Blow for Trump as model allowed to take the stand
Jurors to hear claims of an affair cover-up
THE former Playboy model who had an alleged year-long affair with Donald Trump will be allowed to testify at his porn star hush money trial.
As Trump, 77, yesterday became the first president in US history to go on criminal trial, the judge allowed prosecutors to call Karen McDougal to give evidence.
The move was a wake-up call for the millionaire who was said to appear to be sleeping at times in the court, with his head “dropping down and his mouth going slack”.
Judge Juan Merchan also ruled that testimony claiming Trump’s 2016 election campaign coordinated with the tabloid magazine National Enquirer to suppress McDougal’s affair allegations could be brought before the jury.
Prevented
However, the judge prevented attorneys from quizzing the 53-year-oldmodel on the alleged relationship while banning any reference to wife Melania being pregnant at the time.
Yesterday, dozens of people from a pool of 500 began to be called into the Manhattan courtroom to start the process of finding 12 jurors plus six alternates.
They will be tasked with hearing the case that accuses Trump of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to bury stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign.
He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts over an alleged effort to suppress claims about his sex life which he says are bogus.
The charges centre on £105,000 in payments that Mr Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, who had paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to stop porn star Stormy Daniels, pictured left, from going public a month before the 2016 US presidential election with her allegations of a sexual encounter with the married tycoon a decade earlier.
The court will also hear about allegations of a former Trump Tower doorman about a child he claimed the ex-US president had out of wedlock.
Trump says none of these supposed sexual encounters occurred.The judge also agreed to allow evidence on the National Enquirer’s alleged “catch and kill” attempts to suppress bad news on Trump’s behalf.
McDougal was paid £120,000 by its parent company for the rights to her story about her alleged affair with Trump. It never published her claims.
Trump and Cohen met with exNational Enquirer publisher David Pecker at Trump Tower in August 2015 to discuss the tabloid’s role in helping his presidential run.
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass told the judge the evidence will show Trump approved, rejected or suggested changes to flattering National Enquirer stories about him – and stories attacking his Republican primary opponents were “timed to achieve maximum impact”.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche argued the evidence “would do nothing but confuse the jury about the actual crime charged”.