A Day of Bruising Questions for Cohen, With More Ahead in Trump Trial
A defense lawyer for Donald J. Trump painted Michael D. Cohen, the trial’s key witness, as an unrepentant liar on Thursday and suggested he fabricated testimony. He will be back on the stand on Monday.
Michael D. Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer and current antagonist, faced a tough cross-examination on Thursday as the defense drilled into his past lies.
Mr. Cohen, once known as a hothead and a paid bully, did not explode as he did when testifying last fall at Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial. He seemed at times stressed under the searing questioning from Mr. Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche. In one dramatic moment, Mr. Blanche accused Mr. Cohen of inventing the content of a phone call just before the 2016 election that he testified was with Mr. Trump and in which they discussed a hush-money payment.
“That was a lie,” Mr. Blanche said, his voice rising.
Mr. Cohen is not done. After more than seven hours of cross-examination over two days, he will return to the stand Monday; the judge granted Mr. Trump a day off on Friday so he can attend his son Barron’s graduation.
The former president is charged with falsifying 34 business records related to the reimbursement of the $130,000 hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in Lake Tahoe, Nev., in 2006. Mr. Trump, 77, has denied the charges and having had sex with Ms. Daniels. If convicted, he could face prison or probation.
Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s 18th day, and his fifth week, on trial.
The content of a call could be trouble for Cohen.
It was a startling moment: Mr. Blanche on the attack, accusing Mr. Cohen of lying about a brief phone call on Oct. 24, 2016, which Mr. Cohen had previously said was to update Mr. Trump about the $130,000 he was going to pay to Ms. Daniels. Mr. Blanche, however, suggested Mr. Cohen was instead talking to a Trump bodyguard, Keith Schiller, about being the victim of phone pranks.
“You were actually talking to Mr. Schiller about harassing phone calls from a 14-year-old,” Blanche said heatedly.
Mr. Cohen said no, but wasn’t definitive: “I believe I spoke to Mr. Trump.”
The call, made to Mr. Schiller’s phone, lasted about a minute and a half. Whether jurors believe that conversation was an update on a hush-money payment — or about prank calls — will affect Mr. Cohen’s credibility.
Reciting Cohen’s lies has a cumulative effect.
Prosecutors have tried to blunt attacks on Mr. Cohen’s credibility by introducing the jury to his myriad legal problems and stint in prison.
That strategy, however, could only go so far. The defense had many lines of attack available on Thursday: Mr. Blanche pressed Mr. Cohen about disavowing his 2018 guilty pleas for personal financial crimes and tax evasion related to the hush-money payoff. He was also asked about lying to a federal judge and making a false statement to Congress.
Jurors may not remember every attack, but they could buy the defense’s overall contention that Mr. Cohen is not to be trusted.
The defense finds a motive in Cohen’s self-interest.
Mr. Cohen said this week that he had turned against Mr. Trump after he was raided by federal agents in 2018, saying his loyalty should have been to “my wife, my daughter, my son, and the country.”
But defense lawyers suggested Mr. Cohen was out for payback, playing a portion of an October 2020 podcast in which Mr. Cohen sounded giddy as he celebrated the investigations into Mr. Trump, saying that “revenge is a dish best served cold.” He concluded: “I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family.”
Mr. Blanche also painted Mr. Cohen as upset over not getting a White House job after the 2016 election, asking him about conversations that indicated he had wanted to be chief of staff.
Cohen kept his cool.
He has been called a liar, a loser and a money-grubber in court. Through all of these attacks, Mr. Cohen has remained mostly calm, soft-spoken and deliberate on the stand.
Mr. Cohen also appeared unfazed as Mr. Blanche brought up slights and humiliations after Mr. Trump won the election in November 2016, potentially to provide a motive for Mr. Cohen’s testimony. But the witness largely stood firm, saying at one point that he was pleased with being Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and that it was “the role that I wanted.”
