New York State Attorney Christopher Conroy said Trump violated the order, pointing to an April 10 Truth Social post that labeled porn star Stormy Daniels and former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, of “shitbags.” Both are expected to testify in the first criminal trial against a former US president.
Conroy said other posts led to media coverage that prompted a jury last week to recuse themselves over privacy concerns.
Former US President Donald Trump.Credit: AP
“He knows what he's not allowed to do and he does it anyway,” Conroy said of Trump. “His disobedience to the order is deliberate. It's intentional.”
The $10,000 fine sought by Conroy would be a relatively small penalty for Trump, who has paid $266.6 million in bonds while he appeals civil judgments in two other cases.
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Conroy said at this time he was not asking Merchan to send Trump to jail for up to 30 days, as New York law allows.
“The defendant appears to be looking for that,” Conroy said.
Blanche said her posts were responses to Cohen's political attacks and are unrelated to her former attorney's expected testimony.
“He is allowed to respond to political attacks,” Blanche said.
Trump is accused by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of falsifying business records to cover a $130,000 payment shortly before the 2016 US election to buy Daniels' silence about a sexual encounter she said that he had ten years earlier.
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Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies that there was such a meeting. His lawyers argue that Trump committed no crime and only acted to protect his reputation.
On Tuesday, jurors heard testimony from former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, who prosecutors say participated in a “catch and kill” scheme to suppress unflattering stories about Trump and help him get elected.
“When someone runs for public office like this, it's very common for these women to call a magazine like the National Enquirer to try to sell their stories,” Pecker stated.
Pecker said the decision to bury the stories came after a 2015 meeting in which he told Trump the Enquirer would publish favorable stories about the billionaire candidate and watch out for people selling stories that might hurt him . He said he told a publisher to keep the deal secret.
Pecker said the Enquirer paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal for her story of an affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. She said she bought the story after Trump refused to do it himself same
“He said any time you do something like that, it always works out,” Pecker said.
The Enquirer's parent company, American Media, said in 2018 it paid $150,000 for the story. Trump has denied having an affair with McDougal.
The tabloid also paid $30,000 for a story sold by Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin, who claimed Trump fathered a child with a maid who worked for him. The story turned out not to be true, Pecker said.
Both payments far exceeded the amounts the paper typically paid for stories, he said.
“I made the decision to buy the story because of the potential embarrassment it would bring to the campaign and Mr. Trump,” Pecker said.
He is expected to testify again when the trial resumes on Thursday.
American Media, which publishes the National Enquirer, admitted in 2018 that it paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about a months-long affair with Trump in 2006 and 2007. American Media say it worked “in concert”. ” with the Trump campaign, and never ran a story.
The tabloid reached a similar deal to pay $30,000 to a bouncer seeking to sell a story about Trump allegedly fathering a child out of wedlock, which turned out to be false, prosecutors said.
Trump has said the payments were personal and did not violate election law. She has also denied an affair with McDougal.
The case may be the only of four criminal prosecutions of Republican Trump to go to trial before his Nov. 5 rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
A guilty verdict would not prevent Trump from taking office, but it could hurt his candidacy. Reuters/Ipsos polls show that half of independent voters and one in four Republicans say they would not vote for Trump if he is convicted of a crime.
Reuters
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