioning where Cohen earlier in the day admitted to stealing from the Trump Organization by falsely claiming he needed reimbursement for paying $50,000 to a tech firm, when Cohen had in fact only paid $20,000.

Hoffinger asked Cohen why he took the additional amount, to which the witness referenced how his annual bonus had been reduced from previous years.

“I was angry because of the reduction in the bonus, and so I felt it was almost like self-help,” Cohen said.

— Zach Schonfeld

Blanche concluded his questioning of Cohen shortly before noon Monday after asking him about his finances and interests in the outcome of the case.

Prosecutors will now start their redirect questions to Cohen, with Susan Hoffinger doing the questioning.

— Lauren Sforza

Blanche asked Cohen whether he was pitching a TV show about his life, titled “The Fixer.”

Cohen explained that he was not pitching the television show himself, but someone who used to be a part of his “Mea Culpa” podcast was. He said there were discussions of a crew coming to New York to film a teaser video for it.

He also noted that the show has not been picked up, before the court took its morning break just before 11:30 a.m. Blanche is set to resume his cross-examination after the short break.

— Lauren Sforza

Blanche pressed Cohen over the money he made before and after pleading guilty to several federal charges, including counts related to the allegations Trump now faces.

Cohen said that in the 2017-18 fiscal year, just before he was convicted, he made about $4 million.

After he pleaded guilty, he confirmed he made “no income” and had “deficiencies” from paying lawyers and living expenses.

But since 2020, when Cohen published his book and began his podcast, “Mea Culpa,” the ex-Trump fixer said he has also made about $4 million per year.

The admission lends to defense arguments that Cohen has profited off Trump’s legal misfortune and could dampen his credibility with jurors.

— Ella Lee

Cohen acknowledged to Trump attorney Todd Blanche that he previously claimed Trump was not personally involved in the hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

“You told multiple people when it first leaked that President Trump knew nothing about the payment,” Blanche said.

“That’s correct,” Cohen responded.

Cohen has since reversed his position, claiming he was lying at the time to help Trump.

— Zach Schonfeld

The jury has so far been attentive as Trump attorney Todd Blanche continues his cross-examination of Cohen.

Many of the jurors are taking notes as they watch the testimony.

— Lauren Sforza