The back-and-forth appeared to frustrate Mr. Blanche, who at one point rubbed his forehead after one of Mr. Cohen’s answers.
Jurors could get the case soon.
Mr. Cohen’s cross-examination will continue on Monday, but should be done before noon, according to Mr. Blanche. Prosecutors may re-interview Mr. Cohen and then are expected to rest their case.
Next comes the defense’s turn. Mr. Trump’s lawyers told the judge late Thursday that the former president had yet to decide whether he would testify. It is unclear whether his lawyers might call other witnesses.
Justice Juan M. Merchan told the lawyers they should be ready to make closing arguments on Tuesday.
That means that the jury, which has been on duty since April 22, could get the case just in time before the Memorial Day weekend.
Then the wait for a verdict begins.
The first criminal trial of an American president has presented more than a few logistical complications. Former President Donald J. Trump spends each day inside a heavily policed, Secret Service-swept courtroom in Lower Manhattan, where even the street outside has restricted access.
And then, during each midday break in the action, it’s time for Mr. Trump to eat.
But it would be difficult for Mr. Trump to duck out for a steak or even a hot dog, and so he orders in. He and his legal team then spend their lunch hour in an empty courtroom across the hall from the one where his trial is taking place.
On Thursday, for the former president and his team, the order was 14 pizzas: four cheese, five pepperoni, four sausage and pepperoni and one chicken, bacon and ranch from the Pie Guy, a takeout place about a block from the court.
“Tony told me it was for Mr. Trump,” said Abimael Maldonado, who works at the Pie Guy, of the man who texted him the order Thursday. The order requested plates and napkins. (A person with knowledge of the lunch order confirmed Thursday’s pies were for Mr. Trump and his team.)
The midday routine is perhaps familiar to New Yorkers stuck in their apartments or their offices all over the city. The Trump team has had not only pizza, but also sandwiches and McDonald’s.
Mr. Trump’s fondness for fast food is well documented. He has been photographed eating KFC and has ordered McDonald’s for sports teams visiting the White House.
Shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday, two brawny men in suits walked briskly down Baxter Street behind the Criminal Courts Building where Mr. Trump is on trial. Each carried seven pizza boxes.
The food was then carried into the courthouse, as it is each day, taken through the heightened security and maneuvered upstairs.
It was not the first time during the five-week trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that Mr. Trump and his associates have had pizza for lunch, Mr. Maldonado said, noting that Thursday’s was the second order this week.
Mr. Maldonado said the Pie Guy had been in business for a year and a half. The overwhelming majority of reviews on Google are favorable — praising, for example, the “super fresh ingredients and amazing staff.”
Ben Protess contributed reporting.
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Donald J. Trump. He is a former president, not the president.
How we handle corrections
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The defense lawyers also alerted the judge that if they were to put on a witness or witnesses, it wouldn’t take very long. They did not name any potential witnesses in particular besides Trump, who they said had yet to decide whether he would testify.
But the judge, operating off the defense lawyers' comments, felt it appropriate to warn both sides to be ready for closing arguments on Tuesday. That could mean the case will go to the jury as early as next week.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche tells Justice Merchan that he expects to be done with the cross-examination of Michael Cohen by the morning break on Monday. Which means by roughly 11 a.m.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche also says it’s not clear yet whether Trump will testify in his own defense. Merchan takes away from this that the charging conference will be on Monday and asks both sides to be prepared to deliver their closing arguments on Tuesday.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Prosecutors had signaled clearly they hoped to be finished this week. But with Blanche stopping where he did — midway through portraying Cohen as having milked his own press contacts — that will be what’s left in jurors’ minds over the weekend.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
There is no trial tomorrow, giving prosecutors a long weekend to plan their next moves. The defense spent a whole day casting Michael Cohen as a liar and elicited admissions that he had lied under oath during past cases, allowing them to cast some doubt on aspects of the story he’s told at this trial. But prosecutors will have three days to prepare for a crucial re-direct, in which they will seek to build Cohen back up and refocus the jurors on the most important elements of their case.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche had until today been the weakest of the three lawyers at Trump’s table on cross-examination. But he elicited testimony from Cohen on the second day of cross-examination portraying him as a liar who engaged in shady practices with people he dealt with across the board.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Justice Merchan stops early, as Todd Blanche says he’s moving to another area. Aides to Trump who are sitting two rows behind him, Karoline Leavitt and Boris Epshteyn, exchange knowing glances.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTReporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now getting Michael Cohen to admit he lied to reporters in early 2018 and also secretly recorded conversations with reporters about Trump’s involvement in the hush-money payment.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche is emphasizing and underscoring the time period that Cohen recorded reporters — early 2018. Based on his previous lines of questioning, it seems as if he is preparing the jury to catch Cohen in another lie or misleading statement.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now trying to undermine the close relationship Michael Cohen said he had with Trump himself. He is asking whether Cohen did legal work not only for Trump, but also for his family and the Trump Organization. Then Blanche notes that Cohen did not have a legal retainer to do this work.
