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At Donald J. Trumps Manhattan criminal trial, his lawyers have insisted he had nothing to do with any of the felony charges against him.

But testimony from prosecution witnesses over the last several weeks has called that argument into question, underscoring that Mr. Trump can be obsessive about two all-important aspects of his work: Anything having to do with the media, and anything having to do with his money.

The 34 documents at the heart of the prosecutions case relate to both obsessions.

The Manhattan district attorney says Mr. Trump orchestrated the disguise of 11 checks, 11 invoices and 12 ledger entries to continue the cover-up of a damaging story, paying his former fixer $420,000 in the process. And the testimony about Mr. Trumps management style could play a central role as prosecutors seek to convince the jury that there is no world in which Mr. Trump was not tracking the outflow of cash from his accounts.

The prosecutors strategy illustrates the risk of a criminal trial for Mr. Trump, one of the most famous men in the world, whose character and habits are familiar even to those who have not tracked his every move. The Manhattan district attorneys office has accused him of orchestrating the falsification of the 34 documents to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.

David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer and the trials first witness, worked with Mr. Trump for decades, the two men trading favors as each sought to make headlines. Asked about Mr. Trumps qualities as a businessman, Mr. Pecker described him as a micromanager from what I saw, adding that he looked at all of the aspects of whatever the issue was.

The prosecutor questioning Mr. Pecker next asked about Mr. Trumps approach to money. He was very cautious and very frugal, Mr. Pecker replied.

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Trump Has Long Been Known as a Micromanager. Prosecutors Are Using It Against Him. - The New York Times

In a startling precursor to what could be the most explosive testimony in Donald J. Trumps criminal trial, the judge on Friday told prosecutors that he was personally asking that a key witness stop speaking out against the former president.

The witness, Michael D. Cohen, was once a personal lawyer for Mr. Trump and in 2016, paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star to silence her account of extramarital sex with the then-presidential candidate. Mr. Cohen, who is expected to begin testifying next week, has been outspoken in his taunting of Mr. Trump, recently posting a TikTok video in which he wore a shirt with a picture of the former president behind bars.

On Friday, moments after prosecutors acknowledged that they have little control over their star witness, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, asked them to tell Mr. Cohen again to refrain from making any more statements about the case. He made it clear that the directive came from the highest authority in the court: him.

That comes from the bench, Justice Merchan said.

Mr. Cohen declined to comment.

Justice Merchans remarks might as well have been a billboard previewing next weeks main event. Mr. Cohen is crucial to the case: He says that records of his reimbursements for the hush-money payment were falsified in 2017 at the then-presidents direction.

The judges admonition injected a sense of anticipation into an otherwise placid proceeding, perhaps the first routine day in a most unusual trial. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorneys office steadily tightened their focus on the central accusations against Mr. Trump ahead of what they said could be their final week of witness testimony.

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Judge Merchan Cracks Down on Michael Cohens Taunting of Trump in Hush-Money Case - The New York Times

President Biden makes his way to Air Force One after posing with highway patrol troopers in Mountain View, Calif. on May 10. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

President Biden makes his way to Air Force One after posing with highway patrol troopers in Mountain View, Calif. on May 10.

The Biden administration is getting ready to announce new tariffs on imports of goods from China products like electric vehicles deemed to be policy priorities.

The announcement, which could come as early as next week, was confirmed by a source familiar with the tariff deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement of the decision.

The administration has been reviewing tariffs on Chinese goods since President Biden took office steep duties on about $370 billion of imports from China each year, put in place by former President Donald Trump as one of his signature policy moves.

The Biden administration has decided to keep those Trump tariffs in place and in addition, add a range of strategic items to the list. The decision was first reported by Bloomberg.

The new items that will be subject to tariffs align with Biden's policy priorities on climate, technology and manufacturing, the source said. These areas are covered by Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, which made hundreds of billions of dollars available to boost the domestic clean energy and semiconductor sectors.

Biden has been campaigning hard on jobs created by the big legislative packages. He has insisted that projects will use American-made goods and labor.

