Trump Indicted by Manhattan District Attorney

[N.E. Brigand]

About once a year, some friends and I rent canoes and go for a morning paddle near the mouths of the Cuyahoga River or the Rocky River and out into Lake Erie. One one such occasion, I pointed to a power boat docked along the Rocky River and asked my friends what field they thought the boat's owner worked in.

The name of the boat is Sua Sponte.

I am surprised that the prosecutors didn't do more to constrain Stormy Daniels's testimony, given that more than one legal commenter pointed out the risks. Of course, Daniels didn't know what she could and couldn't testify about because she wasn't in the court when the Judge Merchan set parameters this morning. But given the field she works in, prosecutors should have realized that when they asked her to "briefly" describe the intimate portion of her evening with Donald Trump, she would naturally go straight to the position. A jury of her peers would think nothing of that, but the rest of us puritans are more easily shocked.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

At least she didn't opine about the size of Trump's appendages.

[N.E. Brigand]

At least she didn't opine about the size of Trump's appendages.

Before she came out to testify, it was agreed between the judge and prosecution that there would be no details about "genitalia." (No mention of light sabers, though.)

In arguing for a mistrial, the defense complained that Stormy Daniels had changed her story, and they particularly noted that Daniels said (when asked specifically about this by the prosecution) that Donald Trump had not used a condom, but as prosecutors noted in reply, that's not new information.

The only detail that was new to me is that Trump not only suggested that Daniels could appear on The Apprentice but he also implied that he could rig the results in her favor by giving her advance information about the nature of the "challenges," i.e., competitive events. There's been other reporting over the years that the competitive "reality" show was phony, though. I've never seen more than a few minutes of The Apprentice, but I know that in each episode, two or more teams faced off in some entrepreneurial competition, and the program would conclude in a mock board room where Trump reviewed the competition, identified one participant who he deemed to have performed the worst, and eliminated that person by intoning, "You're fired." But at some point after he ran for president, it was reported that his choices often made no sense and that the show's producers would edit the footage to support his decision by emphasizing the "fired" person's mistakes and other competitors' successes.

That said, it does appear that Daniels put a darker spin on the encounter by emphasizing those points -- again, all previously known -- that could be read to imply that Trump coerced her into sleeping with him.

- - - - - - - - -
I see that Daniels today testified under oath that someone threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet about her relationship with Trump. And when defense counsel referred to it as a "supposed incident" during cross-examination, she retorted that it was real and that she had told other people about it.

Again I ask: why was her lawsuit against Trump for claiming that she made that story up (i.e., he publicly claimed she lied) therefore dismissed and hit with a SLAPP judgement requiring her to pay Trump's legal fees -- before she was allowed to make the same sworn statement in that case? (I'm not asking you. I'm just expressing my discontent.)

[N.E. Brigand]

That said, it does appear that Daniels put a darker spin on the encounter by emphasizing those points -- again, all previously known -- that could be read to imply that Trump coerced her into sleeping with him.

And that shouldn't have been a surprise to defense counsel either, since, as I now see, that interpretation was clear in the story as Stormy Daniels recounted it to Olivia Nuzzi in New York magazine last year: "She didn't say 'no.' She didn't say 'yes,' either. To me, she said, 'When I tried to step around him, he was like, "I thought you wanted to be a director. Sometimes you have to do whatever it takes." And I knew his bodyguard was outside the door."

(edited to fix nested quotation marks)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ben Wittes, at least, thought that the testimony was a disaster for the prosecution, and that beating that she is taking and will take tomorrow on cross-examination outweighs any benefit of the testimony. I'm not sure I agree with him on this one.

[N.E. Brigand]

Well maybe Wittes will be as wrong about Stormy Daniels as he was about Bill Barr.

Lisa Rubin notes some common themes the cross-examination of Daniels shares with that of E. Jean Carroll in an earlier Trump trial.

[N.E. Brigand]

I saw that Judge Merchan had asked Donald Trump's lawyers, after a midday break, if they had spoken with their client.

Now we know what that was about: the judge could hear Trump cursing under his breath during Stormy Daniels's testimony.



