After two campaign meetings, Donald Trump returned Thursday to his trial in New York for hidden payments in 2016 to a former porn actress, who resumed with a new standoff over his freedom of expression outside the courtroom .
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Before the resumption of the debates, Judge Juan Merchan examined a new round of unbridled statements from the tempestuous Republican billionaire vituperating against one of the key witnesses, his former lawyer turned sworn enemy, Michael Cohen, or against the jurors, whom he described as “95% Democrats” to protest their supposed lack of impartiality towards him.
Prosecutors saw new violations of the ban on any invective against jurors or witnesses, ordered by the magistrate to protect them from possible pressure or intimidation.
Donald Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, once again defended the urgency of protecting the Republican presidential candidate’s freedom of expression. “This trial is important to voters, he (Donald Trump) answered a question about the trial, we really believe this is political persecution, and the fact is this jurisdiction is 90% Democratic “, he pleaded.
“The implication (of these remarks) is that the jury is not fair,” the judge said. The question has become burning, because the magistrate has already sentenced Donald Trump, on Tuesday, for contempt, to the maximum fine, i.e. $9,000 for nine publications on his Truth Social network or his campaign site. Above all, he warned the former President of the United States that he was ready to incarcerate him purely and simply to maintain a good administration of justice, the law providing for up to 30 days in prison.
On Thursday, prosecutor Christopher Conroy himself clarified that the prosecution was not asking for “prison”, but new fines to stop statements “corrosive to the legal procedure”. The judge did not immediately rule.
Behind the scenes of the campaign
Arriving at the hearing, Donald Trump, gold-colored tie, navy blue suit, congratulated himself on having been able to campaign the day before “without being at this ridiculous show trial, which I call the Biden trial” to denounce an alleged involvement of his rival in these legal troubles.
Three years after leaving the White House in chaos, and having recovered from two impeachment proceedings, Donald Trump enters the campaign being indicted in four different cases, including that before the federal courts in Washington for his alleged illegal attempts to reverse the results of the presidential election won by Joe Biden in 2020.
But due to appeals and procedural questions, the trial underway in New York, of a smaller scale, could be the only one tried before the November 5 election.
Donald Trump nevertheless risks the first criminal conviction of a former American president and in theory a prison sentence, a scenario which would tip the campaign into the unknown.
The former President of the United States is being prosecuted for 34 falsifications of accounting documents which allegedly served to conceal a payment to cover up a potential sex scandal in the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, won narrowly against Hillary Clinton.
A sum of $130,000 was paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to buy her silence about a sexual relationship she claimed to have had with him in 2006, when he was already married. A relationship that Donald Trump denies.
Since the start of the trial, witnesses have revealed behind the scenes of the victorious 2016 campaign, where colorful intermediaries, such as the former boss of an American tabloid, negotiated the exclusivity of sensational stories likely to splash Donald Trump, ultimately not publishing them and protecting him from any scandal.
But the most anticipated actors, like the former damned soul of Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, who had paid Stormy Daniels directly, have not yet testified before the jurors.
The trial, which is in its third week, is expected to last between six and eight.
