Trump trial full coverage: Testimony resumes in hush money case

While speaking to reporters before leaving the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, Trump complained that he is subject to a gag order, while witnesses, including Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, are not.

"Everybody can say whatever they want, but I'm not allowed to say anything about anybody," Trump said. "It's a disgrace."

Before court was adjourned Friday, Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, asked Judge Juan Merchan to issue a gag order to Cohen, who is expected to testify on Monday. Merchan denied the request.

On Thursday, Trump's lawyers asked Merchan to loosen the gag order imposed on Trump to allow the former president to respond to Daniels's testimony. Merchan denied that request too, but acknowledged that he was concerned that witnesses were using the order to attack Trump, knowing he can't respond.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said Friday that the prosecution have "repeatedly asked the witnesses" not to discuss the case publicly until the trial is over but have no "control" over what they choose to do.

Before adjourning for the day, Judge Juan Merchan was informed by prosecutor Joshua Steinglass that the prosecution may rest its case by the end of next week.

"We expect to call two witnesses," Steinglass told Merchan, per CNN. "And I think it’s entirely possible we will rest by the end of next week."

One of those witnesses is Michael Cohen, who is expected to be called to testify on Monday.

Jaden Jarmel-Schneider's testimony concluded and the jury was excused by Judge Juan Merchan, who instructed them to avoid news coverage of the trial.

With paralegal Jaden Jarmel-Schneider on the witness stand, the jury was shown a chart summarizing the 34 business records that prosecutors allege were falsified — essentially the key pieces of evidence in the case against Trump.

📸 Big picture: Trump is not on trial for his efforts to conceal the alleged affair with StormDaniels; he's on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to cover up the hush money payment that was made to her.

After Longstreet concluded her testimony, the prosecution called its next witness: Jaden Jarmel-Schneider, another paralegal from the Manhattan district attorney's office.

Per CNN, Jarmel-Schneider was tasked with analyzing phone records, including those from AT&T and Verizon introduced earlier today, as well as text messages from Michael Cohen's cellphone.

Under direct questioning from prosecutors, Georgia Longstreet, the paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney's office, was asked to read some of the texts she analyzed as part of her role at the DA.'s office.

Among them were messages between Gina Rodriguez, Stormy Daniels's former publicist, and National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard in 2016.

In one exchange, according to reporters in the courtroom, Rodriguez told Howard that Daniels was willing to go on the record to confirm the story of her alleged sexual affair with Trump for $250,000.

📸 Big picture: Rodriguez and Howard are not on the prosecution's witness list and not expected to testify, but their texts are being admitted into evidence through Longstreet's testimony.

With Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney's office, back on the witness stand, the jury was shown some of Trump's old tweets that she analyzed as part of her role at the DA's office.

Longstreet was asked to read a few of them, including this one from Aug. 22, 2018:

She also read this one concerning the nondisclosure agreement Cohen negotiated with Stormy Daniels.

That tweet was posted after Rudy Giuliani said in an interview with Fox News that Trump reimbursed Cohen the $130,000 in hush money that was used to pay off Daniels — which at the time contradicted Trump, who denied knowledge of the payment.

Judge Juan Merchan told attorneys for both sides that he would end court earlier than usual on Friday, sometime after 1 p.m. ET.

Michael Cohen, one of the prosecution's key witnesses, is expected to be called to testify when the trial resumes on Monday.

Court returned from its midmorning break with prosecutors calling Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal at the Manhattan district attorney's office, back to the witness stand.

Longstreet testified last week about Trump’s social media posts.

After a pair of so-called custodial witnesses concluded their brief testimony, Judge Juan Merchan called for a mid-morning recess.

Jennie Tomalin was likely called for the same reason as Dixon: to authenticate cellphone records that the prosecution will later reference in its case against Trump.

A day after porn actress Stormy Daniels concluded testimony about her alleged sexual affair with Donald Trump, you may be wondering why the prosecution called Daniel Dixon, an AT&T compliance analyst, to the witness stand, rather than, say, Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer who paid Daniels $130,000 in hush money to keep her quiet about their alleged tryst.

The reason is fairly simple: Dixon is being used to authenticate cellphone records, including Cohen's, that prosecutors entered into evidence and are expected to reference later in the trial.

After cross-examination by the defense and a brief redirect by the prosecution, Madeleine Westerhout's testimony concluded, and Daniel Dixon, a lead compliance analyst for AT&T, was called by prosecutors as their next witness.

Under cross-examination, Madeleine Westerhout, Trump's former executive assistant at the White House, was questioned about how mail — including Trump Organization checks and other correspondence — was sent to him in the Oval Office.

Westerhout said that Trump was frustrated by how slow it was and would often rely on personal mail being sent to other people and hand-delivered or via FedEx.

📸 Big picture: As the New York Times points out, the defense is trying to show that there was nothing nefarious about Trump using alternatives to the White House mail system, and that he was not attempting to conceal anything by doing so.

For the second straight day, photographers were not allowed into the courtroom to photograph Trump before court began as they had previously been allowed to do.

On Thursday, a court officer informed the pool that Judge Juan Merchan had barred photography inside the courtroom for the remainder of the trial because one of the pool photographers violated the judge’s rules by taking a picture of Trump as he walked into court.

It's still unclear who the offending photographer was or when the reported violation occurred.

But it means the only images from inside the courtroom will be from sketch artists attending the trial.

The criminal hush money trial resumed Friday with Madeleine Westerhout, the former assistant who sat outside the Oval Office when Trump was president, returning to the witness stand for more cross-examination.

Before Friday's proceedings got underway, Judge Juan Merchan rejected a request by Trump's defense team to subpoena records from Mark Pomerantz, a former Manhattan prosecutor who "authored a book last year detailing tensions with District Attorney Alvin Bragg over whether to seek Trump’s indictment," the Associated Press reported, adding:

Speaking to reporters before entering court in Manhattan on Friday, Trump said he was looking forward to his campaign rally in Wildwood, N.J., on Saturday.

"We're going to be saying a lot," Trump said of the rally, which comes as he continues to be subject to a gag order that prevents him from attacking witnesses in his criminal hush money trial.

"We have a horrible gag order that shouldn't be allowed," he said before reading aloud from a stack of articles criticizing the case against him.

Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-lawyer and so-called fixer who paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about her alleged sexual affair with the him, will begin his testimony in Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, NBC News reports.

Cohen, a key witness for the prosecution's historic case, is expected to be on the stand for several days, per NBC.

• Day 15 of former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial is set to resume at 9:30 a.m. ET.
  

• Madeleine Westerhout, a former executive assistant to Trump at the White House, is expected to return to the witness stand for more cross-examination.
  

• On Thursday, Stormy Daniels wrapped up nearly seven hours of testimony about her alleged sexual affair with Trump.