"When folks see shovels in the ground on all these projects, when they see new pipes being laid and people going to work, I hope they feel the pride that I feel pride in their hometowns making a comeback," he said last week in Wilmington, N.C.

It's a message aimed at resonating in swing states that lost massive numbers of jobs when manufacturing moved offshore states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Last month, Biden announced in a speech to United Steelworkers union members in Pittsburgh that he wants to hike tariffs on imports of Chinese steel and aluminum, noting that more than 14,000 steelworkers in Pennsylvania and Ohio had lost their jobs between 2000 and 2010.

"I promise you that I'm not going to let that happen again," he said.

Trump has also said he would broaden tariffs on imported goods, including targeting Chinese cars.

Biden in Pittsburgh sought to contrast his approach as "strategic and targeted" and has said Trump's broader approach would raise costs for U.S. consumers.

The rest is here:
Biden will keep Trump's China tariffs, and add new ones on electric vehicles - NPR

Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Its a reliably memorable scene in any courtroom drama: The lawyer stands up to call the next witness, the door swings open, and its the priest who testifies he was at a Yankees game with the accused at the time of the crime and has ticket stubs to prove it! The decedents daughter, who stepped out of the shower to find her fathers bloody body, only to be exposed as an extravagantly permed fraud by Elle Woods! Mocha Joe, back to exact vengeance on Larry David for his spite store! As attorney extraordinaire (and personal role model) Lionel Hutz advised his client, Homer Simpson: I have a foolproof strategy to get you out of here: surprise witnesses, each more surprising than the last!

But in real life, I regret to inform you, there are no surprise witnesses. To the contrary, judges typically require prosecutors to disclose the names of their upcoming witnesses at least a day in advance, and often more than that. Its a matter of practicality, and it goes to the defendants fundamental right to defend himself; its difficult for a defense lawyer to prepare for the next day if he doesnt know who exactly hell be cross-examining. I once tried to get cute and told the judge at the end of a trial day I wasnt sure who Id be calling the next morning. The judge retorted, Either give us your witnesses names right now or dont bother showing up tomorrow. Point taken.

Yet when it comes to witness lists and, to be sure, in other respects the ongoing trial of Donald Trump in Manhattan is more like a movie than real life. Judge Juan Merchan, in a departure from normal practice, has permitted the prosecution to call its witnesses on the fly with a bare minimum of advance notice to the defense. The DA has turned over a witness list containing dozens of names, and Trumps team has a general idea who the witnesses will be but as to who will testify when, the defense is learning at essentially the same time as the rest of us.

Judge Merchan has reasoned that Trump cant be trusted not to publicly attack upcoming witnesses, and therefore has forfeited his right to advance notice. Hey, when you violate a gag order ten times, you suffer the consequences. When Trumps lawyer Todd Blanche promised that hed personally ensure that Trump refrained from public comment about upcoming witnesses, the judge responded, I dont think you can make that representation. Tough but fair.

The former federal and state prosecutor breaks down the headlines at the intersection of law and politics.

The result makes life harder for Trumps defense team, but it also makes the trial more cinematic for all of us. Whos next? Did we see anyone entering the courthouse? Could Stormy Daniels be up? Karen McDougal? Wheres Michael Cohen today? Hope Hicks reportedly drew gasps from the assembled media and courtroom observers when prosecutors called her to the stand.

Alas, there will be no surprise when it comes time for the biggest potential witness of all: the defendant himself, Donald John Trump. Let me preempt the Hamlet routine that surely will play out over the next couple weeks, the to be or not to be around whether Trump will take the stand in his own defense: He shouldnt, and he wont.

Trump, like any defendant, has an unconditional right to testify or not to testify. Nor can the prosecutor make any comment or ask the jury to draw any inference from any defendants decision not to take the stand. (It hardly needs to be said, but just to clear up any confusion: Contrary to Trumps preposterous courthouse rant, the gag order has zero to do with his ability to take the stand in his own defense.)

