Judge directs Michael Cohen to keep quiet about Trump ahead of his hush money trial testimony

(10 May 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 10 May 2024
1. STILL Former President Donald Trump talks to the media after a day of testimony in his trial at Manhattan Criminal court in New York
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, The Associated Press:
"We had a shortened day in court here on Friday, as prosecutors continued to breeze through a series of records witnesses. There were four people they called today to authenticate data, phone calls, messages. These are key to the prosecution’s case against Trump. It’s not the edge of your seat riveting testimony that we saw the last few days with Stormy Daniels. And that was reflected in the jurors reactions in the courtroom. They were yawning at points, staring at the ceiling, stretching their arms. But there were few key developments today. For one thing, prosecutors said that they may rest their case as soon as the end of next week, which is earlier than a lot of people expected."
3. STILL Former President Donald Trump talks to the media after a day of testimony in his trial at Manhattan Criminal court in New York
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jake Offenhartz, The Associated Press:
"The defense for Trump also requested that the judge issue a gag order against Michael Cohen, who’s continued to post on social media about Donald Trump and the case. The judge told prosecutors to tell Cohen to stop doing that, but he didn’t issue a formal gag order. Michael Cohen is set to testify next week, possibly as soon as Monday."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York – 13 April 2023
5. FILE Michael Cohen, former attorney to Donald Trump, leaves the District Attorney’s office in New York
STORYLINE:
With Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen expected to take the witness stand Monday, the judge in the former president’s hush money case issued prosecutors a stern warning: Get Cohen to stop his taunting posts and jabs at Trump.

Judge Juan M. Merchan’s comments came as a dramatic and consequential week in the first criminal trial of a former American president drew to a close Friday.

Prosecutors have been building up their case ahead of crucial testimony from Cohen, who arranged the $130,000 payout to porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public ahead of the 2016 election about an an alleged sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump denies ever having sex with Daniels.

Defense attorneys will argue that the disbarred lawyer who served prison time is out to get the former president and cannot be believed.

Two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that Cohen is expected to take the stand Monday. The people could not discuss the matter publicly and and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

Trump’s lawyers complained after Cohen this week wore a shirt featuring a figure resembling the former president behind bars in a social media video. They have argued it’s unfair Trump is under a gag order that prevents him from speaking publicly about witnesses while Cohen has continued to post about Trump on social media.

“It’s becoming a problem every single day that President Trump is not allowed to respond to this witness but this witness is allowed to continue to talk,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said.

Merchan told prosecutors they should inform Cohen “that the judge is asking him to refrain from making any more statements” about the case or about Donald Trump. Prosecutors told the judge they had already requested that Cohen and other witnesses not talk about the case, but had no direct means of controlling their behavior.

AP video by Jake Offenhartz

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives ​​
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/

You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/dd6d3fccbbc74f94af29760480c27e61

Renegade_Rcih
Greetings I'm Renegade Rich, I own lots of websites and domain names. one of my favorite news type of sites are news sites. So I own lots of news sites and news domain names. My lates is https://news.post.in 😁