Trump prosecutors maintain witness schedule secret to keep away from ex-president’s assaults
Decide warns Trump of potential jail time for violating gag order
Artist: Jane Rosenberg
Donald Trump‘s prosecutors are protecting their witness schedule secret with the intention to cease the previous president from concentrating on upcoming witnesses in his New York prison hush cash trial, they stated Monday.
“The defendant has been violating the order limiting extrajudicial speech, and we didn’t need to have the witnesses’ names, the following witnesses’ names on the market,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass informed the choose in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom.
To keep away from the names being “on the market,” the prosecution is notifying protection attorneys who the following witnesses are someday earlier than they’re referred to as to testify, Steinglass stated.
The District Lawyer’s workplace has not launched an anticipated witness checklist to the general public.
This provides an additional layer of suspense to the dramatic trial, as one after the other, prosecutors reveal who can be subsequent on the stand.
Steinglass rejected protection claims that Trump is at an unfair drawback as a result of his workforce just isn’t offered with a full schedule of when every witness is anticipated to testify.
“They’ve had the witness checklist and the exhibit checklist for a very long time,” he informed Decide Juan Merchan after the jury went house for the day.
Steinglass stated he did not need it to seem like prosecutors had been “in some way sandbagging the protection.”
Trump is sure by a gag order that bars him from talking about witnesses and jurors — however Merchan has already held him in contempt of court docket 10 instances for violating the order.
The newest contempt citations had been issued Monday morning, earlier than the jury was seated.
Merchan warned Trump that future violations of court docket orders would land the previous president in jail.
“The very last thing I need to do is to place you in jail,” Merchan stated to Trump. However “I’ll, if obligatory.”
As Trump left the courthouse, he appeared to counsel he doesn’t plan to cease violating the gag order.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures whereas he walks along with his legal professional Todd Blanche, as his prison trial over prices that he falsified enterprise information to hide cash paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 continues, at Manhattan state court docket in New York Metropolis, U.S., Could 6, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
“Frankly, our structure is much extra vital than jail … I’ll do this selection any day,” Trump stated, a reference to his claims that the gag order deprives him of his proper to free speech.
New insights
Steinglass’ convention with the choose capped of a day of testimony from Trump Group insiders who described how the secretive firm operates. Additionally they testified in regards to the enterprise information on the middle of District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s historic case.
Former Trump Group controller Jeff McConney was the most important witness of the day.
A number of instances, prosecutors pressed him in regards to the uncommon circumstances of the reimbursement funds the corporate made to Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen.
Trump is charged with falsifying enterprise information to cover the reimbursements to Cohen, who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly earlier than the 2016 presidential election to bury her declare that she and Trump had intercourse in 2006.
McConney testified that Cohen despatched invoices that weren’t submitted to the corporate’s authorized division, despite the fact that that division usually reviewed payments for authorized companies.
He additionally testified that he by no means noticed a retainer settlement for Cohen associated to these funds.
That is vital as a result of Bragg alleges Trump falsified information of the Cohen reimbursements, by reporting them as funds for authorized companies offered below a retainer settlement.
McConney additionally stated he was instructed to “gross up” the funds to Cohen to cowl Cohen’s anticipated taxes on the cash. On prime of that, Cohen received one other $60,000 bonus, for a complete of $420,000 in funds.
McConney testified that he couldn’t consider one other occasion the place an expense reimbursement was doubled to cowl anticipated taxes.
Trump’s tenth contempt quotation
Merchan kicked off the day with a dire warning to Trump: Cease violating the court docket’s orders, or you can be thrown in jail.
The ultimatum got here lower than every week after the choose held Trump in contempt of court docket for 9 violations of the identical gag order.
Merchan held Trump in contempt once more Monday, for the tenth time, for claiming in an April 22 radio interview that his trial was “very unfair” as a result of the jury was picked from an space that’s “largely all Democrat.”
Trump “not solely referred to as into query the integrity, and due to this fact the legitimacy of those proceedings, however once more raised the specter of concern for the protection of the jurors and of their family members,” Merchan wrote in his ruling.
Merchan fined Trump the utmost $1,000 per violation, for whole of $10,000 in fines for the ten separate infringements.
“It seems that the $1,000 fines aren’t serving as a deterrent,” stated Merchan.
Nonetheless, he wouldn’t take the drastic step of throwing Trump in jail with out critical consideration, he stated.
“The magnitude of such a choice just isn’t misplaced on me,” Merchan stated.
“There are lots of explanation why incarceration is actually a final resort for you,” he stated. “To take that step could be disruptive to the proceedings.”
“However on the finish of the day, I’ve a job to do.”
