https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/15/trump-hush-money-trial-day-one-00152387Trump Media stocks tumble
Trump’s woes extended outside of the courtroom, with shares of his social media company slumping by 15 percent on Monday.
Shares in the Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social platform, have been volatile. The shares had already fallen nearly 60 percent since the company first went public on March 26.
The company’s stock initially peaked at $70.90, and the public offering was believed to have inflated Trump’s overall wealth by billions.
However, shares were at $27.56 as Trump’s trial began.
NEW YORK — Nine potential jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial cleared an initial round of vetting Monday, as the first-ever criminal trial of a former president kicked off in a Manhattan courtroom.But before jury selection could even begin on Monday, the start of the historic trial was waylaid for hours by a decidedly unhistoric and familiar phenomenon: the former president’s angry social media tirade against the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen.
Trump used his Truth Social platform over the weekend to suggest that Cohen — his former attorney and fixer — should be prosecuted for lying. Cohen, who was famously prosecuted for lying under oath during previous Trump-related proceedings, has been a target of Trump’s disdain for years. But last month, Trump’s judge in the hush money case, Justice Juan Merchan, issued a gag order that barred Trump from commenting on “reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation … in this criminal proceeding.”
Cohen is expected to testify that Trump orchestrated a scheme to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign in order to prevent her from disclosing her claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump while he was married. Manhattan prosecutors have charged Trump with falsifying business records related to the hush money.
Trump’s latest attack, as well as his broader vitriol against Cohen, became a focus of the first hours of the trial on Monday morning, delaying the arduous process of selecting a jury for most of the day. Prosecutors asked Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $3,000 for violating the gag order. They also asked for permission to use the attacks as evidence in the trial itself, if Trump seeks to discredit Cohen’s testimony.
Merchan set a hearing for April 23 to discuss the prosecutors’ contempt request. He did not immediately rule on the request to use the attacks as evidence.
Trump wasn’t cowed by prosecutors’ move to hold him in contempt. During the trial’s lunch break, he posted a video of one of his prominent allies Laura Loomer making various pro-Trump statements through a bullhorn — including criticisms of Cohen. In the video, Loomer also criticized Merchan’s wife. Two weeks ago, Merchan expanded his gag order to prohibit Trump from commenting on the judge’s family members.
The judge on Monday morning ruled on a few other significant evidentiary issues. Prosecutors sought, and received, permission from Merchan to tell jurors what Trump said on the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump is heard discussing his ability to get away with groping women at will because of his stardom. Merchan barred the prosecution, though, from playing the tape itself.
Prosecutors say the tape is relevant because its October 2016 release immediately preceded the hush money payment to Daniels, and Trump’s campaign was frantically working to prevent an erosion of support among women voters.
Merchan handed Trump a victory by denying prosecutors’ request to introduce evidence of sexual assault allegations against Trump made in the wake of the “Access Hollywood” tape. The judge called that evidence “complete hearsay.”
When jury selection finally began after the lunch break, the challenge of selecting a panel of 12 unbiased jurors in bright blue Manhattan became clear. Of the first group of 96 prospective jurors who were ushered into the courtroom, more than half were immediately dismissed after they said they couldn’t be impartial.
They were let go after Merchan ticked off a list of names of people associated with the case, including the former president, his son Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. Then the judge excused at least nine more prospective jurors after they said they couldn’t serve for another reason.
While Trump said and expressed little during Monday’s proceedings, he did react when Merchan told prospective jurors that Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. In response, Trump looked down and shook his head.
After the jury pool left the courtroom, Merchan rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers to allow him to be excused from the trial next Thursday so that he can attend Supreme Court arguments on the immunity claims he has raised in another one of his criminal cases: his federal indictment in Washington for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
“Arguing before the Supreme Court is a big deal, and I can certainly appreciate why your client would want to be there, but a trial in New York Supreme Court … is also a big deal,” Merchan told Trump lawyer Todd Blanche. (In New York, trial courts are known as “supreme courts.”)
“I will see him here next week.