This is the first time today that I remember Blanche going straight at the prosecution's argument. Prosecutors have said that Trump's reimbursements for the hush money were fraudulently disguised as legal services, even though Cohen had no legal retainer. The point Blanche is seeking to make is: Cohen did legal work for years, and never had a legal retainer.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche is also trying to minimize the fact that Cohen had no retainer agreement with Trump, suggesting New York ethics rules don’t require it.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
We’ll have to wait for redirect to see how prosecutors might counter this. One thing they may do is point out that the invoices said that Cohen was paid pursuant to a legal retainer.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is now showing the hush-money contract that Michael Cohen struck with Stormy Daniels. He gets Cohen to agree it’s a “perfectly legal contract.” He’s raising his voice to emphasize this point — to try to make the jury feel like this arrangement was business as usual.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
This is a line we’ve heard before from the defense. Blanche hammered it home during his opening statement, where he said that nondisclosure agreements were typical among the wealthy and famous and that they were not illegal.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is questioning Michael Cohen again on his interactions with reporters when he worked for Trump. Blanche is now asking about negotiations he had with the ABC News reporter John Santucci regarding the Stormy Daniels story.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTReporting from inside the courthouse
As Michael D. Cohen, Donald J. Trump’s former personal lawyer, testified on Thursday about the series of steps he took to buy the silence of a porn star on his old boss’s behalf, he referred to a phone call he had made in 2016 to Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s bodyguard.
Mr. Cohen told the jury in Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan that he had known that his boss, then a presidential candidate, was with Mr. Schiller at the time and that he was calling the bodyguard to inform Mr. Trump how he planned to pay off the porn star, Stormy Daniels, to silence her account of a sexual encounter with him.
But a defense lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, cast doubt on Mr. Cohen’s account in a fiery line of questioning, suggesting that Mr. Cohen had fabricated that story and instead called Mr. Schiller to complain that a teenager had been mercilessly pranking him.
Mr. Blanche used a complex sequence of questions that put Mr. Cohen on the defensive about what he had testified to days earlier. And while it’s not clear what jurors may have made of the exchange, it capped a morning in which a former lawyer for Mr. Trump faced off with a current one.
Mr. Blanche first asked whether Mr. Cohen had ever mentioned to prosecutors that he had spoken to Mr. Trump on the evening he called Mr. Schiller’s phone, Oct. 24, 2016. Mr. Cohen said he was not sure.
But it seems that Mr. Cohen was receiving a series of harassing calls at the same time, and that they were beginning to agitate him. Mr. Blanche, drawing on old text messages, said that it appeared that the prankster had failed to block his or her number, and eventually confessed to Mr. Cohen that he was 14 years old. (Mr. Cohen said that he asked the prankster to put him in touch with his parents.)
Mr. Blanche then suggested that Mr. Cohen had not called Mr. Schiller to speak to Mr. Trump, but rather to complain of the harassment and see if there was anything that Mr. Schiller could do about it.