We can already see Trumps subtle but unmistakable retreat from bluster to sanity. At first, Trump boasted that he would testify in his own defense. Note the careful word choice: Would, which includes an element of conditionality, isnt quite the same as will. Days later, he prudently stepped back: Well, I would if its necessary. Right now, I dont know if you heard about today. Today was just incredible. People are saying the experts, Im talking about legal scholars and experts theyre saying, What kind of a case is this? There is no case.

Few legal scholars are saying quite that, of course, but, overstatement aside, Trump has the right strategic idea here. Indeed, hes got two ironclad reasons not to testify.

First: Hed get annihilated. Trump wouldnt necessarily suffer a Colonel Jessup Youre goddamn right I did! moment his self-preservation instincts are too strong for that but hed surely get twisted in a pretzel when confronted with the difficult questions posed by the prosecutions case. Did he in fact have affairs with McDougal and Daniels? If not, why did he falsely deny knowing them? Did he know about the hush-money payments made for his benefit? Did he authorize them? Why? And why did he falsely claim publicly to know nothing about the women and the payoffs? Why did he sign a series of reimbursement checks to Michael Cohen? Theres little chance hed offer coherent, consistent, plausible explanations.

Thats the risk whenever a defendant takes the stand: It essentially shifts the burden of proof to the defense table. Typically, if the jurors believe the defendant lies on the stand, its over. Cross-examination would simply be too fraught for Trump. He has every right to duck it, and hed be foolish to waive that right and expose himself here.

That brings us to the second point: Trump doesnt need to take the stand in his own defense. Thats not to argue that hes got an acquittal locked up, not by any stretch. (I still believe a conviction is more likely than not on balance.) But its become clear that his lawyers have all the ammunition they need to raise a defense, even without the risk of putting the client on the stand. Why take the risk of calling Trump to the stand to deny his sexual tryst with Daniels when she already signed a statement in 2018 declaring I am denying this affair because it never happened? Why does Trump need to swear he never dealt with Jeffrey McConney about the internal accounting behind hush-money reimbursements when McConney admitted the same in cross? Why must Trump proclaim Michael Cohen a liar when virtually every prosecution witness who has ever met the infamous Fixer has ranted about how he is (or was) a mendacious sleaze?

Indeed, if Trump takes the stand, the whole case will rise or fall on his testimony. If he doesnt, it likely will turn on Cohens. From the perspective of Trumps legal team, thats an easy call.

Weve seen this routine before. Trump vowed that he would testify, wanted to testify, was aching to testify before Robert Mueller, in Congress, and in some of his civil matters before he bailed out and avoided examination under oath. He did testify (sort of) at two of his recent civil trials involving E. Jean Carroll and business fraud in New York. But if Trump thinks those experiences prepared him for a criminal trial, hes mistaken. Both times he testified in civil court, the examinations were narrow, his testimony lasted only minutes, and he essentially self-destructed on the stand anyway. In criminal court, the restrictor plates come off, and prosecutors can drill Trump about the core allegations against him for as long as they please.

As we move toward the end phase of this trial, my sense is that both sides should be satisfied not overjoyed, but satisfied with how the case has gone. Prosecutors have done a solid, workmanlike job building their case, and Trumps lawyers have planted the seeds of reasonable doubt. As a defense attorney, thats about the best you can hope for at this point: Youre in the game and youve got a shot to pull it out. To call Trump to the stand would upend the trial and shove all the defense chips over to an extraordinarily risky bet. For all his public bluster and equivocation, theres simply no way Trump will engage in unilaterally assured self-destruction.

This article originally appeared in the free CAFE Brief newsletter. You can find more analysis of law and politics from Elie Honig, Preet Bharara, Joyce Vance, and other CAFE contributors at CAFE.com

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Will Donald Trump Take the Stand at His Trial? - New York Magazine

Donald Trump is facing felony charges in four separate criminal indictments in three states and Washington, D.C., with a guilty verdict in any of the cases possibly meaning a prison sentence.

The circumstances have raised an often-asked question: Could Trump, or anyone else, be convicted of a felony and serve as commander in chief, possibly from prison?

The short answer, legal experts said, is yes because the U.S. Constitution does not forbid it.

