Fine Trump over social media posts, prosecutors tell US court
PROSECUTORS in the New York hush money case against Donald Trump have asked a judge to fine the former president $3,000 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 $1,000 fine for each of three posts they say violate gag order that bars him 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 his hush money trial, marking a singular moment in US history.
It is the first criminal trial of a former US leader and the first of Trump’s four indictments to go to trial.
Because Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, the trial in Manhattan will also produce the split-screen effect of a candidate for the White House spending his days in court and, he has said, “campaigning during the night”.
At the outset of yesterday’s court proceedings, Judge Juan M Merchan denied a defence request to recuse himself from the case.
Additional legal arguments and housekeeping matters were expected before the formal start of jury selection.
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.
Against that backdrop, scores of ordinary citizens are due to be called on Monday into a cavernous room in a utilitarian court to determine whether they can serve, fairly and impartially, on the jury.
Judge 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.”
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 campaign.
The charges centre on $130,000(about £104,000) in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen.
He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public, a month before the election, with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.
Prosecutors say the payments to Mr Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees to cloak their actual purpose. Trump’s lawyers say the disbursements were legal expenses, not a cover-up.