Mr. Blanche forcefully insisted that Mr. Cohen had been dishonest about the purpose of the call, as if he were hoping that Mr. Cohen would break and confess. But Mr. Cohen maintained that he had called Mr. Schiller to speak to Mr. Trump about the payoff to Ms. Daniels.
Directly accusing Mr. Cohen of lying, Mr. Blanche said, “You can admit it.”
“No sir, I can’t,” Mr. Cohen responded.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Earlier today, before we took a lunch break, Todd Blanche and Michael Cohen clashed over testimony that Cohen offered earlier in the trial, during which he described a phone call to Trump that he made via his bodyguard, Keith Schiller. Blanche accused Cohen of fabricating the purpose of that conversation, but Cohen held firm.
Since then, Blanche seems to have gained steam and confidence. The defense lawyer hasn’t touched on many of the key elements of prosecutors’ case, yet. But he seems to have worn out Cohen, who we expect still has a half hour left on the stand today.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
We’re on a quick afternoon break. Todd Blanche, as has been his fashion, has jumped around in his cross-examination. But while at times it has seemed to signal a lack of preparation, in this case it may be designed to keep Michael Cohen off his game and catch him off guard.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTReporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche raises an intriguing point. He notes that while Michael Cohen has talked a lot about using Signal, an encrypted app that makes use of disappearing messages, many of the sensitive conversations that we’ve seen and heard about in this trial just took place over text.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
The jurors appear to be paying close attention to Todd Blanche, Trump's lawyer. He is asking Michael Cohen about what it meant for Trump to pay in “cash,” noting that it did not necessarily refer to green paper money, but to a payment that was made directly and not through financing. Blanche is seeking to raise questions about the recording we heard earlier in the trial in which Trump directs him to “pay in cash,” though to what end it’s not yet clear.
Reporting from the courthouse
Blanche asks Cohen if Trump often made deals to pay cash for buildings or properties. He may be seeking to suggest that when Trump referred to “cash” in that recording, he could have been referencing any number of payments.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Two of Trump’s aides in the room — Boris Epshteyn, who brought Blanche into Trump’s world, and Karoline Leavitt — are smiling as Blanche continues this line of questioning.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Michael Cohen had previously testified that in June 2016, he was negotiating with The National Enquirer and Karen McDougal over her story about having had an affair with Trump. On the stand now, as Todd Blanche digs in about whether he can remember a specific call from that year, Cohen is insisting that seeing prosecutors’ other evidence has jogged his memory about calls he had back then.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Earlier in the day, Blanche brought up lies Cohen had admitted to telling under oath, and Cohen seemed to still be fighting. But as the day has dragged on, the pile of alleged lies has only grown. And Blanche has almost an hour left to go.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche, the defense lawyer, is asking Michael Cohen how he can have specific memories of phone calls that he conducted eight years ago. Cohen responds that the reason he remembers them is because he’s been talking about the conversations for six years.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche digs in, asking if Cohen has been talking about the specific phone calls he has been testifying about for six years. Blanche is pouring disbelief into his tone, acting as if Cohen's testimony is ridiculous. Cohen is staring at the lawyer, his mouth downturned.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Trump has his eyes glued on Cohen this afternoon. This has been rare for Trump throughout this trial.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Reporting on Trump's criminal trial
Much has been said about Michael D. Cohen’s composure during his lengthy cross-examination, as if it were a facade that couldn’t be expected to hold much longer.
Such anticipation is based on Mr. Cohen’s reputation as a self-described “thug” and his more demonstrative turn on a witness stand during a civil trial of his former boss last year.
So far, his composure has largely held.
Mr. Cohen, 57, is a central-casting New Yorker, brash and sharp-elbowed. Colleagues who worked beneath him have testified in Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial about meltdowns from a man known to pack a pistol in an ankle holster. After falling out with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen turned his fury on his former boss, once calling him a “Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain” on social media.
