#TrumpTrial #Trump #legal 🧵starts HERE.
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1/…
Tyler McBrien::
Necheles rises to renew Trump's objection to Daniels testifying about any "sexual details," which she says has no relevance and is prejudicial.
By details, Merchan asks, more than just "we had sex"? Yes, Necheles says.
2/ McB:
Hoffinger argues that the details of the encounter are important—it's important for the prosecution to establish credibility and the reasons that she did what she did. They've worked hard to omit details that are too salacious, but general details of what occurred are significant
Can you give me a sense? Merchan asks.
3/ McB:
How she ended up having a sexual encounter with him, the full convo that occurred in the hotel room, but the sexual act itself will be very basic: no descriptions of genitalia or anything of that nature, Hoffinger says.
"It isn't needed in this case," says Necheles, "This is a case about books and records."
👉🏼But Merchan is satisfied with what Hoffinger says the prosecution plans to elicit—he agrees that Daniels has credibility issues, and the People establish certain background info
4/ Inner City Press (aka Press):
Justice Merchan: This woman has credibility issues, so details are important. I will allow them. Call your witness... Oh, the jury. Bring the jury in first
[Jury entering!]
5/ Hey!
McB:
Jury is present and properly seated.
Next witness? A curveball.
People call SALLY FRANKLIN a SVP and Executive Managing Editor at Penguin Random House.
Are she familiar with a book called Trump, How to Get Rich? Yes.
6/ Press with a little more:
Franklin: Penguin Random House and its imprints. I am here under subpoena.
Prosecutor: Are you familiar with "Trump: How to Get Rich"?
Franklin: Yes.
7/ McB:
We now see People’s Exhibit 413—the cover of How to Get Rich: Big deals from the star of The Apprentice—by Trump “with Meredith McIver” and Franklin describes the cover.
We're going page-by-page, now on the copyright page—it was first published 2004.
We turn to exhibit 413A, pg 3 from the book, only two sentences are unredacted:
🙄"I am the chairman and president of the Trump organization. I like saying that because it means a great deal to me."😆
8/ McB: [getting interesting now]
Another excerpt:
PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS
👉🏼"If you don't know every aspect of what you're doing, down to the paperclips, you're setting yourself up for some ... surprises."
Another:
👉🏼SOMETIMES YOU STILL HAVE TO SCREW THEM
"For many years, I've said that
👉🏼if someone screws you, screw them back. When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and violently as you can. As it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye."👈🏼
9/ McB:
413D, another expcerpt, pg203:
"3 p.m.,👉🏼 Allen Weisselberg my CFO comes in for a meeting, he's been with me for 30 years and keeps a handle on everything...he runs things beautifully."👈🏼
10/ McB:
Exhibit 414 now, another entry in Trump's oeuvre:
TRUMP: Think Like a Billionaire, Everything You Need to KNow About Success, Real Estate, and Life, by Trump, again with McIver.
Trump again is alone on the cover.
[Me: Now he should be alone in a cell, but I digress…]
11/ Sidebar, via Anna Bower, and it’s gold:
Update from the overflow room at Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan: someone in this room named their personal hotspot "MakeAttorneysGetAttorneys."👈🏼
12/ Press:
Prosecutor: For that book and another have you reviewed the excerpts, People's 413 and 414, Trump: Think Like a Billionaire?
Franklin: Yes.
Prosecutor: What does is say under the title?
Franklin: "Big deals from the star of The Apprentice"
Prosecutor: What's the largest word on the cover?
Franklin: Trump.👈🏼
Prosecutor: What percentage of the cover does it take up?
Franklin: Thirty percent.👈🏼
Prosecutor: And on Trump: Think like a Billionaire?
Franklin: Maybe 25%.👈🏼
13/ Press:
Prosecutor: People's 413A.
Franklin: Be like a general.
Prosecutor: This?
Franklin: If you don't know all the details, you're setting yourself up
Prosecutor: 413C?
Franklin: "Sometimes you still have to screw them... Like it says in the Bible, An eye for an eye"👈🏼
Pros: And this?
Franklin: "All the women on The Apprentice flirts with me. That's to be expected...👈🏼
Prosec: 414, page 41
Franklin:👉🏼 "With a decorator, make sure to see all of the invoices. You should be double checking."
14/ McB:
Recall almost none of the jurors have read any of these books in full.
Another choice excerpt from Think Like a Billionaire:
"When you're working with a decorator, make sure you ask to see all of the invoices...[Decorators are nice people], but you should be double checking regardless."
15/ McB:
Franklin, records custodian witness, continues to read excerpts from the book, each speaking to Trump's attention to financial details, penny pinching, belief in inevitable sexual relations between him and other women, and other themes, ostensibly in Trump's own words
16/ Color.
