Category Archives: Stormy Daniels

Trump Attacks Judge Who Refused To Further Delay Hush Money Trial: ‘He Hates Me!’

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Former President Donald Trump went on the offensive Tuesday against the New York state judge overseeing the criminal trial over the alleged hush-money payments he made in 2016.

Judge Juan Merchan, the latest jurist to face the indicted Republican presidential candidate’s ire for doing their job, is presiding over a trial that stems from payments Trump allegedly made to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign in order to bury accusations he had an affair. The former president was charged last year with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the alleged payments.

Later Tuesday, Merchan issued a gag order against Trump in the hush money case. The order prohibits the former president from speaking publicly about witnesses, jurors, court staff or prosecutors involved in the trial.

“It is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” he wrote in the order.

As Trump has done in other cases he’s charged in, the GOP presidential frontrunner has fervently denied wrongdoing in the hush-money case. This trial will be the first time a United States president is criminally prosecuted.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee called Merchan a “very distinguished looking man” who is “nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“In other words, he hates me!” Trump continued.

The post comes one day after Merchan ruled that Trump’s trial can proceed on April 15 as scheduled, denying a request by Trump’s lawyers to either further delay the case by 90 days or have it altogether dismissed.

The trial was originally set to start Monday. But Merchan delayed it until next month, after the Manhattan District Attorney’s office received a massive document dump from the federal Southern District of New York that may include new evidence in the case.

That initial delay was meant to give both sides enough time to sift through the documents, which are related to an earlier investigation. That probe centered on whether Trump instructed his then-fixer Michael Cohen to give Daniels $130,000 to stay quiet about an extramarital sexual encounter she allegedly had with the former president years ago. Prosecutors in that case decided against charging Trump, but the federal investigation did lead to Cohen pleading guilty in 2018 to to campaign finance violations, among other charges.

The upcoming hush-money trial is not the first time Merchan will be overseeing a case related to the former president or his business. The judge, a former prosecutor who often handles financial cases, previously presided over a criminal tax fraud prosecution of the Trump Organisation that resulted in a $1.6 million fine for the company. The organisation’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty and served 100 days in prison for his role, though Merchan commented at the time that he wished he could impose a stricter penalty.

In his Tuesday post, Trump also attacked Merchan for “viciously” treating Weisselberg, who the former president described as “elderly and not in good health.” Nicholas Gravante, who represented Weisselberg in the plea negotiations, said Merchan was “a real listener, well-prepared, always accessible, and a man who kept his word,” according to The Associated Press.

Trump’s attorneys filed a motion in August asking Merchan to recuse himself because of the judge’s remarks about Weisselberg’s sentencing, as well as donations to Democratic groups totaling $35 in 2020 and his daughter’s employment with a political consulting firm that did digital marketing for the Biden campaign. Merchan rejected the calls for his recusal.

Tuesday’s post was the latest attack by Trump against judges overseeing his multiple court cases, as he’s repeatedly claimed the judicial system is attempting to interfere with this year’s election. Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this month rejected a bid by Trump’s lawyers to throw out the case accusing him of keeping classified government documents at his personal home in Florida.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Judge Arthur Engoron, who ordered the former president and his Trump Organisation associates to pay a hefty fine last month as part of a civil fraud case in New York. Engoron has faced a bomb threat to his home and received an envelope filled with white powder that authorities later said was harmless. The judge’s staff have also been subjected to threats and harassment.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal insurrection case against Trump in Washington, has also repeatedly faced his anger. She experienced a so-called swatting attempt after someone made a false emergency call about her home.

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Donald Trump Has Odd ‘Superstitions’ About His Hair, According To New Stormy Daniels Doc

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A new documentary about porn actor Stormy Daniels includes a bizarre tidbit about Donald Trump’s hair.

“Stormy”, which was released last week on Peacock, tells Daniels’ story, including about the controversy surrounding her alleged affair with the former president. It features interviews with her friends and family, journalists and others, including comedians Seth Rogen and Jimmy Kimmel.

In one documentary excerpt flagged by Mediaite, Rogen, who worked with Daniels on the movies Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin, recalled a conversation he had with Daniels years ago about Trump’s famous hairdo.

“We were like, ‘What’s up with the hair?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, I asked him about the hair,’” Rogen said.

“He said to her that he had had a dream like, Samson and Delilah, and that he, like, felt as though his power, like, rested in his hair, and that if he lost it, he would lose his, like, power and his stature,” he continued.

“And that’s why, even though he knows it’s ridiculous and … objectively not passing all the check marks you would want a head of hair to pass, to him that is preferable than cutting it off because he has, like, superstitions about it,” he added.

In 2018, Rogen publicly corroborated Daniels’ claim she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres show, he told the host he had known Daniels a long time, and she had mentioned it a decade earlier.

“At the time, when you ask a porn star who they’ve been sleeping with, and the answer was Donald Trump, it was like the least surprising thing she could have said,” Rogen said at the time.

Trump has since been charged with falsifying business records in connection to a hush money payment to Daniels in 2016 in exchange for her silence on the alleged affair before that year’s presidential election.

Trump was in court Monday as a Manhattan judge weighed his request to delay or toss out the trial, currently scheduled to begin next month. He has denied wrongdoing, and called the case a “witch hunt and a hoax” before entering the courtroom.

The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment on Rogen’s account.

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Judge Rejects Trump’s Attempt To Delay Hush Money Trial

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NEW YORK — A New York state judge ruled on Monday that the criminal trial against former President Donald Trump stemming from a hush money payment he allegedly made to a porn actor can proceed, denying Trump’s request to have the case delayed further or altogether dismissed.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, sat alongside his lawyers as Judge Juan Merchan announced that jury selection in the case would begin on April 15.

The trial — the first-ever criminal trial of a former president — had originally been scheduled to start on Monday but was delayed one month after prosecutors agreed to allow Trump’s defence attorneys to review some 100,000 pages of documents of potential new evidence.

Trump’s lawyers had sought to have the trial delayed for an additional 90 days or to have the charges altogether dismissed over what they argued were “violations” of the discovery process, alleging the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had failed to hand over evidence to the defence team in a timely fashion. This, Trump’s lawyers alleged, was a deliberate attempt to bury potentially exculpatory evidence and amounted to “widespread misconduct”.

But prosecutors argued that the new tranche of documents contained little evidence relevant to the case and didn’t require a further postponement of the trial. Prosecutors received the documents in question earlier this month from the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s alleged hush money payments but decided not to charge the former president.

The documents are related to Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer and fixer turned state witness. Prosecutors allege Trump instructed Cohen to give porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 before the 2016 election to stop her from publicising a story about an extramarital sexual encounter she claims to have had with the former president a decade prior. Trump denies the tryst took place.

Trump was charged last year with 34 counts of falsifying business records in relation to the alleged hush money payments.

“This is a witch hunt, this is a hoax,” the former president told reporters before entering the courtroom Monday. During the hearing, his lawyers argued that the new batch of documents could contain evidence that would discredit Cohen as a witness, and that they needed more time to review Cohen’s emails and bank statements.

But Judge Merchan seemed unsympathetic to this argument, and appeared to grow frustrated with Trump’s lawyers when they couldn’t cite a single legal precedent to support the argument that the Manhattan DA’s could’ve forced the US Attorney’s office to fork over the documents earlier.

“The allegation you make about the people’s case is incredibly serious, unbelievably serious,” Merchan told Trump attorney Todd Blanche. “You’re literally accusing the Manhattan DA’s office of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it and you don’t have a single [legal precedent to] cite.”

During a 45-minute recess in the court proceedings, news broke that a state appeals court had ruled in Trump’s favour in a separate case — the civil fraud case brought against Trump by New York Attorney General Letitia James. James had initially won a judgment against Trump, with a court finding that he’d committed fraud by falsely inflating his net worth. The appellate court decision Monday reduced his $464 million bond in the case, a potentially financially crippling sum, to $175 million.

Back inside the courtroom after the recess, Trump scowled as Merchan ruled that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was “not at fault for the late production of documents” and the office had made a “diligent, good faith effort” during the discovery process.

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Trump Suggests He’s Like Jesus As Hearing Over Porn Star Payment Begins

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Donald Trump on Monday embraced the idea that he’s kind of like Jesus Christ, as he attended a court hearing for his upcoming criminal trial over hush money payments made to an adult film star with whom he allegedly had an extramarital affair.

The comparison came courtesy of Truth Social, where Trump’s account shared a message purportedly sent to him by a follower.

“It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” the message reads, suggesting that Trump’s $468 million fine for decades of financial fraud is on par with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

The message then points to Psalm 109, a verse that the Christian right has embraced as a fairly ominous political rallying cry.

The stanza ends: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

“Thank you again for taking the arrows intended for us. We love you,” concludes the message that may or may not have actually been sent by a fan of the former president. (It wasn’t filled with WORDS IN ALL CAPS and random uses of quotation “marks”, so it could indeed be authentic.)

Trump responded by calling the sentiment “beautiful”.

Trump’s legal team is seeking to further delay the hush money trial, originally scheduled to begin March 25, after additional evidence from an earlier federal investigation came to light.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan already postponed the trial 30 days. Trump’s lawyers have asked for 90.

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Donald Trump Turns Himself In At New York Court

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Former US president Donald Trump has surrendered at a New York courthouse following his indictment on criminal charges after a probe into hush money paid to a porn star.

Trump, 76, was formally charged on Tuesday in a watershed moment for the country as his supporters and detractors noisily rallied outside.

Wearing a dark blue suit and red tie, he exhibited little emotion on his face as he waved to a crowd assembled outside the courthouse after he was driven in a motorcade from his New York residence at Trump Tower. Trump held his fist in the air in a gesture to reporters as he departed his New York residence.

From his motorcade, Trump posted on social media: “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse. Seems so SURREAL – WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America.”

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with crimes related to a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels in the final days of his 2016 run for the presidency.

Daniels claims these alleged payments, made by Trump’s then lawyer Michael Cohen, were meant to stop her from talking about her affair with Trump prior to the presidential election.

The hush money in itself is not a crime, but Trump recorded his reimbursement to Cohen as legal fees. If prosecutors prove this was a falsification of records, it could count as a misdemeanour in New York.

It could also mean Trump violated campaign finance laws because it happened just before the 2016 election, and so it could indicate that he didn’t want his voters to know about her – that would be a class E felony.

US media has reported that there are more than 30 counts related to business fraud, although the details of the charges have not been made public yet.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, claims the affair did not happen and has alleged that the indictment is “political persecution” from the Democrats to impact the election.

He also alleged that the Democrats have “done the unthinkable” and indicted a “completely innocent person”.

In a statement, his lawyer said: “He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

Trump’s indictment involved him travelling to the district attorney’s office in downtown New York to surrender.

Trump will have his fingerprints taken and is to appear for the charges to be read before him in court. It’s unclear whether a mugshot will be taken. He is likely to be released and allowed to head home.

It marks the first instance in American history of a former president facing criminal charges, and comes after years of investigations into the 76-year-old’s business, political and personal dealings.

Any trial of the former US president would still be more than a year away, legal experts say, and could coincide with the final months of the 2024 presidential campaign as Trump seeks a return to the White House.

The Manhattan case is the least serious of the potential criminal cases targetting Trump. A federal special prosecutor, Jack Smith, is investigating both Trump’s handling of classified documents and his role in the January 6 Capitol riot. And a grand jury in Georgia could soon hand up charges related to Trump’s efforts to change election results there.

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