Finally Friday Reads: Today’s Hope Day

It’s pretty obvious. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Former Trump assistant Hope Hicks was called today by the prosecution as its ninth witness.  Her testimony will likely be important.  She also did not want to testify and is credible.  News from the folks inside the courtroom state that Donald is glaring at her.  Her first words into the mic were “I’m really nervous.”

Yesterday’s trial was pretty hilarious as Michael Cohen’s documents and tapes were presented. Many included statements from Donald that incriminated him.  This is from the Business Insider.  “Donald ‘Von ShitzInPantz’ has now formally been entered into the public record at Trump’s hush-money trial.” Everyone but Laura Ingraham has the shitz and giggles over it.

Another week, another contempt-of-court hearing for former President Donald Trump — and this one was a doozy.

On Thursday morning, prosecutors at Trump’s Manhattan hush-money trial argued that he violated his gag order last week when he made four on-camera statements attacking witnesses and the jury.

Things got weird when his defense attorney Todd Blanche complained that Trump must remain silent about witnesses and jurors while his opponents get to say “anything they want.”

That’s when President Joe Biden and Donald “Von ShitzInPants” made their bizarre cameo appearances on the official trial record.

Biden “mocked President Trump,” Blanche told the judge, quoting into the record a joke the president had made Saturday at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

“Donald has had a few tough days lately. You might call it stormy weather,” Biden quipped in a very apparent reference to Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the center of the hush-money trial.

“President Trump can’t respond to that” by criticizing Daniels, Blanche said Thursday to the judge, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Likewise, Trump’s personal attorney turned nemesis, Michael Cohen, can take whatever potshot he chooses, Blanche told the judge.

But Trump must remain silent, Blanche added, even when Cohen mocks him as Donald “Von ShitzInPantz,” a favorite insult on Cohen’s podcast and his account on the social-media site X.

Blanche proceeded to read that colorfully worded, offending post into the record as Trump sat listening at the defense table.

“This one says, oh my, ShitzInPantz,” Blanche recited as he entered a screenshot of the post into the court record as Exhibit 64 — without any objection from prosecutors.

The official court stenographer duly followed along, typing the phrase into the court record as “shits in pants.”

I’m going to skip to the next part but you really should read the entire article. It’s just more surreality that surrounds Donald.  Donald can dish it out but cannot take it.

The judge showed skepticism toward Blanche’s argument that Trump “can’t say anything.”

“You’re saying he can’t respond to what President Biden said?” the judge asked Blanche at one point, his voice sounding incredulous.

“There’s nothing in the gag order that says he can’t,” the judge told Trump’s lawyer.

But the judge also appeared sympathetic to Blanche’s complaints that Cohen and Daniels enjoyed the protection of a gag order while having carte blanche to attack Trump — and continue to do so.

“They’re not defendants in this case,” Merchan said. “I can’t extend a gag order to them. I just don’t have the authority.”

Merchan can, however, remove Cohen from the gag order’s protection, something the judge suggested last week he would consider.

“They’re all similar,” Blanche said of Cohen’s relentless jabs at Trump. “They’re over the top about his character, about his candidacy.”

The lawyer added of Cohen: “This is not a man that needs protection from the gag order.”

The Judge has not announced his decision on the gag violation orders in front of him today. Norman Eisen’s take on the substance of yesterday’s hearing is an important read at CNN today.  “Opinion: How one text exchange gave Trump an ominous day in court.”

When a lawyer who is presenting a case at trial bumps into a colleague outside of court, a common question is, “How’s the case coming in?” This query reflects that planning a trial is one thing — but how well the evidence, especially testimony given by the witnesses, actually “comes in” before the judge and jury is another.

In Donald Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, the case is coming in better than expected, and that is ominous for the former president.

A key moment in Thursday’s examination of Keith Davidson illustrated that. Davidsonis an attorney who represented both Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels as their hush money payments were negotiated with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen — payoffs alleged to have been part of the election influence scheme.

Although Davidson is just a supporting actor in this drama, his role innegotiating the alleged payment to Daniels makes him an important witness to lay down the basic facts of the alleged “catch and kill” plot — and to corroborate the details that former American Media, Inc. CEO and National Enquirer publisher David Pecker established and Cohen will ultimately testify about.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment of Davidson’s morning testimony came when he was asked about an election night 2016 text message exchange with Dylan Howard —aformer editor of the National Enquirer who helped broker the negotiations for the story. The prosecution asked Davidson to explain the meaning of a text he had sent to Howard that evening. As the election was about to be called for Trump, Davidson sent a text to Howard asking, “What have we done?”

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Davidson what the meaning of those words were. He answered that it meant “our efforts may have in some way — strike that — our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.”

When Davidson said those words, the normal hush of the courtroom was suddenly punctuated by the audible clattering of the keyboards of more than 60 journalists seated in the pew-like benches. Why? After all, prosecutors need not prove the alleged secret payment to Daniels actually swung the election, and prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said as much in the DA’s opening statement: “We will never know.”

We’re beginning to get some reporting from the Hick’s testimony today.  This is from The Guardian. “‘We were all just following his lead’: Hope Hicks says Trump ‘very involved’ in campaign and media responses – live.”

Hope Hicks says she reported to Donald Trump directly in her role as press secretary during his campaign.

Asked how often she would speak to Trump during the campaign, Hicks says she spoke with Trump every day by telephone and in person.

The prosecution asked how involved Trump was involved in the media responses during his campaign. Hicks replies: “Very involved”. Asked how involved he was in the overall messaging during the campaign, Trump said:

“Mr Trump was responsible for it. He knew what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it and we were all just following his lead. He deserves the credit.”

Here’s a discussion between Eissen and CNN reporter Paula Newton

And here’s some more.

If you want to read a blow-by-blow of the questions and testimony follow  Inner City Press.

I’m sure more will be out this afternoon. I’ll try to keep posting down the thread.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

I was in a street car yesterday trying to get home when Mick and the guys rolled towards the JazzFest up the tracks going the other directions with NOPD motorcycles and a long line of limos and black SUVs.  I used to live to work sound at the fest but it’s just gotten out of hand. I don’t even go anymore. But here’s a treat with a cute anecdote reported by a friend of mine.  Our new governor is worse than DeSantis and Abbott and probably the Puppy Murderer too.

The fun thing about their performance they brought out New Orleans musicians to perform with them.  Their first hit, Time is on My Side, was first performed by New Orleans’s own Irma Thomas. Watch and listen!