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Donald Trump returned to court in Manhattan this morning, marking his 15th court appearance since April 15, when the fourth week of his historic hush money criminal trial ended.
Friday’s hearing, which was much less tame and included a handful of jailhouse witnesses who provided more technical additions to testimony or evidence, followed several closely watched days of testimony involving an adult movie star Stormy Danielswho revealed lurid details about her sexual relationship with Trump.
Here are the main takeaways:
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1. The defense paints Trump as a distracted multitasker
As former Trump aide Madeline Westerhout took the stand again on Friday, Trump attorney Susan Necheles tried to use her testimony to portray the former president as a busy multitasker who must constantly sign “a huge amount of items” that would ” take many hours” of his day”.
Westerhout, who once served as director of operations in the Oval Office during Trump’s presidency, testified that Trump signed a slew of documents, including proclamations, executive orders and checks.
“He liked the printed form … he felt that if someone was getting his signature, they were getting his real signature,” Westerhout said. Necheles went on to ask Westerhout if she had ever seen Trump sign things without going over them, as well as when he was on the phone and meeting with people, to which Westerhout said yes.
“He was a multi-tasker?” Necheles asked. “Yes,” Westerhout replied.
Necheles’ cross-examination of Westerhout tried to portray Trump as a busy and distracted multitasker who signed many documents without paying much attention, including possibly the refund checks he signed to Michael Cohen as part of the hush money payment , done to Daniels.
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2. Former Trump aide joins defense’s account of secret family money
During his testimony, Westerhout appeared to play into the defense’s argument that Trump was worried about the Stormy Daniels story because of his family. Westerhout, who said she spoke with Trump about the story, described Trump as “very upset about it,” adding, “My understanding is that he knew it was going to hurt his family.”
Asked by Necheles if that information was based on what Trump had told her, Westerhout said, “Um, I don’t believe he specifically said that, but I can just say the whole situation was very unpleasant.”
While strategically it wasn’t a coup for prosecutors, as Westerhout testified that she couldn’t recall Trump saying anything in particular, her testimony still seemed to play some role in their narrative.
While prosecutors say Trump issued the hush money payment to influence the 2016 presidential election, his defense has suggested the payment was made out of concern for his family, including his wife Melania’s reaction.
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3. Texts between a former publicist for Daniels and a former National Enquirer editor
Another witness called to the stand today was Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal in the Manhattan district attorney’s office whose role is to find and preserve social media posts related to the criminal case.
In addition to Longstreet’s inquiry into various Trump tweets (including one from August 2018 in which Trump says: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I highly recommend you don’t use Michael Cohen!”), prosecutor Rebecca Mangold produced numerous text messages between Daniels’ former publicist Gina Rodriguez and former National Enquirer editor Dyland Howard for Longstreet to read aloud. It is important to note that some of the text messages have already been shown to the jury for review.
In the text messages, Rodriguez and Howard discuss Daniels’ desire to publicize her sexual relationship with Trump because she still hasn’t been paid. The texts, read aloud by Longstreet, included an exchange between Rodriguez and Howard in which they negotiated prices for the National Enquirer to buy the rights to Daniels’ story. Negotiating between $250,000 and $125,000 on October 9, 2016, they eventually settled on $120,000. In response, Rodriguez says, “Sold.”
Prosecutors’ focus on the text messages is an attempt to illustrate the chronology of Daniels’ hush money payment, as they say Cohen made the hush money payment on Oct. 27, 2016, through a shell company just before the 2016 presidential election.
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