Justice Juan Merchnan denied two motions filled by Donald Trump’s lawyers on the hush money trial on Thursday.
Trump is allegedly facing 34 counts of business records made by Trump to hide that he repaid his lawyer, Michael Cohen, who made a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels.
The payment made to her was intended for her to keep quiet about the s*****l encounter she was having with Trump in 2006.
On Thursday, the Manhattan court was full of witnesses, including Daniel, a junior bookkeeper at The Trump Organization, Rebecca Manochio, Tracy Menzies, a custodian of records at HarperCollins publishing house, and Madeleine Westerhout, a former director of Oval Office operations for the Trump administration.
After the lunch break, Trump’s lawyers brought up three matters.
They filed a new motion requesting a mistrial, raised concerns about the gag order imposed on Trump, and asked to prevent testimony from Karen McDougal, a model who claims she was paid to keep quiet about her affair with Trump.
Prosecutors confirmed on Thursday that McDougal would not be called as a witness.
Judge Juan Merchan has barred Trump from speaking publicly about witnesses, jurors, and others involved in the case.
However, Trump has already violated this order nine times, and Trump was fined $9,000 by Judge Merchnan.
Trump’s defense team argued that he should be allowed to respond to Stormy Daniels’ testimony, but the prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, countered that Trump has a history of assassinating others, “selfishly, with no concern for the people he’s attacking.”
Steinglass further added, “The fact that witnesses are brave enough to come in here … shouldn’t expose them to this defendant’s barrage of attacks.”
Furthermore, Merchan denied the defense team’s request to modify the gag order against Trump. He said, “My concern is not just with protecting Ms. Daniels or a witness who has already testified; my concern is protecting these proceedings as a whole.”
The second motion was placed by Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, requesting a mistrial, claiming that Stormy Daniels’ testimony on Thursday included new details about her alleged encounter with Trump.
However, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that this claim was false. Her main focus was on the explicit details from Daniels’ cross-examination, such as whether Trump used a c*ndom during the encounter.
She countered that these details were important for showing consistency in Daniels’ testimony.
Judge Juan Merchan agreed that some details should have been omitted from Daniels’ testimony; he also questioned Trump’s legal team on why they did not “object to a mention of the condom” during cross-examination.
In the end, he denied the motion for a mistrial.
After the trial proceedings ended on Thursday, Trump went on Truth Social to express his anger towards Judge Merchan once again.
He called the judge “highly conflicted” and accused him of favoring President Biden, suggesting that the trial was politically motivated to harm Trump’s next election.
He wrote, “THIS CROOKED JOE BIDEN INSPIRED TRIAL IS AN ATTACK ON HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT AND ON AMERICA ITSELF.”
“THE CORRUPT AND HIGHLY CONFLICTED JUDGE, JUAN MERCHAN, IS PRESIDING OVER THE DEATH OF THE NEW YORK CITY AND STATE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE. THE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!”
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