Via McB:
This is my first time seeing the jury, and they're surprisingly alert and attentive—some follow the excerpts on the screens in front of them and others scan the room from time to time, from the defense table out across the press in the gallery.
17/ Press:
Prosecutor: And this?
Franklin: I always sign my checks, to make sure where my money is going. Check through your bills. My parents hammered frugality into me at an early age.
Prosecutor: People's 414-c.
Franklin: Watch the bottom line. Weisselberg is tough
18/ Klasfeld:
Chapter title: "How to Pinch Pennies"
Trump recounts the company depositing a check for 50 cents.
"Calling it penny-pinching if you want to. I call it financial smarts."
19/ McB:
Another excerpt, this one longer, pgs 68-69, chapter title How to Stay on Top of Your Finances, in which Trump writes that he regularly asks his financial team for reports on how his stocks, assets, checkbook, etc. are doing, and the smart prudence of doing so.
At 9:58 a.m., no further questions from the prosecution.
Blanche steps up, and asks Franklin if she's paying for her own lawyers (no).
20/ McB:
Blanche asks about Meredith McIver's role.
Is she a ghostwriter? Franklin is not sure the exact details of her contribution.
Frankline's not sure because it varies, depending on the book, right? Blanche asks.
Yes, she says.
21/ Katie Phang:
Trump's frugality, his attention to financial details, his micromanagement, and his typical business practices are laid out clearly in these books and the jurors are paying attention to these details.
22/ Klasfeld:
Blanche: Q: You're trying to make money off the book, correct?
A: (emphatically) That is correct.
(Laughter)
23/ McB:
It seems pretty clear what Blanche is doing right now:
He's calling into question whether we can take the words in the the pages of Trump's book as Trump's words and Trump's beliefs.
24/ Press:
Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche: Do you know how much the ghostwriter did?
Franklin: I don't.
Blanche: Who designs the cover?
Franklin: We have a department.
Blanche: So it is not entirely the author?
Franklin: We want to make the author happy.
Blanche: Nothing more
Adam Klasfeld:
Cross-ex was brief. Redirect begins.
25/ Klasfeld:
Q: In your experience, do ghostwriters ever write entire books without the author's knowledge?
A: No.
"The ghostwriter works for the author," the witness says later, in response to a different question.
26/ Press:
Prosecutor: Let's turn to 413 f - h, we offer them.
Trump's lawyer Blanche: May we approach, your Honor?
[Whispered sidebar ensues - during which, Susan Necheles remains at defense table, talking with Trump]
NFL Re:Blanche calling into question whether the pages are a lie, not Trump's doing, a deception. Blame the ghostwriter!
I now realise Trump's team is looking for that one *weak-minded* juror.
Good point!
NFL Like there's any daylight between the words on the page and the petty, greedy, vindictive tyrant before us. If anyone on the jury was a Trumpian they have to be squirming now.
NFL "Frugality"=skinflint, miser, Scrooge McTrump
NFL @GottaLaff
If the name #MeredithMcIver sounds familiar it's because she took the fall for plagiarizing Michelle Obama's 2008 speech while composing
Melania Trump's 2016 RNC speech.
"Melania, she said, had read her several passages of Obama’s 2008 speech to the Democratic convention over the phone & she mistakenly inserted them into the speech,
Team Trump at first adamantly denied that there was any plagiarism — but fessed up when McIver admitted the mistake."
https://nypost.com/2016/07/20/melania-trumps-speechwriter-admits-mistake/
@GottaLaff NFL
Maybe he deposited check for 50 cents but he famously cashed check for $1.11, $0.64 and $0.13, sent in 1990 by Spy Magazine correspondent Julius Lowenthal who "wanted to know just how cheap some of the city’s richest figures were."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/08/trump-files-spy-magazine-prank/
@GottaLaff NFL Total cost to the organization in depositing a $0.50 check: at least $2.50, net loss $2.00.
Penny wise, Pound foolish.
@Danetteb @GottaLaff In context, Matthew chapter 5: 38-42 reads: You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
He knows that one part of the verse, but apparently does not know what Jesus said about it. This part of the Bible is about love, not vengeance.
@GottaLaff NFL
It always makes me angry to see "eye for an eye" misused like this. That passage not call for a maximum aggressive response like Trump is suggesting here. It was a restraint that punishment should not be allowed to exceed the severity of the crime. It was a revolutionary call AGAINST violent retribution.
@GottaLaff Well. He quoted the Bible, so there’s that.
Grossly out of context 🤣
I can't believe this quote, which was actually published in Trump's book:
"As it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye."
It says explicitly in the Bible: you have heard other people say an eye for an eye, but you should not do that.
#Trump turns this around completely. No wonder he can claim to follow the Bible!
(Yes, I'm a few days behind and following the trial, but still enjoy reading Laffy's details.)
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