All posts tagged: testimony

Republicans leap on Hunter Biden trial after week of revealing testimony | Hunter Biden

Republicans leap on Hunter Biden trial after week of revealing testimony | Hunter Biden

Published by skeptic

The picture of criminal behavior and a dissolute lifestyle was painted in sometimes painfully frank testimony in a Delaware court room last week and would have been difficult to hear for the family of any defendant. But Hunter Biden, the man in the dock in Wilmington, is no ordinary plaintiff; he is the son of the president of the United States. Biden Jr, 54, went on trial last Monday facing three federal charges relating to the illegal purchase and ownership of a gun while in the grip of longstanding drug addiction. All week long, the proceedings put the personal conduct of the eldest surviving presidential scion under a microscope. A jury in his home town heard details of his previous addiction to crack cocaine and how, in 2018 – with his father preparing for a run for the presidency – he bought a handgun by allegedly lying to a registered firearms dealer about his drug use. He then desperately tried to retrieve it from a garbage bin where his then lover, the widow of Joe …

Jurors ask to rehear testimony from key witnesses in Trump hush money trial

Jurors ask to rehear testimony from key witnesses in Trump hush money trial

Published by Sam

The jury in Donald Trump’s hush money trial ended its first day of deliberations without a verdict Wednesday but asked to rehear testimony from key witnesses about the alleged hush money scheme at the heart of the history-making case. The 12-person jury was sent home around 4 p.m. after about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations. The process is to resume Thursday, when jurors are expected to rehear the requested testimony and at least part of the judge’s legal instructions meant to guide them on the law. The notes sent to the judge with the requests were the first burst of communication with the court after the panel of seven men and five women was sent to a private room just before 11:30 a.m. to begin weighing a verdict. “It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours,” Judge Juan M. Merchan told jurors before dispatching them to begin deliberations, reminding them of their vow during the selection process to judge the case fairly and impartially. It’s unclear how long the deliberations …

Judge scolds Trump’s lawyers, asking “why on Earth” they didn’t object to Stormy Daniels’ testimony

Judge scolds Trump’s lawyers, asking “why on Earth” they didn’t object to Stormy Daniels’ testimony

Published by skeptic

Judge Juan Merchan on Thursday scolded Donald Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, for failing to raise more objections during adult film star Stormy Daniels’ testimony. He then denied Trump’s motion for a mistrial for the second time this week. Merchan said his rejection of the mistrial motion was based on his observation of the defense team’s action, or inaction, when Daniels was on the stand. There were “many times Ms. Necheles could have objected but didn’t,” Merchan said. As he had on Tuesday, the judge acknowledged that he did not approve of certain parts of Daniels’ testimony. However, he didn’t seem to approve of Necheles’ performance either, questioning why the defense wouldn’t object to Daniels’ allegations on Tuesday that Trump did not use a condom when they had sex. “Why on Earth she wouldn’t object to the mention of a condom, I don’t understand,” Merchand said, The Washington Post reported. Trump’s legal team pushed for a mistrial on Thursday based on Daniel’s testimony where she didn’t explicitly say her sexual encounter was rape but expressed it …

Stormy Daniels Put on a Show in Second Day of Trump Testimony

Stormy Daniels Put on a Show in Second Day of Trump Testimony

Published by skeptic

Since Donald Trump’s trial began in Manhattan last month, there have been several slow days. When an accountant or executive assistant has testified in a case that, at its core, revolves around the minutiae of business records, the lines outside the courthouse have not stretched as far as they did when lawyers delivered their opening statements. Even David Pecker, the colorful former National Enquirer publisher who testified in the first days of the proceedings about hush money payments, is not quite a household name. But Stormy Daniels is a household name. The news that she would take the witness stand on Tuesday came only a few hours before she began testifying—not enough notice to summon the crowd that might arrive to see the porn star elaborate on her claim to a 2006 tryst with Trump. On Thursday morning, with Daniels’s testimony set to continue, Jake Tapper and Jeanine Pirro were among the group, the largest and most feverish so far, waiting to get into Manhattan Criminal Court. Trump, whose entourage has varied in size and …

Stormy Daniels testimony reveals the triumph of #MeToo

Stormy Daniels testimony reveals the triumph of #MeToo

Published by skeptic

Until her long-anticipated testimony at Donald Trump’s Manhattan fraud trial Tuesday, the mainstream media had leaned on misleading terms like “affair” and “tryst” to describe the alleged 2006 sexual encounter between Stormy Daniels and the criminal defendant. So I was braced for callous reactions to her time on the witness stand, where the adult film actress described an encounter with Trump far more harrowing than titillating. While making it clear that she was “not threatened either verbally or physically,” what Daniels described also doesn’t meet any common sense definition of the word “consensual.” Trump, she said, bullied her. She didn’t want it but didn’t say no. “My hands were shaking,” she recounted, telling the court that she felt “ashamed that I didn’t stop it.” Still, she does not consider it assault. I worried, in that case, that her description would be treated as permission by the press to ignore some of the most alarming and uncomfortable aspects of what Daniels testified happened to her nearly two decades ago in Lake Tahoe.  But when I observed …

