NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) – Keith Davidson, the lawyer who is accused of negotiating hush money deals for Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, has returned to the witness stand in the criminal trial against Donald Trump.
Davidson started testifying on Tuesday.
Trial testimony resumed about 10:30 a.m. after Judge Juan M. Merchan held a contempt hearing starting about 9:45 a.m. Thursday in a Manhattan courtroom on prosecutors’ allegations that Donald Trump violated his gag order four times.
The jury was not present for that part of the proceedings.
This was the second round of such reviews. Trump was fined $9,000 on Tuesday after the judge upheld nine of the earlier list of 10 gag order allegations.
During Thursday's hearing, Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy asked Merchan to impose a $1,000 fine for each of the four alleged violations. He said prosecutors weren’t yet seeking to have Trump jailed as punishment because the alleged violations at issue happened prior to Merchan ordering Trump on Tuesday to pay a $9,000 fine for nine previous gag order violations.
“Because we’d prefer to minimize disruption to this proceeding, we are not yet seeking jail, but the court’s decision this past Tuesday will inform the approach we take to future violations,” Conroy told the judge.
Also during the hearing, Merchan indicated he would not sanction Trump for his comment last week during a visit to a Manhattan construction site where, in response to a question about David Pecker’s testimony, he said the ex-tabloid publisher has “a nice guy.”
“Just to save you time, I’m not terribly concerned about that one,” Merchan said.
The judge, however, did express concern about the three other comments at issue.
Defending Trump against allegations of violating the gag order, Attorney Todd Blanche argued that the saturation of media coverage has made it impossible for Trump to conduct interviews without being bombarded with questions about the trial.
“He can’t just say ‘no comment’ repeatedly. He’s running for president,” the defense attorney said, adding the gag order should be seen in the context of “what’s happening behind us,” a reference to the high volume of journalists in the courthouse.
But Merchan quickly batted down that argument, saying members of the news media are “not defendants in this case, they’re not subject to the gag order, that’s a very significant issue you’re overlooking.”
Merchan noted that he had no authority over the media.
Background on the Case
The hush money case, formally known as People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, is the first of four criminal investigations pending against the former president to go to trial.
The 34 felony counts of falsifying business records involve a series of incidents and conversations that took place when Trump ran in 2016 for what became a successful election attempt to the White House. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The trial itself is expected to last a few weeks. There are usually no sessions on Wednesdays because of the judge’s schedule. There will be no court on May 17 so Trump can attend the high school graduation for his son Barron; and no court on May 24 to allow travel plans that were already made for the Memorial Day holiday.
Media Coverage Rules
New York state rules do not allow TV cameras during courtroom hearings; pool photographers are allowed in only for a few minutes each day before the session gets started.
There is an overflow room where news media can watch the proceedings live via monitor, but visitors are prohibited from recording and photography in the overflow space.
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