Many years ago, I attended one day of a very serious criminal trial. At one point an attorney asked a witness what seemed to me and to many other observers to be a ridiculous question, and many people, me among them, groaned softly but audibly. After that session, the judge made the audience remain, and she chewed us out. And she was right to do so.

[N.E. Brigand]

Overheard on CNN just now: a reporter quoting Stormy Daniels explaining to Donald Trump's attorney that "the sex is real; that's why it's pornography."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Just based on following the reports by Tyler McBrien, Anna Bower and others about today's testimony, I don't think that the cross-examination of Stormy Daniels was as successful as people like Ben Wittes thought it would be. And the re-cross was a downright disaster for them.



Why in the world would they have thought it was a good idea to emphasize that tweet? SMH.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Why would the Daily Beast have this headline about an agreement that has long been known and extensively reported about?

Prosecutors Reveal Alleged Hush Money Deal to Trump Crony

What an awful publication!

[N.E. Brigand]

I think it's worth noting that Donald Trump's assistant Madeleine Westerhout testified this week that Trump continued to manage his business from the White House, despite his promises not to do so. We knew that, but it's good to have it confirmed. He's incapable of putting country, or anything else, ahead of himself.

Edited to fix spelling errors and add missing words.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm pressed for time today and won't be able to read much about the testimony, but I wanted to note that I share this opinion of Michael Cohen that Seth Abramson expressed this morning. Before today's session started, Abramson noted that he has been a guest once on Michael Cohen's podcast, but:

"I do not take the view of Michael Cohen that MSNBC has taken, that after his plea to several federal felonies, a federal prison sentence, and a period of home detention, he is a changed man. I have represented thousands of criminal defendants, and I do not believe this at all. I believe that Michael Cohen is the same man today that he was five years ago, ten years, and fifteen years ago. I do not think he was chastened by his conviction, I think he was angered by it—albeit not without good reason."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

While I also share that opinion, I find so much that Seth Abramson says to be sensationalized nonsense that I have largely given up on seeking out the occasional wheat amongst the sea of chaff.

[N.E. Brigand]

Self-aggrandizing too. That one of his books briefly made the New York Time best-seller list is a fact he never gets tired of mentioning.

(But despite all that, I noticed during the Mueller investigation that he and Marcy Wheeler via different paths often ended up at the same place.)

[N.E. Brigand]

A headline at AL.com, the collective website for three Alabama newspapers, the Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register:

"Trump said he wouldn't be 'on the market' long if Melania left him over Stormy Daniels, Cohen testified."

How will that land with Donald Trump's base? On the one hand, some will chortle over Trump's incorrigibility (this also happened among Bill Clinton supporters in the 1990s). On the other hand, there are plenty of Trump supporters who love to praise Melania as the most beautiful First Lady ever and who for years talked about what a heartthrob Barron would be when he grew up. And here's Trump saying -- per Cohen, but it sure rings true to me -- that divorcing Melania over an affair he had when Barron was a baby would be no big deal.

(Edited to note Maggie Haberman's weird take on this particular statement.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Self-aggrandizing too. That one of his books briefly made the New York Time best-seller list is a fact he never gets tired of mentioning.

(But despite all that, I noticed during the Mueller investigation that he and Marcy Wheeler via different paths often ended up at the same place.)

I've largely stopped following Marcy Wheeler as well. While I usually tend to agree with what she says, I often find the way that she says things to be off-putting and counter-productive (e.g., posting "BREAKING NEWS" followed by some exaggerated and purposeful twisting of whatever the particular news is in order to make her point).

In any event, my assessment of Cohen's first day of testimony is that he filled in some of the remaining gaps, but I am hoping he will be able to fill in some more tomorrow!

[N.E. Brigand]

Allison Gill was in the courthouse today (in the media room) and twice reported that Donald Trump appeared to be asleep.

I see that Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, who was in the court as Trump's guest today, addressed such reports not by denying that Trump was asleep but by saying that the whole session was so soporific that he was on the verge of nodding off himself.

In other words, he knows that Trump fell asleep during his trial.

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump seems to be using members of Congress to violate the gag order in this case. He's been joined in court by various senators and representatives, who then go outside the courtroom to attack the credibility of the witnesses. I think it's reasonable to assume -- but hard to prove -- that he directed them to do this.

[N.E. Brigand]

Or it might not be that hard to prove after all?