The Constitution has a limited set of requirements to be president. You have to be at least 35, a natural-born U.S. citizen and a resident here for at least 14 years, said UCLA professor Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert.

Hasen said the 14th Amendment, passed by Congress after the Civil War, bars anyone who participated in an insurrection from running for the presidency. But thats not what Trump is on trial for in New York, and so there are no other restrictions, he said, referring to the former presidents first criminal case, scheduled to begin with jury selection Monday.

Nor is Trump charged with insurrection in his other criminal cases.

The scenario might seem counterintuitive, given that numerous states prohibit felons from holding state or local office and even restrict their right to vote. As he has in so many respects, Trump is again testing political norms and demonstrating that just because the nations democratic system might not have anticipated an unlikely outcome does not mean it cant happen.

Trump is charged in state court in New York with falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment from voters in the 2016 election. He also faces charges in federal court in D.C. and state court in Georgia related to trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In Florida, he is under federal indictment for allegedly mishandling classified materials after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.

He has pleaded not guilty to all 88 counts that he faces.

In drafting the Constitution, the framers did not seriously consider that someone convicted of a significant crime would be a viable candidate for the White House, said Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore. Instead, she said, such a person presumably would be stunted in their political rise and unlikely to reach the highest levels of the American political system.

Applicants for many federal jobs, particularly in the intelligence and defense agencies, cannot pass background checks to gain high-level national security clearances if they have a criminal record. Why Congress, in passing the 14th Amendment, did not go further to ban all felons from the presidency is a question of political will, Wehle said.

Why are we as a country so allergic to the idea of ensuring that people who reach that unparalleled position of power are subject to the same considerations and requirements that many people under his chain of command, and who hold regular jobs, have to comply with? Wehle said.

At least once, a candidate who made it onto the presidential ballot conducted his campaign from a prison cell. In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, leader of the Socialist Party of America, stood as his partys presidential nominee while serving a 10-year federal sentence for sedition over his vocal opposition to the involvement of the United States in World War I. Debs received roughly 900,000 votes, or about 3 percent of ballots cast that year.

Trump commands far greater public support: With the nominating conventions still months away, polls show him slightly leading President Biden in several swing states. Though some of the surveys indicate that his support could drop if he is convicted of a crime, Trump has consolidated backing within the Republican Party since the indictments began a little more than a year ago, vanquishing his rivals in the GOP primary contests.

A major challenge to his ability to run was rejected last month.

In December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump could be kicked off the states primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment because of his alleged involvement in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

But the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision in March, stating that only Congress can enforce the constitutional provision that bars insurrectionists from becoming federal officeholders and candidates.

Legal experts said it would take a broader constitutional amendment, with the backing of two-thirds of Congress, to enact a ban to keep felons from running for the White House a highly unlikely outcome given the nations sharply polarized political climate.

A legal solution is not the best path, said Chris Edelson, an assistant professor of government at American University. Rather, he said, Republican and Democratic leaders, along with the electorate, must reaffirm their commitment to democracy by rejecting candidates who have violated the law or been charged with crimes.

In a healthy, functioning system there would have been a different nominee. Republicans would have said, Hey, this is too much, Edelson said of Trump.

In most states, felons lose their voting rights for at least a limited period. In Florida, Trumps state of residency, they must complete their sentences, including parole or probation, and pay fees and fines before regaining the right to cast a ballot.

That sets up the possibility that Trump, if convicted, could lose his right to vote while remaining on the presidential ballot.

Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said Floridas felon voting ban is far too restrictive. He said it was ironic that in a GOP presidential primary debate last summer, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who has opposed efforts to ease voting restrictions for those found guilty of crimes indicated he would support Trump as the party nominee even if he were convicted. Five other then-candidates agreed.

That was an amazing moment, Meade said, because if youre willing to support someone running for president who has a felony conviction, there should be no reason you dont support someone who has a felony conviction from being able to vote for who they want as president.

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Trump can still serve as president if he's convicted of a crime - The Washington Post - The Washington Post