Trump Indicted by Manhattan District Attorney

[RoseMorninStar]

To be fair, I haven't been particularly keeping up with the trial other than what I've been reading here and I'd heard about Trump's sleepiness and odor issues and I had no idea/was wondering what was being referred to, although it is TMI.

[N.E. Brigand]

To be fair, I haven't been particularly keeping up with the trial other than what I've been reading here and I'd heard about Trump's sleepiness and odor issues and I had no idea/was wondering what was being referred to although it is a little TMI.

The fact that he apparently fell asleep in court last week is newsworthy. The other item is best left to the comedians and, I would add for those who dislike Trump and hope he doesn't become president again: it's probably counterproductive. It's like the "Drumpf" jokes about how Trump's last name: its childishness could lead those who are on the fence about voting for him to dismiss legitimate criticism of him.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Exactly.

[RoseMorninStar]

To be fair, I haven't been particularly keeping up with the trial other than what I've been reading here and I'd heard about Trump's sleepiness and odor issues and I had no idea/was wondering what was being referred to although it is a little TMI.

The fact that he apparently fell asleep in court last week is newsworthy. The other item is best left to the comedians and, I would add for those who dislike Trump and hope he doesn't become president again: it's probably counterproductive. It's like the "Drumpf" jokes about how Trump's last name: its childishness could lead those who are on the fence about voting for him to dismiss legitimate criticism of him.

I understand/get that/agree, but I had been wondering if it (the odor references) were based on reality or if they were a mockery of sorts.

[Sunsilver]

Since the same issue was also reported by people who worked with him on *The Apprentice, it could mean there are some legitimate issues with his health.
Everybody breaks wind now and then, but this sounds like it was way beyond what would be considered normal.

Or, as Rose suggests, it may have been exaggerated by those who dislike him...

Anyway, more important things to worry about with this trial! But it does make me feel some sympathy for his legal team.

Edited to add: childishness...yeah, like the comments about 'Sleepy Joe', etc. Both sides are quite guilty of this, though for some reason I've heard Biden targeted more often than Trump.

* Have tried to find verification for this, and have found a video from someone who worked on the set saying Donald wore diapers, but I'm very reluctant to accept this at face value, without more proof. Not going any further with this. We have to be better than the 'other side'.

[N.E. Brigand]

To be fair, I haven't been particularly keeping up with the trial other than what I've been reading here and I'd heard about Trump's sleepiness and odor issues and I had no idea/was wondering what was being referred to although it is a little TMI.

The fact that he apparently fell asleep in court last week is newsworthy. The other item is best left to the comedians and, I would add for those who dislike Trump and hope he doesn't become president again: it's probably counterproductive. It's like the "Drumpf" jokes about how Trump's last name: its childishness could lead those who are on the fence about voting for him to dismiss legitimate criticism of him.

I understand / get that /agree, but I had been wondering if it (the odor references) were based on reality or if they were a mockery of sorts.

As far as I can tell, we don't know. The claims have only come from independent opinion commentators (allegedly based on sources, but who knows), and no serious professional reporter has touched it. To be sure, reporters seem to be uninquisitive or squeamish about Donald Trump's personal details not just when they don't matter (as here) but even when they do. We never learned much that seemed reliable about Trump's medical status. Reporters only get as far as confirming that the information that was presented was suspicious (e.g., the late Dr. Borstein's letter that Trump dictated in 2016), and then they seem to give up.

[Sunsilver]

That's true, N.E. We do know his diet is pretty horrible, and he's obviously overweight. His sole exercise seems to be playing golf, which doesn't do a lot for you when you ride in a golf cart.

[N.E. Brigand]

National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified today that he did indeed have an informal agreement with Donald Trump in 2015 to publish derogatory stories about Trump's opponents and to purchase and suppress derogatory stories about Trump. The heart of this trial lies with the latter effort -- which as Pecker acknowledged, was not financially beneficial to him (i.e., it was done specifically to help Trump's campaign) -- but to demonstrate the general pattern, prosecutors showed the jury a variety of Enquirer headlines that supported for the former effort, notably including trashy articles about Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. The stories about Cruz included claims that he had hired prostitutes and that Cruz's father might be involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Today Pecker admitted that the latter story was a complete fabrication.

At the time, Cruz had very strong words about these stories, which he (correctly) said Trump was behind. I never saw this quote from Cruz about Trump before: "He's a man for whom a term was coined for copulating with a rodent. Well let me be clear, Mr. Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. And this garbage does not belong in politics."

[N.E. Brigand]

Actual National Enquirer headline from that period: "It's Over for Pervy Ted".

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not seeing the word "conspiracy" in either of those documents.

And yet, the very first statement in the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo's opening statement was ""This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover up."