This week, Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche, has tried to lure that earlier version of the witness into the spotlight, repeatedly goading him about lies he has told. Just minutes before Thursday’s lunch break, Mr. Blanche accused Mr. Cohen once again of an untruth, this time about a call to Mr. Trump’s bodyguard. He raised his pointer finger as his voice hit a higher register.
“That was a lie,” Mr. Blanche said, demanding that he “admit it.”
“No sir,” Mr. Cohen responded. “I can’t.”
It was different last year, in another Manhattan courthouse. In his testimony in Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial, Mr. Cohen appeared flustered when accused of lying. Several times, he made legal objections from the witness stand; in a trial, only lawyers trying the case can make objections.
He refused to respond to some questions, saying instead, “Asked and answered.”
By contrast, during yet another interruption Thursday for a sidebar conference, Mr. Cohen glanced toward the jury and appeared to crack a smile. He then seemed to think better of it and quietly accepted a fresh cup of water from a court officer.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is drawing out Michael Cohen about his relationships with reporters over the years. Blanche gets Cohen to admit that he serially recorded reporters without their knowledge, including our colleague Maggie Haberman. Blanche also gets Cohen to say that he sent a recording of somebody else to Haberman as she was reporting a story.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is trying to get Michael Cohen to say that while working for Trump, he gave statements to reporters without checking in with his boss. Cohen is refusing to concede this, and says that he would always talk to Trump about every story.
Blanche is trying to establish the idea for the jury that Cohen was a rogue agent who did things without consulting with Trump — for example, the hush-money payment.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
In particular, Blanche noted that Cohen often frustrated campaign officials with statements he made to the press during the 2016 campaign. Cohen parries that by saying Trump had told them that Cohen reported to him.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTReporting from inside the courthouse
Michael Cohen is now speaking directly to the jury about his longstanding relationship with journalists.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche is going back in time, asking Cohen about positive stories he had planted, not just about Trump but also about himself.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
He says that reporters would often call him or the Trump Organization asking for comment. He said he would immediately go to Trump’s office and they would come up with a crafted response that he would take back to the reporter.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Cohen adds that it was his routine to advise Trump about these matters, because if the resulting story was not to his liking, “it would cause him to blow up at me” and “it would probably be the end of my job.”
Reporting from inside the courthouse
To recap, right before the lunch break, Todd Blanche extracted one of the most helpful bits of testimony from Michael Cohen that he’s gotten from any witness on cross-examination so far. During that exchange, he sought to create reasonable doubt that Cohen had accurately and truthfully recounted a conversation he said he had about Stormy Daniels with Trump on his bodyguard's phone on Oct. 24, 2016.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Blanche is now driving home that Cohen threatened to turn the Secret Service on a prank caller who said they were 14 years old.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Todd Blanche, the defense lawyer, immediately picks up with an earlier line of questioning about the grand jury indictment of Trump becoming public. The prosecution objects to a follow-up, and the judge tells the lawyers to approach.
Reporting from inside the courthouse
Trump is back in court after the lunch break, without his son Eric Trump, but with Representative Matt Gaetz and aides Boris Epshteyn and Natalie Harp in tow.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The atmosphere outside as the trial nears its conclusion is increasingly circus-like. Shortly after noon on Thursday, a U-Haul truck stopped in front of the courthouse. A Trump supporter who has been a regular at the courthouse then released dozens of large pink phallus-shaped mylar balloons bearing pictures of Justice Merchan, Alvin Bragg and Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Trump in Washington.
But Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case that’s on trial here, has supporters outside the courthouse, too. One of them, visiting from Maryland, caught one of the balloons and remarked that it actually resembled Trump.
Reporting from the Capitol
The House was in session at the Capitol on Thursday, but thanks to the latest procession of Republicans reporting for duty in front of a Manhattan criminal courthouse to show support for former President Donald J. Trump at his trial, the party risked ceding its control of the floor.
