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Stormy Daniels Takes the Witness Stand in Trump’s NY Trial

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As the third week of witness testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial takes place, all eyes are on who will be called next and whether the former president will be able to abide by the terms of his now twice-broken gag order that bars him from speaking publicly about jurors, witnesses and some others connected to the case.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was called to the witness stand by mid-morning, following testimony from a Penguin Random House executive.

Before Monday’s testimony began, Judge Juan M. Merchan found Trump in contempt of court for a second time, fining him $1,000 for a single violation and sternly warning the loquacious former president that jail time would be considered for future violations “if necessary and appropriate.”

Two people tied to the Trump Organization took the stand on Monday — former controller Jeffrey McConney and accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff — elaborating on a key piece of the charges against Trump: Michael Cohen’s reimbursement for the $130,000 Daniels payment.

Tuesday’s witness testimony is set to dig further into the events and people involved in what prosecutors have said was a scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by buying and burying negative stories about the then-candidate. (Read more from “Stormy Daniels Takes the Witness Stand in Trump’s NY Trial” HERE)

Reporter Uses ABC News’ Airwaves to Pop Democrats’ Bubble About Biden’s Re-Election Chances

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An NPR reporter delivered news from the campaign trail on Sunday that doesn’t look good for President Joe Biden.

During a roundtable discussion on ABC News’ “This Week,” NPR correspondent Asma Khalid confirmed that voters who typically compose the “core” of the Democratic Party lack enthusiasm for Biden’s re-election.

Khalid was pushing back on Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s claim that voters are falsely “glamorizing” Donald Trump’s presidency.

“What I’ve already heard in so many of my interviews with people is a lackluster sense of enthusiasm,” she said of voters’ attitudes toward Biden, “whether it’s black voters, whether it’s — you’d call them, sort of like, disaffected Republicans.” . . .

“There’s a whole bunch of things that went right for Biden, I would argue, in 2020: It was unity and opposition to Donald Trump,” she explained. “To make this a referendum is what the Biden campaign wants, but it’s really challenging because many voters are looking at this election as a referendum on [Biden].”

(Read more from “Reporter Uses ABC News’ Airwaves to Pop Democrats’ Bubble About Biden’s Re-Election Chances” HERE)

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Alvin Bragg’s Team Finally Produced Docs at Center of Case Against Trump — There Was Just One Catch

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Prosecutors finally displayed the documents at the heart of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump on Monday, but have yet to establish a direct link to demonstrate Trump’s culpability.

Until Monday, prosecutors had been focused on setting up other pieces of their case: the context for the $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims of a sexual encounter and the broader “conspiracy” to influence the 2016 election they allege Trump was involved in. Monday’s witnesses — former Trump Organization controller Jeffrey McConney and Trump Organization accounts payable supervisor Deborah Tarasoff — offered starkly different testimony than earlier witnesses like David Pecker and Keith Davidson, providing no salacious celebrity stories and an almost exclusive focus on accounting.

Through their testimony, prosecutors introduced the invoices, ledger entries and checks the 34-felony count indictment against Trump claims he falsified, allegedly to reimburse his former attorney Michael Cohen for the Daniels payment.

Bragg was only able to bring the core charges for falsifying business records, which had passed the statute of limitations, by charging them as felonies and alleging they were done to conceal or commit another crime, which is why much of the prosecution’s case has focused on highlighting Trump’s involvement in the alleged “conspiracy.”

During cross examination with McConney and Tarasoff, Trump’s defense sought to cast doubt on the president’s personal responsibility by raising questions about his direct involvement in repaying Cohen. (Read more from “Alvin Bragg’s Team Finally Produced Docs at Center of Case Against Trump — There Was Just One Catch” HERE)

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Democrat Rhetoric Gets Violent: Maxine Claims Trump Supporters ‘Training up in the Hills’ for Civil War

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Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) said on this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” that the Department of Justice should investigate “right-wing organizations” who supported former President Donald Trump “training up in the hill” for a civil war.

Waters said, “You cannot trust anything that Donald Trump has to say no matter if he loses he is going to say it was fraud. He still has not accepted what happened in the last presidential election. We have to be very concerned about a former president of the United States talking about attacking his own country, talking about perhaps a bloodbath, talking about perhaps there is going to be trouble. He said it in so many different ways we should take him seriously. This man does not believe in the Constitution. He wants to be a dictator. This is a dangerous human being. We have to know what our country is going to do to protect us from him.” (Read more from “Democrat Rhetoric Gets Violent: Maxine Claims Trump Supporters ‘Training up in the Hills’ for Civil War” HERE)

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Nathan Wade Makes Absurd Claim About the Moment He and Fani Willis Ended Their Love Affair

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Former Donald Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade made an absurd claim that he and Fani Willis ended their affair the “moment” they realized they were in love with each other — a statement completely at odds with his ex-lover’s version of events.

Speaking to ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Wade claimed he developed feelings for the Fulton County district attorney, who appointed him as special prosecutor to the election fraud case in 2021 “over time.”

“You don’t plan to fall in love,” he told the show, in his first interview since he was made to resign from the case in March.

“You don’t plan to have some relationship in the workplace. You don’t set out to do that. Those things develop organically. They develop over time.

