Trump trial: 1st week of testimony ends with testimony from Michael Cohen's former banker
Banker Gary Farro testified in Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York.
Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York City, where he is facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges.
Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records to hide the reimbursement of a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Top headlines:
- Banker says he set up LLC, which Cohen used to pay Daniels
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- 'This story is true,' Pecker recounts being told of Stormy Daniels
- Pecker describes $150,000 negotiations for McDougal's story
- Secret Service has plans if Trump is confined for contempt: Sources
What to know about the hush money case
READ MORE: Here's what you need to know about the historic case.
Jury selection to resume
Jury selection resumes today in former President Trump's criminal hush money case when a new batch of 96 prospective jurors tackles the seven-page questionnaire that begins the whittling-down process.
Seven jurors were seated and sworn in on Tuesday. They were told to be prepared to return to court as soon as Monday when opening statements could begin.
Among the seated jurors is a school teacher, an oncology nurse and a grandfather born in Puerto Rico who said he found Trump "fascinating and mysterious."
The court needs five additional jurors and six alternates.
On Tuesday, each side used six of its 10 peremptory strikes, which eliminate a prospective juror from the pool for almost any reason. The judge may give each side additional peremptory challenges for seating alternate jurors.
Prosecutors want to question Trump about civil cases
If former President Trump opts to testify in the trial, prosecutors want to question him about all the times he has been held liable in civil court, according to a new court filing in the case.
Prosecutors have asked Judge Juan Merchan to hold a hearing, known as a Sandoval hearing, to determine the scope of what they can ask Trump on cross-examination.
"We are prepared to do a Sandoval hearing now, later or whenever the court desires," Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said on Monday.
The judge has not set a date for the hearing but suggested it could be Friday.
In their filing, prosecutors outlined the civil cases they'd like to bring up during the criminal trial, including the $464 million judgment in Trump's civil fraud case, the defamation and battery cases brought by E. Jean Carroll and a lawsuit Trump filed against Hillary Clinton claiming she conspired to rig the 2016 election, for which Trump and his lawyers faced legal sanctions after the case was thrown out as frivolous.
Prosecutors also want to question Trump about a criminal case his company lost in 2022, when the Trump Organization was convicted of tax evasion by providing non-cash compensation to top executives.
They also want to bring up a civil case the New York attorney general won against the Trump Foundation for misusing charitable donations.
Trump criticizes jury selection process
On his day off from his New York criminal trial, Donald Trump is complaining about the jury selection process on his social media platform.
The former president is claiming that in the process of picking the jury, he doesn't have enough strikes -- i.e., allowances to remove prospective jurors that his legal team objects to.
"I thought STRIKES were supposed to be 'unlimited' when we were picking our jury?" Trump wrote on his social media platform. "I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the 2nd Worst Venue in the Country."
Trump does get unlimited strikes to remove a juror for cause, which means for a specified reason -- but both the defense and prosecutors have a limited number of peremptory challenges, which allow for the removal of a juror for any reason.
-Soo Rin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Peter Charalambous
Court is in recess today
Court is not in session today in former President Trump's criminal hush money trial, as the trial schedule has a full-day recess every Wednesday.
Yesterday saw the first seven jurors in the case seated. Eleven more jurors -- six of them alternates -- remain to be chosen.
The selection of the first jurors was one of the four big takeaways from Day 2 of the trial Tuesday.
Jury selection resumes after break
Former President Trump is back at the defense table as court resumes after the lunch break.
While on break, Trump shared on his social media platform a newspaper opinion piece calling his former attorney Michael Cohen a "serial perjurer" and a "legal thug."
The former president, who is under a limited gag order prohibiting him from targeting witnesses in the case, did not add any comment of his own.