Almost a dozen House Republicans showed up at the courthouse on Thursday, including hard-right rabble rousers like Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida; Anna Paulina Luna of Florida; Lauren Boebert of Colorado; and Bob Good of Virginia. They said they were there to speak on behalf of Mr. Trump because a gag order had barred him from speaking for himself.
“We are here of our own volition, because there are things we can say that President Trump is unjustly not allowed to say,” Mr. Gaetz said at a news conference outside the courthouse. He said the former president was on trial for a “made-up crime” that he called “the Mr. Potato Head of crimes” — composed of unrelated elements awkwardly stuck together.
Mr. Good said the trial was an example of Democrats trying to “rig” the presidential election against Mr. Trump. After Ms. Luna sat in the courtroom, she came out to report that: “The president is doing well. He’s in good spirits.”
Republicans control the House by such a slim margin, 217-213, that just two defections can sink legislation if all members are present and voting — and just a few absences can erase their majority altogether. The show of support for Mr. Trump from such a large group of members meant that for much of Thursday, the G.O.P. may have handed the floor over to Democrats, leaving themselves exposed.
House Republicans had a vote scheduled for Thursday afternoon to rebuke President Biden for his decision to pause an arms shipment to Israel and compel his administration to quickly deliver weapons.
The bill was designed to divide Democrats and embarrass Mr. Biden, and had no chance of passing the Senate or becoming law. But with so many Republicans off campus demonstrating their fealty to Mr. Trump, they left open the possibility that the party’s own messaging bill could be defeated. Democratic leaders in the House had advised their members to vote “no,” calling the measure “another partisan stunt by Extreme MAGA Republicans who are determined to hurt President Biden politically.”
The group that showed up in Manhattan on Thursday was composed of lawmakers who rarely shy from disrupting legislative business in the Capitol or embarrassing the party on the House floor. It included many of the same rebels from the House Freedom Caucus who have frozen the chamber for days on end, voting down their party’s own rules as an act of protest.
Paul Kane, a reporter for The Washington Post, posted on social media that the large number of Republican absences could allow Democrats to “pull some hijinks,” such as calling a motion to adjourn and shutting down the chamber all together.
House Democrats have worked to present themselves to voters as the “adults in the room” dedicated to governing, and as of midday on Thursday, no such stunt had been pulled, nor were there any plans for one. But Mr. Kane’s post was making the rounds among Democratic staff aides, who admitted the idea was tempting.
Top congressional Republicans for days have been making the pilgrimage to Mr. Trump’s criminal trial: Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio and a potential Trump running mate, was the first to debut the new audition strategy. Other lawmakers who want to tie themselves to Mr. Trump for their own political survival or advancement have followed.
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, was there on Tuesday. Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, made an appearance Monday.
On Thursday, top Republicans had already changed at least one element of the House schedule to accommodate the G.O.P. field trip. The Oversight Committee postponed a meeting scheduled for Thursday morning to vote on holding Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general, in contempt of Congress, rescheduling it for 8 p.m.
With five of the panel’s members — Representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona, Michael Cloud of Texas, Mike Waltz of Florida, Ms. Boebert and Ms. Luna — in Manhattan, the G.O.P. had to delay the vote until it had enough members back in Washington to prevail.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Reporting on Trump's criminal trial
To catch you up during the lunch break: The cross-examination of Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, continued, as Todd Blanche, one of the defense lawyers, sought to highlight his past lies and his 2018 guilty plea to federal charges. The proceedings were interrupted numerous times by legal objections from prosecutors, making it slow-going for spectators and, perhaps, jurors.
Trump's high-profile Republican supporters continued their steady march to the courthouse, with Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida among those who appeared in court. Gaetz went so far as to post on X this morning, “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President,” referencing Trump’s 2020 shoutout to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group. So many members of the House traveled to the Manhattan courthouse today that the actual work of Congress in Washington has been stalled.
This afternoon’s testimony will be the last for the week before the trial resumes on Monday.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT