Trump Trial Day 2 — “Fake News”
Trump’s first day of his trial was short because of the Passover holiday. Both sides made their opening statements and David Pecker testified for a little bit.
The Prosecution told the jury that the case was about criminal conspiracy and how Trump’s actions corrupted the 2016 presidential election. They set up their case by laying out how Michael Cohen created a shell company, with Allen Weisselberg’s input, to pay Stormy Daniels to keep quiet then invoice the Trump Organization for fake legal services to get paid back.
The defense team’s opening statement was Trump is innocent. Attorney Todd Blanche told jurors that they refer to Trump as “president” out of respect but that he’s just like them — a man, a husband, a father (there was no wife or children in the courtroom to support him). The 34 counts of business records violation is just 34 pieces of paper. They don’t mean anything. There was no crime. He never had sex with Stormy Daniels. She tried to extort him. As far as influencing the election goes, “there’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.” Whoa. The prosecution objected and the judge sustained. Blanche knows that’s not true and that the prosecution would object. He did it on purpose in his opening statement to plant a fake seed in one juror’s head, like the bullshit headline on the cover of the fake news National Enquirer that millions of people see every day as they’re waiting their turn to buy groceries. Todd Blanche told the jury that checkbook journalism and NDAs are normal.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo quoted Trump from the Access Hollywood tape, the part where he said he could grab women by the “pussy” one month before the election which had an “immediate and explosive” reaction so Trump had to hurry up and grab the pussies who could go to the press and blow his chances of becoming president. Hence the “hush money” payment to a porn star and the “catch and kill” scheme with the Playmate.
The judge let both sides know that if Trump decides to take the stand he will open himself up for testimony to come in such as being found guilty of defaming E. Jean Carroll twice, various fraud findings and gag orders, the New York civil fraud case, being fined for ignoring court orders, and losing his foundation due to fraud. They can’t bring up the sexual assault conviction of E. Jean Carroll, tax and business record fraud convictions from 2 years ago, and sanctions for filing frivolous lawsuits against political enemies in Florida.
After David Pecker’s testimony, the court adjourned early. A few hours later, Trump violated the gag order by going after Michael Cohen on Truth Social and calling jurors Democrats in a softball right wing TV interview. The idiot defied his gag order mere hours before his gag order hearing in court.
The judge didn’t end up ruling on Trump defying the gag order after the hearing this morning. He’ll decide what to do later. He did get pissed at Trump’s lawyer for playing games, though. He told Todd Blanche, “You are losing all credibility with the court.”
After Blanche got spanked by the judge he had to take his seat next to the smelly old man who he’s risking his good reputation for by defending him for paying a porn star off so she wouldn’t tell the press about the time she spanked the smelly old man with a magazine that had his face on the cover. Was that the National Enquirer? Spank me again with that fake news!
While Trump’s lawyer was getting spanked during the gag order hearing, Trump was over at the defense table posting on Truth Social. He called Judge Merchan’s courtroom a “kangaroo court” and said he should recuse himself. He falsely assailed the gag order, claiming he can’t defend himself. The stupid smelly idiot was literally defying the gag order while sitting in court while his attorney was literally trying to get him out of defying 10 gag orders in a gag order hearing.
After the judge finished admonishing Trump’s lawyer, David Pecker was put back on the stand where he admitted that he would run negative stories about Trump’s opponents whenever Trump told him to. Michael Cohen would call him and tell him what to run. He wasn’t part of the campaign. He made those calls on behalf of Trump. Pecker said he went from talking to Michael Cohen a couple times a week to speaking with him everyday, sometimes twice a day, after Playmate Karen McDougal’s Trump story emerged. Cohen told him they shouldn’t talk over a landline, but to use the app Signal instead since it’s encrypted and messages could be destroyed. Pecker had to keep that a big secret from his large staff so it wouldn’t leak to the legitimate press.
Trump’s claim that Ted Cruz’s father had links to Lee Harvey Oswald? The National Enquirer made that up for him.
Trump built his celebrity billionaire businessman persona in the pages of the National Enquirer, the king of fake news. And here he is, the former president facing a criminal hush money trial with the former tabloid publisher who helped Trump craft his billionaire image testifying against him and admitting to it’s all fake news. The irony - Trump coming up with the “fake news” moniker to describe the mainstream media so nobody would believe what was being reported while screaming “fake news!” from the podium at his rallies while literally running a fake news operation with David Pecker the whole time.
And now Trump’s defense team has the unenviable job of trying to convince a jury that the stories about Trump and the porn star are fake news.