This issue came up again today. The defense objected to the admission of an exhibit that included some correspondence with Steve Bannon on hearsay grounds. The prosecutors argued (and the judge mostly agreed) that the material was admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule that allows the admission of out of court statements made in the furtherance of a criminal conspiracy, on the basis that although none of the charges alleged in the indictment are conspiracy charges, among the underlying laws that make the charges a felony is a New York law that makes it illegal for two or more people to conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person by illegal means, and that Bannon was part of that conspiracy.

[N.E. Brigand]

Sometimes it seems as if there's a symbiotic relationship between Donald Trump and reporter Maggie Haberman of the New York Times. She's printed lots of unflattering stories about him, but he keeps giving her interviews, and he's clearly been an anonymous source for some of her reporting, in what some media critics feel is a tactic of leaking flashy details to her in an effort to deflect from duller but more serious issues. I don't know if that's in play with a Truth Social post today in which Trump refers to Haberman as "Maggot Hagerman" -- an insult I see that he's used for her going back to at least 2022 -- as he complains about Haberman having reported today that Trump is disappointed that so few people have come out to support him in his time of tribulation. He repeats claims he made earlier today about thousands of fans supposedly being turned back by police who have closed down the roads around the courthouse. But as can be seen here and here, the road in front of the court is open, and there's a place for people to gather and have their say. They just aren't.

Also, charity begins at home! He apparently can't even get the support of his family members, none of whom have joined him at the courthouse.

[N.E. Brigand]

Actual Fox News caption: "Witness: Trump Dated Beautiful Women."

[N.E. Brigand]

I think you could use this as the beat for a pop song. It's almost hypnotic:



That's a snippet of something Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba posted on social media today.

And here she is on Newsmax explaining the impropriety of Judge Merchan's comments in this morning's hearing.

[N.E. Brigand]

One of the stories about Donald Trump for which David Pecker and the National Enquirer engaged in a "catch and kill" is widely understood to be false. Late in 2015, the Enquirer paid $30,000 to Dino Sajudin, a doorman at one of Trump's buildings, for the exclusive rights to a rumor that he had heard that Donald Trump had had an affair with and fathered a child by a former housekeeper. The Enquirer never published that story. Pecker today said that he paid Sajudin, despite not believing the story was true, in order to help Trump win the election, because if the Enquirer didn't pay, then another outlet might publish it instead. Pecker said he would have published it after the election had he believed it to be true.

And at some point after Trump won the 2016 election, the Enquirer's period of exclusivity ended, and Sajudin's story was reported by the Associated Press and the New Yorker, both of which indicated that they were unable to find any corroborating evidence. In fact, the housekeeper denied having had an affair with Trump.

But here's something curious. Pecker testified today that Michael Cohen told him in 2015 that the story couldn't be true because a child with a Hispanic mother couldn't be Trump's. (I'm not using quotation marks because I'm working from a reporter's notes on today's testimony.)

That reminds me of Cohen saying in 2017 that Donald Trump couldn't have raped his first wife, Ivana, in 1989, as she had testified in a deposition during their divorce proceedings, because marital rape was legal at the time. That wasn't true. New York, where Ivana had said the rape occurred, had outlawed marital rape in 1984. (Marital rape was finally outlawed nationally in 1993. Yes, it was as recent as that.) What is true is that Ivana later modified her claims to say that Donald didn't rape her but she did feel "violated" by what he had done to her on that occasion.

[N.E. Brigand]

Some early reporting on this whole situation:

[Frelga]

Is "the staff" going to testify?

I have not considered this.

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[Voronwë the Faithful]

He's not going to prison in this case. A prison sentence for a first time offender on these charges would be contrary to usual practice.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is "the staff" going to testify?

I haven't looked at the full list of prosecution witnesses, but the most important Enquirer staffer (besides the owner, David Pecker) involved in the pro-Trump "catch and kill" scheme is the tabloid's former editor, David Howard, who lives in Australia and has a physical condition that makes it impossible for him to travel. I don't know what New York's rules are about remote testimony in such a case, but I don't think prosecutors intend to call him.

As for the story about how the Secret Service would handle a Donald Trump imprisonment, while that's been a background item in many stories over the past few years, it became more urgent because if Judge Merchan were to find Trump in contempt, the only remedies permitted by New York law are a $1,000 fine or a 30-day jail sentence. And while the fine is apparently per instance, and prosecutors listed about ten examples in yesterday's hearing, even with his other financial problems, Trump would have no difficulty paying $10,000 or even $100,000. Yet as V noted yesterday, prosecutors are explicitly not asking for jail time.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think Howard or the rest of the staff gets them anything they can't get from Pecker.

[N.E. Brigand]

Michael Cohen announced today that he won't be posting or saying anything further about Donald Trump publicly until after his testimony.

I think he should wait until after verdict.