In a significant blow to Donald Trump’s defenses, Judge Juan Merchan rejected the former president’s attempts to exclude crucial testimony and evidence in the ongoing case concerning false business records and hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. With multiple efforts falling flat, this represents another challenging courtroom day for Trump.
The case revolves around accusations of obscuring a payoff to Stormy Daniels in 2016 under the guise of invoicing checks to Michael Cohen for non-existent legal work. Trump had sought to sidestep testimony from Cohen and Daniels, as well as from Karen McDougal, another woman paid to maintain silence about an alleged affair with Trump during his campaign.
Additionally, the ousted president had included several items on his exclusion wish list. These included aspects linked to the National Enquirer’s “catch and kill” policy for damaging Trump stories, the Access Hollywood tape, details of campaign finance law, Cohen’s guilty plea for violating campaign finance law via an excess in-kind contribution, and even Trump’s own tweets and public statements. Notably, all these were emphatically denied.
Among other rejected attempts was Trump’s motion to advance his defense with a claim of counsel’s advice. Essentially, he intended to insinuate that his actions were deemed lawful since attorneys were involved, thereby evading the discomfort of a privilege waiver. However, Justice Merchan disagreed, ruling against the amorphous defense of “presence of counsel”.
The proceedings did not conclude without further hits to Trump as the court prevented him from arguing the novelty, unusualness, or unprecedented nature of the indictment, and from making arguments or introducing evidence about the purported motivations of the District Attorney, among other things.
Whether this case will be dismissed due to immunity grounds or on account of a delayed federal discovery process, as Trump contests, remains to be seen. In light of these recent rulings, however, dismissal seems increasingly unlikely. The legal professionals keeping a keen eye on this developing case will certainly have a lot to digest in the weeks to come.
To delve deeper into the full coverage of the case, Above the Law provides a detailed account of the proceedings.