{"id":27475,"date":"2024-05-20T22:12:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T03:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27475"},"modified":"2024-05-20T22:12:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T03:12:12","slug":"trump-trial-devolves-into-chaos-as-judge-admonishes-defense-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27475","title":{"rendered":"Trump trial devolves into chaos as judge admonishes defense witness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Former President Trump\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>hush money trial devolved into chaos as it barreled toward a close on Monday, with the judge clearing his courtroom after admonishing a witness for improper decorum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, the dramatic day saw prosecutors rest their case after nearly scrambling to fly in a final witness. It concluded with Trump\u2019s lawyers seeking a dismissal of the charges, which was left unresolved by the judge for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drama came in the trial\u2019s final moments, its closing now delayed further than expected this week. Testimony is set to conclude on Tuesday \u2014 without Trump expected to take the stand \u2014 and closing statements are now expected just after the Memorial Day holiday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most striking moment of the day came after the defense called to the stand Robert Costello, a former legal advisor to ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen,<\/u><\/a> prosecutors\u2019 star witness who made the hush money payment at the center of the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defense brought in Costello to rebut Cohen\u2019s testimony about a pressure campaign to not flip when federal investigators closed in on him in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tensions quickly boiled over after the witness made audible comments and visually reacted to objections, leading Judge Juan Merchan\u2002<\/u><\/a>to abruptly clear the press from the courtroom to discuss \u201cdecorum,\u201d the first such time during the trial when proceedings were still underway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen there is an eyewitness on the stand, if you don\u2019t like a ruling, you don\u2019t say \u2018Geez,\u2019\u201d Merchan told Costello before removing the press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t give me a side eye. You don\u2019t roll your eyes. You understand that?\u201d he later said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan then raised his voice before ordering the court to clear the room.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you staring me down?\u201d he asked Costello.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporters shouted questions as security began to clear the room, with some asking a media lawyer present to object. Officers ushered everyone out, saying that they would explain what happened outside. After a few minutes, reporters were allowed back in without reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s entourage of allies  were allowed to stay in the courtroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA totally conflicted judge who just did something that nobody\u2019s ever seen,\u201d Trump told reporters as he left court for the day. \u201cAnd the press is not happy, I don\u2019t imagine, they just got thrown out of a courthouse. Nobody\u2019s ever seen anything quite like it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the judge allowed the press and jurors back inside, Costello\u2019s questioning resumed. He will return to the stand tomorrow, when he is expected to conclude his testimony early in the morning, likely as the defense\u2019s final witness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors rested on Monday after putting 20 witnesses on the stand over roughly four weeks, ending with Cohen, who was considered to be their star witness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briefly, it seemed as if the prosecution\u2019s case in chief would last another day. They began to scramble to fly in a C-SPAN employee from Indiana so he could retake the stand to introduce photos taken from video of Trump and his bodyguard possibly critical to the case. The hiccup was avoided after the parties reached an agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To cap the busy day, Trump\u2019s attorneys made a new motion to dismiss his 34 charges of falsifying business records. It\u2019s not unusual for defense attorneys to seek the dismissal of charges against their client when the prosecution rests and has presented all its evidence.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued that prosecutors failed to prove that the underlying business records the former president is charged over \u2014 11 invoices Cohen filed to Trump, 12 ledger entries and 11 checks Trump signed for Cohen \u2014 were false.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also pushed back on the district attorney\u2019s broader theory of the case, that Trump sought to have negative stories about him stifled to clear his path to the White House in 2016. Blanche insisted that the state\u2019s portrayal of several so-called \u201ccatch-and-kill schemes\u201d were not illegal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow is keeping a false story from the voters criminal?\u201d Blanche said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors pushed back on the defense\u2019s request, contending there is \u201cextensive evidence of false records\u201d and \u201cno argument\u201d to dismiss the charges against Trump. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, defense attorneys turned their aim at Cohen. Blanche claimed the former president\u2019s ex-fixer \u201clied in the courtroom\u201d and urged the judge to deem him an uncredible witness as a matter of law.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cohen\u2019s credibility has been of central focus during the trial. As the state\u2019s star witness, undermining his trustworthiness could sow reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors \u2013 the bar they must reach to determine whether Trump is guilty or innocent of the charges he faces.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by deeming him uncredible as a matter of law, jurors would no longer be asked to decide whether they can believe Cohen\u2019s testimony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou want me to take it out of the jury\u2019s hands?\u201d Merchan asked. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t even be considered by the jury?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we want the court to do,\u201d Blanche replied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan reserved a decision on the matter, adjourning the trial until Tuesday morning, when witness testimony is expected to conclude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 Former President Trump\u2019s\u2002hush money trial devolved into chaos as it barreled toward a close on Monday, with the judge clearing his courtroom after admonishing a witness for improper decorum.  Earlier, the dramatic day saw prosecutors rest their case after nearly scrambling to fly in a final witness. It concluded with Trump\u2019s lawyers seeking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28517,1213,1700,1906,1230,28518],"class_list":["post-27475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-admonition","tag-chaos","tag-judge","tag-trial","tag-trump","tag-witnesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27477,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27475\/revisions\/27477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}