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
- 'Thank you for handling' McDougal, Pecker says Trump told him
- '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.
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.
Trump vows to continue fight against judge
Former President Donald Trump vowed to continue his effort to have the judge overseeing his case removed, as he exited the courtroom after a lengthy trial day.
"We are going to continue our fight against this judge," Trump told reporters, acknowledging he is having a "hard time with the New York state system."
Judge Juan Merchan denied Trump's second recusal motion on Monday, and an appellate court denied his effort to have the case delayed over the recusal effort last week.
"We have a very conflicted, highly conflicted judge. He shouldn't be on the case. He's rushing this trail, and he's doing as much as he can for the Democrats," Trump said, without evidence, before his motorcade departed the courthouse.
Pecker reiterates that he didn't want Stormy Daniels' story
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified on cross-examination that the publication's limited involvement in Stormy Daniels' hush money payment was unrelated to the August 2015 Trump Tower meeting where Pecker vowed to serve as the "eyes and ears" of Trump's presidential campaign.
Pecker's testimony on cross-examination about the Daniels story appeared consistent with his testimony yesterday about his strong desire not to be involved in the Stormy Daniels payment.
Pecker said yesterday that he did not want to be involved in the story due to concerns about reputational harm to the National Enquirer and a lack of reimbursement for the other payments he had made to suppress previous Trump stories.
"I said, we already paid $30,000 to the doorman, we paid $150,000 to Karen McDougal, and I am not a bank. I am not paying out any further disbursements among us," Pecker testified yesterday. Pecker said he instructed National Enquirer Chief Content Officer Dylan Howard to flag the Stormy Daniels story to Michael Cohen, who made the payment to Daniels himself.
Asked about Daniels' payment on cross-examination, Pecker said that the National Enquirer's limited involvement was unrelated to their vow to Trump.
"You did not consider the Stormy Daniels story to be part of any agreement you had in August 2015?" defense attorney Emil Bove asked.
"That is correct," Pecker said.
"You wanted nothing to do with it?" Bove said.
"That's correct," Pecker said.
Pecker added that he did not "authorize" Howard to continue communicating with Stormy Daniels' lawyer Keith Davidson about the payment.
When Howard raised concerns to Pecker that Davidson had not yet been paid by Michael Cohen, Pecker said he was angry that Howard continued to communicate with Davidson about the story. In addition to the nature of the story -- which Pecker said could endanger the National Enquirer's relationship with its distributors -- Pecker said Cohen's delay in paying Daniels' lawyer could result in reputational harm to the National Enquirer.
"Frankly, you were not happy to be hearing that?" Bove asked about Cohen's delayed payment.
"Yes," Pecker said.
"The main concern was Howard's reputation?" Bove asked.
"Yes," Pecker said.