Former President Donald J. Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, all stemming from accusations that he covered up a $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to suppress her story of a sexual liaison with him. Why are they felony charges? Here are the basics. What […]
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Before summoning the jury on Monday, Justice Juan Merchan directly addressed the defendant, whom he called “Mr.” and not President Trump. In a measured and by-the-book tone that showed no hint of his exasperation, Merchan told Donald Trump that he had now found him in contempt of court on a 10th charge. Each carries a […]
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The judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan rebuked the former president on Monday for mounting “a direct attack on the rule of law,” holding him in contempt of court for a second time and threatening to jail him if he continued to break a gag order that bars him from attacking jurors. […]
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Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan has reached the third week of testimony, and there are only a few key witnesses who have yet to take the stand. There is Stormy Daniels, the porn star who accepted hush money in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign to keep silent about her story […]
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Donald J. Trump is on trial for 34 felony counts of what could be the dullest sounding crime in New York’s penal code: falsifying business records. Yet, across nine witnesses and two weeks of testimony, jurors have been treated to hours of mesmerizing courtroom theater. There was talk of a sex scandal with a porn […]
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In the unceasing reality show that is Donald J. Trump’s life, his Manhattan criminal trial has functioned as something of a reunion episode, where supporting players return to confront the protagonist and relive memorable moments from seasons past. On Friday, the audience in the courtroom tensed when prosecutors announced the next person to testify on […]
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Gasps were heard in the overflow courtroom when Hope Hicks was called as a witness on Friday in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, an audible sign of the anticipation as Mr. Trump’s former press secretary and White House communications director took the stand. Her testimony ended the trial’s third week in dramatic fashion. […]
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Her voice low, her posture tense, the woman who spent years steering Donald J. Trump through strife and scandal stepped to the witness stand on Friday carrying a different burden. She was there under the fluorescent lights of a dreary Manhattan courtroom, seated 15 feet from the former president she once fiercely defended, to testify […]
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Hope Hicks was 26 years old and had no political experience when Donald J. Trump plucked her from a job at his daughter Ivanka’s clothing business and hired her for his presidential campaign in 2015. In the years that followed, she rose to be one of his most trusted advisers, eventually serving as the White […]
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Donald J. Trump’s defense team in his criminal trial spent Thursday on the attack. They portrayed him as an unwitting victim, suggesting that his campaign had been extorted by an unethical Hollywood lawyer who shook him down for hush-money deals. But prosecutors followed up by playing audio for the jury that had been surreptitiously recorded […]
Read MoreTwo voices reverberated in the courtroom. The first was loud, deep and unctuous, the second was casual — until money came up. They were discussing a deal made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence a woman who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the Republican candidate. The first voice on the recording […]
Read MoreKeith Davidson, the former lawyer for the porn star Stormy Daniels, faced a blistering cross-examination on Thursday in the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, with defense lawyers casting him as a serial extortionist of celebrities. The judge, Juan M. Merchan, also heard arguments about additional violations of a gag order by Mr. Trump, just […]
Read MorePayments from the actor Charlie Sheen to keep women silent. Rumors that the Hollywood star Lindsay Lohan was in rehab. A lawsuit by Hulk Hogan, the former pro wrestler, against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a tape of him having sex. Testimony on Thursday at former President Donald J. Trump’s trial in Manhattan dove […]
Read MoreA lawyer who negotiated hush-money payments on behalf of two women connected to Donald J. Trump sent dismayed text messages about the deals on election night in 2016, aghast that the clandestine payoffs might have influenced America’s decision. The National Enquirer had bought and buried the story of one woman, Karen McDougal, and participated in […]
Read MoreIt’s the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump. And yet, a spectator who attended proceedings this week could have been forgiven some confusion. It is not the former president who has come in for sustained criticism from witnesses. It is his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who paid the hush money at the heart of […]
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Read MoreOn the witness stand this week, Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented women who said they had sex with Donald J. Trump, lifted the curtain on a sordid underworld of tabloid news and celebrity hush money. That testimony ended on a cliffhanger: Would the presidential candidate’s lawyer pay up? On Thursday, after a midweek pause […]
Read MoreDuring the past week in Donald Trump’s criminal trial, there has been talk of trysts and the trade in the secrets of the rich and famous. But the case at its core revolves around the integrity of dry financial documents. Prosecutors say Mr. Trump faked business records to conceal a payment to a porn star, […]
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Of the four criminal cases that Donald Trump is facing, the one now unfolding in Manhattan is generally considered the weakest. Its legal foundation is complex. Its key witness is a felon. Its details are the sort of stuff that the tabloids splash across their front pages. Worst of all, it doesn’t speak to Mr. […]
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The third week of the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump began with a rebuke: The judge, Juan M. Merchan, held the former president in contempt and fined him $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order. He also threatened jail time if the violations continue. That decision on Tuesday, triggered by Mr. Trump’s comments on […]
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The tantalizing text message was sent by a lawyer for a former Playboy model to the editor of The National Enquirer. “I have blockbuster Trump story,” read the message sent in 2016 by the Los Angeles lawyer, Keith Davidson, who was on the witness stand as prosecutors posted it Tuesday morning for jurors at Donald […]
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The judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan held him in contempt on Tuesday, fining the former president $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order and warning that he could go to to jail if he continued to attack witnesses and jurors. “The court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful […]
Read MoreDonald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial had barely begun when he started to turn his anger toward his lead lawyer, Todd Blanche. Although Mr. Blanche has been Mr. Trump’s favorite lawyer for some time, behind closed doors and in phone calls, the former president has complained repeatedly about him in recent weeks, according to four […]
Read MoreAs Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial enters a third and crucial week, new witnesses will shed light on a hush-money deal struck in the final days of his 2016 presidential campaign. The judge will also weigh a request to hold the former president in contempt. Mr. Trump, the first former president to face criminal […]
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One America News, a right-wing cable news network, on Monday retracted a report claiming that Donald J. Trump’s former fixer had been the person who actually had an affair with the porn star whose claims of a sexual relationship with Mr. Trump are key to his criminal trial. The retraction came after the fixer, Michael […]
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Now that the lawyers are laying out their respective theories of the case in the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump in New York, it would be understandable if people’s heads are spinning. The defense lawyers claimed this is a case about hush money as a legitimate tool in democratic elections, while the prosecutors insisted it […]
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Special thanks to Efim Shapiro and Maddy Masiello. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. […]
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“So that’s not true? That’s not true?” The judge in control of Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial had just cut off the former president’s lawyer, Todd Blanche. Mr. Blanche had been in the midst of defending a social media post in which his client wrote that a statement that had been public for years […]
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Inside a staid Manhattan courtroom this week, flashes from a bygone era appeared, recollections of a celebrity-studded world of leveraged secrets and traded favors, and one in which publications sold at supermarket checkout counters wielded real cultural and political power. It was a world that David Pecker, the first witness called in Donald J. Trump’s […]
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Donald J. Trump spent the bulk of the past week in a Manhattan courtroom, standing trial as the first American president to face criminal prosecution. He is accused of falsifying business records to cover up an affair with a porn actress ahead of the 2016 election. Even though he did not take the stand as […]
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Donald J. Trump is a thrice-married man accused of covering up a sex scandal with a porn star after the world heard him brag about grabbing women by their genitals. But when Mr. Trump’s lawyers introduced him to a jury at his Manhattan criminal trial this week, they dwelt on a different dimension: “He’s a […]
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