Former President Donald Trump’s trial in New York will resume Monday with prosecutors calling on more witnesses to try to prove to a jury that the former president concealed hush money payments to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team has spent two weeks questioning eight witnesses, including some high-profile names, but the prosecution’s headliner, Michael Cohen, has not appeared yet, nor have other prominent figures in the case.
Cohen is perhaps the most highly anticipated witness for the prosecution, but it is unclear who else might appear on the stand. Prominent figures who could enter the courtroom in the coming days and weeks include porn star Stormy Daniels, Trump’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, or former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg. Madeleine Westerhout, Trump’s former director of Oval Office operations, is another expected witness.
Stormy ready
Prosecutors’ plans for who they will call to the stand have been kept under wraps, but Daniels said in March during an appearance on The View that she was “ready” to testify and hopeful for the opportunity.
“I’m absolutely ready. I’ve been ready. I’m hoping with all of my heart that they call me because … I don’t need someone to speak for me,” Daniels said.
Will Trump take the stand?
The most glaring question surrounding witnesses is whether Trump will choose to take the stand to defend himself.
While Trump repeatedly said he planned to testify, a decision by Judge Juan Merchan at the start of the trial to allow prosecutors to question Trump about several of his unrelated legal battles has created a dilemma for the former president. The decision means prosecutors can now interrogate Trump — if he chooses to testify — about his defamation case involving E. Jean Carroll or his civil fraud suit in an attempt to undermine Trump’s credibility. Merchan has made clear that Trump has a Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify.
Cohen’s credibility
Cohen, for his part, went on a controversial media rampage in the lead-up to the trial and teased his forthcoming testimony while also aggressively criticizing Trump. Because of a gag order, Trump is restricted from responding publicly to Cohen’s attacks.
Cohen’s credibility has become a source of scrutiny in the hush money case.
He served as Trump’s attorney and fixer in 2016. Two years later, he pleaded guilty to numerous federal crimes, including lying to a bank and Congress, as well as campaign finance violations related to the hush money payments for which Trump is now facing state charges.
Prosecutors have indicated that they expect Cohen to provide a firsthand account to jurors of how Trump was allegedly behind an illegal scheme to pay off Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty for his role in the scheme in 2018, but federal prosecutors declined to charge Trump at the time.
Those who have testified so far in the hush money case include former tabloid executive David Pecker, who spoke about his longtime “catch-and-kill” practice, which involved paying for the rights to stories, including two involving Trump, and then never publishing them in his magazines.
Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles-based attorney who specializes in nondisclosure agreements, testified for several days about how he represented Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal as he negotiated payments for them in exchange for their silence about alleged affairs with Trump. Trump’s attorneys have argued that hush-money payments are lawful.
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Hope Hicks, who was intimately involved with the Trump campaign’s day-to-day activities in 2016, took the stand for three hours on Friday and appeared nervous and at one point tearful, as she spoke about the campaign’s scramble to course-correct Trump’s image with women in the days ahead of the election.
Prosecutors have used witnesses like Hicks to help bolster their key allegation that Trump was motivated to make hush money payments to help his campaign. Trump’s attorneys, however, secured cross-examination testimony from Hicks saying that Trump also had other motivations for wanting to keep the women quiet, including that he was worried about his wife Melania’s opinion of him.
