Trump trial opens with request to fine him over social media posts
PROSECUTORS in the New York hush money case against Donald Trump have asked a judge to fine the former president $3000 over social media posts about key witnesses.
The request was made yesterday ahead of jury selection, with prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office seeking a $1000 fine for each of three posts they say violate a gag order that bars Trump from commenting on witnesses.
Last week, Trump used his Truth Social platform to call two important witnesses – his former lawyer Michael Cohen and the adult film actor Stormy Daniels – writing they were “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our country dearly”.
Trump had earlier arrived at the New York court for the start of jury selection, in the first criminal trial of a former
US leader, and the first of Trump’s four indictments to go to trial.
To some extent, it is a trial of the US justice system itself as it grapples with a defendant who has used his enormous prominence to assail the judge, his daughter, the district attorney, some witnesses as well as the allegations against him – all while blasting the legitimacy of a legal structure that he insists has been appropriated by his political opponents.
More than 500 potential jurors were called, with selection beginning yesterday afternoon. Judge Juan M Merchan wrote in an April 8 filing: “The ultimate issue is whether the prospective jurors can assure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”
He has ordered their names to be kept secret from everyone except prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious – and, he says, bogus – stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The charges centre on $130,000 in payments Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer Cohen. He paid that on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier. Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees in order to cloak their actual purpose. Trump’s lawyers say the disbursements were legal expenses, not a cover-up.
Trump maintains Democratic prosecutors and officials are orchestrating sham charges in the hopes of impeding his latest presidential run.