Trump trial: Stormy Daniels tells (almost) all about alleged encounter with Trump

Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the lower Manhattan courthouse ahead of today's proceedings.

Court is scheduled to get underway at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Stormy Daniels, one of the state's star witnesses, is scheduled to take the stand today, according to sources.

The decision to call Daniels as a witness allows the jury to directly hear from the woman at the center of Trump's criminal trial.

Prosecutors argue that Trump -- still reeling from the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape in October 2016 -- orchestrated a last-minute $130,000 hush money payment through his then-lawyer Michael Cohen in exchange for Daniels' silence about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which the former president has denied took place.

When Trump repaid Cohen in 2017, prosecutors allege Trump falsified business records to hide the hush money payment from voters.

While the alleged criminal conduct centers on the falsification of business records, Daniels' alleged encounter with Trump and negotiations through her former lawyer Keith Davidson are likely to be discussed during her testimony.

In a post to his social media platform this morning, former President Trump wrote, "I have just recently been told who the witness is today. This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare."

He then deleted the post a short time later.

Prosecutors at the start of the trial asked for and received permission from Judge Juan Merchan to not reveal the identity of witnesses in the case until just before they're scheduled to appear, in order to avoid them being targeted by remarks from Trump, who is under a limited gag order not to make statements about witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case.

"The defendant has been violating the order restricting extrajudicial speech, and we don't want to have the next witnesses' names out there," prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said yesterday about Trump, who was fined an additional $1,000 by the judge for violating the limited gag order for a tenth time.

Proceedings will get underway this morning on Day 13 of former President Trump's criminal hush money trial.

Two longtime Trump Organization employees took the stand yesterday to testify about their roles in executing a string of 2017 payments to Michael Cohen in order to reimburse him for a $130,000 hush payment to Stormy Daniels.

Jurors for the first time saw the business records associated with those transactions, which prosecutors say were unlawfully falsified to hide their true purpose from voters.

Prosecutors told the judge at the end of the day that the state's case will likely take another two weeks to complete. That will be followed by the defense's case, and then the state's rebuttal.