FILE - Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump walks next to his attorney Todd Blanche, at Manhattan state court in New York, Monday, April 22, 2024. A judge held a hearing Tuesday on prosecutors' request to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court and fine him for social media posts that they say violated a gag order.and campaign website that they said breached the order, which bars him from making public statements about witnesses in the case.
The hearing could determine a potential punishment for Trump and reinforce parameters on how far the presumptive Republican nominee can go in lambasting a case that he insists constitutes political persecution. Courts in multiple cities have grappled with how to balance Trump's political speech as a candidate with the need to protect the integrity of witnesses.
The opening statements offered the 12-person jury and the voting public radically divergent roadmaps for a case that will unfold against the backdrop of a closely contested White House race in which Trump is not only the presumptive Republican nominee but also a criminal defendant facing the prospect of a felony conviction and prison.
The case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg revisits a years-old chapter from Trump’s biography when his celebrity past collided with his political ambitions and, prosecutors say, he scrambled to stifle stories that he feared could torpedo his campaign. But, the prosecutor noted, “Neither Trump nor the Trump Organization could just write a check to Cohen with a memo line that said ‘reimbursement for porn star payoff.'" So, he added, "they agreed to cook the books and make it look like the payment was actually income, payment for services rendered.”
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