Anti-Trump Protests Drown Out MAGA Speakers In NYC

If you look at the photo, Jason Miller is in the upper right and headed for safety after being shouted down by an anti-Trump protest outside the hush money trial. The defense has one witness that they will bring, which is not going to be Donald Trump, from what can be ascertained at this time, and the trial is looking to wrap up fairly soon in New York. Miller brought a bunch of surrogates up to New York to speak in the streets and unfortunately, word got out and anti-Trump protesters turned out. They began to drown out the MAGA speeches. Soap box democracy, right here in the big apple.

Kash Patel was drowned out by chants of “KASH PATEL GO TO HELL!” pic.twitter.com/PH0i5PLqNp

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) May 20, 2024

And the uniform of blue suit, red tie has been critiqued.

Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller chuckled when one protester yelled at the group, “Where do you buy your suits, Dictators R Us?”

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) May 20, 2024

Meidas Touch summarizes highlights:

Trump’s rotating entourage also included a new cast of characters, including Jonathan Turley, Alan Dershowitz, Kash Patel, Bernie Kerik, and Representatives Andrew (Ordinary Tourist Visit) Clyde, Mary Miller, Eric Burlison, and Keith Self. Former President of the NY Hells Angels Chuck Zito was also part of Trump’s entourage.

Court began with Judge Merchan addressing scheduling issues. With the state expected to rest their case today, the hope was that the trial may be concluded this week, but that does not appear to be the case and the judge said that he expects closing arguments to happen a week from next Tuesday.

Legal arguments began with the DA objecting to Blanche’s plan to use an email from the partner of former Rudy Giuliani associate Robert Costello, who claimed to represent Michael Cohen in 2018 despite Cohen’s strong denials. Merchan excluded it on the grounds that it is hearsay and doesn’t include Cohen’s state of mind at the time, which would be the only relevance of it.

A legal argument was then held on whether the defense could call an “expert” Brad Smith to give his interpretations of legal terms that are the subject of the predicate offense for these charges. The DA objected since experts are permitted to give an opinion about the facts of the case based on their analysis but not on the law since it is the province of the jury to apply the law to the facts, not a witness.

Emil Bove argued that having their expert define those terms “is absolutely critical” to their defense. Judge Merchan ruled that Smith cannot testify since he will only be making legal conclusions. […]

Blanche resumed his cross-examination of Cohen by asking him how many reporters he has spoken to since last week. Cohen said he has not done any media interviews but some reporters have called him just to say hello. He asked Cohen how many times he met with prosecutors while the case was pending and he said about 20 total but had not met with them at all in the past 10 days.

Blanche then began with a line of inquiry where the premise was that Cohen had so much going on during the critical time period at issue in 2016-17 that his recollection of the details of Trump’s case may be fuzzy. He brought up Cohen selling a property, restructuring his taxi medallion business, setting up the Trump “Diversity Coalition” with Pastor Darrell Scott, helping Tiffany Trump with an extortion issue over photos, and everything with Pecker and the Enquirer.

The defense then drilled down on the two key phone calls between Cohen and Trump on October 26, 2016, which was the day that Cohen wired the money to Stormy’s lawyer. Cohen said that both calls were about the payment. Blanche tries to suggest that the conversations were about Trump appearing on ABC for an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Cohen responded that he had no idea what Blanche was talking about and he didn’t know anything about that. Cohen reiterated that he was speaking with Trump about Stormy because that was the main task he has been assigned by Trump at that time.

Cohen was then asked about the “smoking gun” introduced earlier in the trial – the invoice showing the reimbursement to Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment and the money he paid to RedFinch after Trump refused to pay them for work they performed, with Trump CFO Allen Weisselberg’s handwriting on it. Blanche suggested that Cohen only paid them $20,000 but was seeking reimbursement of $50,000. He was asked if that discrepancy means he essentially stole $30,000 from Trump Org. Cohen acknowledged that was true.

An email from Weisselberg to Cohen after their meeting to discuss this reimbursement was then shown. Weisselberg told Cohen, “Please prepare the agreement we discussed so that you can be paid monthly,” suggesting that he was asking for a written legal retainer because the purpose of the payments was legal fees. Blanche said that was inconsistent with Cohen’s assertion that Weisselberg told him at their meeting that there would be no written agreement on this subject. (The Comptroller testified earlier in the trial that they expected Cohen to submit monthly invoices, which could be what Weisselberg is referring to in his email).

You can hit the blue link to Meidas Touch to get further details. This is the scene in New York. Trump’s surrogates are doing theatrics, because that’s what they do, and the wheels of justice are grinding along. So much for obliterating Cohen on the stand.

And I have to end with this. The little wuss is complaining that things are “unfair” and he has to be in a cold courtroom. I guess his fat doesn’t insulate him enough.

Trump: I was supposed to be in a different state this morning and the judge actually decided to call it early…. I’m not allowed to have anything to do with politics because I’m sitting in a very freezing cold courtroom. It’s very unfair pic.twitter.com/Y3L7XFDlT4

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 20, 2024

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