“The minute we had that sobering moment, we discontinued it,” he claimed. (Read more from “Nathan Wade Makes Absurd Claim About the Moment He and Fani Willis Ended Their Love Affair” HERE)

Trump: Arrest Jack Smith After Special Counsel Admits Lying to Court

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President Trump this weekend called for Jack Smith to be arrested after the Special Counsel admitted in a court filing that he lied to the court about the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. . .

Jack Smith admitted he lied to the Court about the classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in a motion filed late Friday night.

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Friday evening responded to Trump’s co-defendant Walt Nauta’s motion to extend a deadline for disclosures in the classified documents case.

Recall that Walt Nauta, a former White House employee and Navy veteran who worked valet for Trump and served as a personal staffer at Mar-a-Lago was indicted along with Trump last year.

In a motion filed late Friday, Jack Smith admitted the FBI messed with the boxes containing “classified” documents they seized from Trump and can’t be sure the order or the placement of the documents. (Read more from “Trump: Arrest Jack Smith After Special Counsel Admits Lying to Court” HERE)

Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Knew of Biden-Ukraine Corruption Trump Wanted Probed

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The “whistleblower” who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.

In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.

But four years earlier, while working as a national security analyst attached to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, Ciaramella was a close adviser when Biden threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings. At the time, the corruption-riddled energy giant was paying Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars.

Those payments — along with other evidence tying Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings — received little attention in 2019 as Ciaramella accused Trump of a corrupt quid pro quo. Neither did subsequent evidence indicating that Hunter Biden’s associates had identified Shokin as a “key target.” These matters are now part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

“It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial [to exonerate Trump],” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has testified as an expert witness in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry. “Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.” (Read more from “Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Knew of Biden-Ukraine Corruption Trump Wanted Probed” HERE)

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Hope Hicks Breaks Down on Witness Stand, Defends Trump and Melania’s Relationship

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Donald Trump’s former top aide Hope Hicks broke down on the witness stand Friday at his hush money trial, during testimony where she also defended the former president’s relationship with wife Melania.

Hicks, 35 — former press secretary then top White House spokesperson to the ex-president — began crying after the first few questions by Emil Bove, a lawyer for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

During the emotional moment Hicks dabbed her eyes with a tissue as Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan offered her a short break, which she accepted.

Although it is not clear why she started to cry, Hicks had first become visibly flustered at the end of questioning by the prosecution, while answering questions about the $130,000 payment to porn star Stromy Daniels which is at the center of the trial.

She had testified she thought Trump thought felt “it was better to be dealing” with the situation in 2018 than before the 2016 presidential election. (Read more from “Hope Hicks Breaks Down on Witness Stand, Defends Trump and Melania’s Relationship” HERE)

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Say Trump Strong Leader, Biden Weak

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By Breitbart. A majority of Americans see former President Donald Trump as a strong leader, while most see President Joe Biden as a weak leader, according to a poll.

The Economist/YouGov poll published on Wednesday asked respondents to classify Trump and Biden’s leadership qualities.

A majority of 58 percent of all adult respondents say Trump is a strong leader, including a plurality of 35 percent who see him as “very strong.” Trump is up one point in this department from a March Economist/YouGov poll that Breitbart News reported on.

The remaining 42 percent of respondents see Trump as a weak leader to varying degrees, including 32 percent who say he is “very weak.”

Conversly, Americans overwhelmingly say Biden has weak leadership qualities. A strong majority (64 percent) say Biden is a weak leader. Moreover, 45 percent of all poll participants regard Biden as “very weak.” (Read more from “Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Say Trump Strong Leader, Biden Weak” HERE)

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Donald Trump Beating Joe Biden by 15 Points in One Battleground State: Poll

By Newsweek. Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden by 15 points in Michigan six months before the presidential election, one poll has shown.

According to a Kaplan Strategies survey of 804 people, the former president is leading the incumbent by 51 percent to 36 percent in the key battleground state. The margin of error for the survey was 3.5 percentage points.

In March, Biden and Trump won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Democratic and Republican nominations in the 2024 presidential election. Thus far, polls have shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most polls or enjoying only marginal leads.

Swing states are important as due to the Electoral College system of voting, they may determine the winner of the election. (Read more from “Donald Trump Beating Joe Biden by 15 Points in One Battleground State: Poll” HERE)

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Trump Trial: Stormy Daniels Lawyer Balks at Term ‘Hush Money’

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An attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels testified at Donald Trump‘s trial Thursday that he “would never” describe the $130,000 payment to her as “hush money.”

Testimony from Daniels’s former attorney Keith Davidson is viewed as a key component of the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies plotted to hide damaging stories in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. As prosecutors questioned him from the stand on Thursday, the porn star’s attorney made a surprising dispute of the definition of the “hush money.”

“Would you use the phrase hush money to describe the money that was paid to your client by Donald Trump?” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked.

“I would never use that word,” Davidson said, adding he would describe it as a “consideration in a civil settlement.” Trump denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels.

The description of the alleged sexual encounter that prosecutors say Trump sought to cover up using his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen was also subject to scrutiny by Davidson on Thursday. (Read more from “Trump Trial: Stormy Daniels Lawyer Balks at Term ‘Hush Money’” HERE)