Experts: Trump lawyers “went too far” — but Stormy Daniels testimony may give them ammo for appeal

Experts: Trump lawyers “went too far” — but Stormy Daniels testimony may give them ammo for appeal

Published by skeptic

Adult film star and director Stormy Daniels provided graphic detail in her 2006 sexual encounter with Trump during her testimony Tuesday in Manhattan – but legal experts say whether the tryst ever happened is irrelevant to prosecutors’ case and that Daniels’ explicit testimony could provide fodder for Trump’s appeal. “Whether they had sex and the details of that encounter, doesn’t matter to the central question of whether he falsified payments, and whether he did it to win the election,” Fordham Law School professor Cheryl Bader told Salon. “Even if even if she made up the whole story, it doesn’t give Trump license to violate campaign finance rules,” Bader said. Bader said prosecutors likely wanted to pump up the veracity of Daniels’ story to make it easier for jurors to believe that Trump was trying to cover something up. Prosecutors probably felt they could “sell the case better” if jurors believe the affair actually happened “rather than Daniels was making it up,” Bader said. “What’s relevant is that Trump was consumed with making sure the American people would …

“Cursing audibly”: Judge rebukes Trump for uttering “vulgarity” during Stormy Daniels testimony

“Cursing audibly”: Judge rebukes Trump for uttering “vulgarity” during Stormy Daniels testimony

Published by skeptic

Donald Trump appears to have lost his cool during adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ testimony in his criminal hush money trial on Tuesday, cursing as she began describing the an alleged sexual encounter between the two, prompting a rebuke from Judge Juan Merchan. “I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous,” Merchan told Trump attorney Todd Blanche during a sidebar, NBC News reported, citing court transcripts. The sidebar conversation came as Daniels was describing an encounter with Trump at a Lake Tahoe golf course that was sexual in nature, testifying that she spanked Trump with a rolled-up magazine in his hotel room. Trump, on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 hush payment to Daniels, is barred by a gag order from speaking about witnesses outside the courtroom. Merchan said he would not tolerate any such behavior inside the Manhattan courthouse, either. “It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can …

Judge said Trump was cursing during Stormy Daniels testimony

Judge said Trump was cursing during Stormy Daniels testimony

Published by skeptic

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York City warned the former president’s lawyer Tuesday that he would not tolerate his client’s “cursing audibly” during Stormy Daniels’ testimony, saying it could be intimidating to the witness. The exchange between state Judge Juan Merchan and Trump attorney Todd Blanche occurred during a sidebar, according to the official court transcript that was released Tuesday evening. It added to an already surreal day in court in which Daniels, an adult film actor, detailed what she said was a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Merchan told Blanche, “I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous,” according to the transcript. “It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” he added. Blanche responded that he would talk to Trump, the transcript showed. Merchan, referring to their discussion, which was out of earshot from the rest of the courtroom, also told Blanche, “I am …

‘Clothes Off, Bra On, Missionary Position’: Stormy Goes Into Specifics During Trump Trial Testimony

‘Clothes Off, Bra On, Missionary Position’: Stormy Goes Into Specifics During Trump Trial Testimony

Published by skeptic

Update (1400ET): Daniels went into further detail about her alleged encounter with Trump, testifying that at one point she went to the bathroom in a hotel room and emerged to find Trump waiting for her in his underwear. “He was just up on the bed like this,” she said, pulling her leg up to her waist on the witness stand. She described the experience as feeling “like a fun house,” and felt things moving in slow motion despite not being drunk or on drugs. “I had my clothes and my shoes off. I believe my bra was still on. We were in missionary position,” Stormy said of the alleged sexual encounter, to which Trump’s attorneys objected, and Judge Merchant sustained. According to Politico, “one female juror looks uncomfortable with the comments and is looking away while holding her forehead.” When asked about how she ended up having sex with Trump, Daniels testified that she was baffled, but “I felt to myself, ‘great, I put myself in this bad situation,” adding “I just think I blacked …

Judge rejects Trump demand for a “mistrial” after embarassing testimony from Stormy Daniels

Judge rejects Trump demand for a “mistrial” after embarassing testimony from Stormy Daniels

Published by skeptic

Stormy Daniels’s testimony on the stand Tuesday appeared to bother Donald Trump, the former president “staring straight ahead glumly” as the adult film star aired embarrassing details of their alleged private moment. During a lunch break, Trump took to Truth Social in outrage, writing: “THE PROSECUTION, WHICH HAS NO CASE, HAS GONE TOO FAR. MISTRIAL!” he wrote.  Back in the courtroom Tuesday afternoon,Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead counsel on the criminal hush money case, echoed the call for mistrial. Blanche specifically brought up the adult film star’s testimony that Trump didn’t wear a condom during their alleged 2006 encounter. Blanche argued that the claim was prejudicial and claimed that the prosecutors intentionally asked her questions that would “inflame this jury.”  The “pure embarrassment” caused by her testimony, Blanche argued, would make it impossible for Trump to get a fair trial, saying jurors should have not heard the allegations but that you can’t “unring this bell.” He added that Daniel’s claim that she “blacked out” before having sex with Trump “is the kind of testimony that makes …