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      Rule 1 to Be Trump’s Running Mate: Defend Him, but Don’t Steal the Show

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      Donald Trump’s search is still in its early stages, but he is said to be leaning toward more experienced options who can help the ticket without seizing his precious spotlight.The cavalry of Republican vice-presidential contenders and other party officials inside the courthouse for Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial was so large one day this week that the group initially had trouble arranging themselves in the two rows set aside for guests of the defense team.Wedged into their seats, they were immediately confronted with testimony accusing their party’s leader — who was trying to inoculate his 2016 presidential campaign from political damage — of writing checks for bogus legal expenses to hide hush-money payments to a porn star.None of the conservatives in the courtroom flinched or raised an eyebrow, including Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, both of whom are said to be under consideration for Mr. Trump’s running mate.Instead, their stoic, protective presence underscored the biggest political quandary facing ambitious Republicans who want Mr. Trump to pick them for vice president: how to fiercely defend him without stealing any of his precious spotlight.The prize for puzzling out the best approach could be a spot near the top of every ballot in the country this fall.“He always wants killers out there fighting for him,” said Barry Bennett, a Republican strategist who advised Mr. Trump’s first presidential campaign. “But he also needs someone with experience and skills who can help shape his message, massage it and make it stronger.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Line Outside Court in Trump Trial Is Packed, With Seats a Hot Commodity

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      The hottest ticket in New York City is not for a Broadway show, or even to see basketball star Caitlin Clark play against the New York Liberty. Rather it is to get a seat inside Courtroom 1530 to see the criminal trial of former president Donald J. Trump.Increasing numbers of people have traveled to downtown Manhattan in recent weeks to queue for one of roughly half a dozen seats on a wooden bench inside the courtroom. There are another two dozen reserved for the public in an overflow room otherwise packed with reporters.Admittance is free, but securing a good spot in line often comes with a hefty price tag.It did not start this way. Weeks ago, during jury selection, only a handful of people turned up and everyone got a seat. But with each consecutive day the lines have gotten increasingly longer. And people, it seems, are willing to brave any sort of weather. Thursday featured spitting rain.Michael D. Cohen, the central witness in this first criminal trial against an American president, has drawn the longest lines, even though showing up in hopes of seeing a certain witness is a bit of a crapshoot because prosecutors are not giving much notice of who their witnesses might be.People at the front of line say to ensure a seat in the courtroom they have to start lining up the day before.On Thursday morning, a woman who was 12th in line was asking $450 for her spot. Behind her was a lawyer who had paid for hundreds of dollars for line sitters so she and her friend could get into the overflow room. She ultimately paid another $500 for someone else’s spot and got a seat in the overflow room.(Yes, professional line sitters are a thing, and The New York Times has availed itself of their services in the lines reserved for reporters. There are companies that line sit for people. More often it is for concert tickets, not a spot in line at a criminal trial.)Things can get heated. People are, not surprisingly, territorial about their spots and do not take kindly to line jumpers. There have been a few. The crowd typically shames them but police have been hesitant to step in, so a few line jumpers have gotten into the overflow room.For those who do not make it there is a silver lining. There are seats for the public available at the nearby trial of Sen. Robert Menendez, who is charged in a vast international web of corruption. Opening arguments in that trial were on Wednesday. More

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      Trump Is at War With the First Amendment

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      At a rally in Wildwood, N.J., on Saturday, Donald Trump said that if he is re-elected, he will “immediately deport” any campus protesters who “come here from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism.”Of course, Trump dwells in linguistic imprecision. What does “try to bring” mean? Are we using his definitions of jihadism, anti-Americanism and antisemitism? How would those sentiments be monitored? Would the deportations be extrajudicial? Would the deportations be only of student visa holders, or would it include green card holders?This campaign pledge — this threat — is not only unworkable; it’s ludicrous. But it’s a powerful bit of propaganda. It ties together Trump’s message of nativism and xenophobia with one of his fixations: an iron-fist approach to protests that challenge his beliefs or interests.Trump understands, intuitively, the power of crowds, and views it as a pressing threat when aligned against him.Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said Trump was furious about the protests in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. In his memoir, Esper wrote that in one meeting, Trump asked, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” According to Esper, Trump believed that the protests made the country — and him — look weak.Trump has a thirst for authoritarianism because he conflates suppression with strength. In a 1990 interview with Playboy, Trump said this about the Chinese government’s response to the Tiananmen Square protests: “They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 13, 2024

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      M. Cohen Direct/Hoffinger
      3277
      1
      was there at The Trump Organization about executives coming in
      2
      to meet with Mr. Trump?
      3
      A
      Mr.
      Trump had an open-door policy, which, if there was
      4
      5
      6
      somebody in there, you waited; and if not, you knocked on the
      door, and I would say, “Boss, do you have a second?”, and I
      would walk right in.
      7
      Q
      And others did the same, to your knowledge?
      8
      A
      9
      To my knowledge, yes.
      Now, when you met with Mr. Trump at The Trump
      Organization, in his office, did you, generally, need
      10
      —
      I’m
      11
      sorry.
      12
      Did you, generally, record those meetings in your calendar?
      13
      A
      No, ma’am.
      14
      15
      16
      As part of your work at The Trump Organization, did
      you feel that it was part of your job to keep him updated on
      matters that you were handling for him?
      17
      A
      Yes.
      It was actually required.
      18
      19
      20
      21
      22
      23
      A
      Tell us what you mean by that.
      When he would task you with something, he would then
      say, “Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on.”
      And what he was saying, what everybody did is, as soon as
      you had a result, an answer, you would go straight back and
      tell him. Especially if it was a matter that was troubling to
      24
      him.
      25
      So, two things, just to break that down.
      Laurie Eisenberg, CSR, RPR
      Senior Court Reporter More

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      Trump Prosecutors Have Leaned In to Questions on Michael Cohen’s Credibility

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      In the first few weeks of the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, witnesses have cast Michael D. Cohen as a bully, a nervous wreck and, as one witness put it, a “jerk.”That may not make Mr. Cohen, the one-time lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump, seem like the ideal witness in the first criminal trial of an American president. But prosecutors — anticipating the attacks Mr. Trump’s lawyers will mount against the man who once called himself the former president’s “designated thug” — have introduced those unflattering characterizations as a way to desensitize the jury to Mr. Cohen’s bracing presence.On Tuesday, one of the prosecutors, Susan Hoffinger, walked Mr. Cohen again through previous testimony about “monetizing” his role as Trump’s personal lawyer by using it to attract other clients — another attempt to present and defang Mr. Cohen’s behavior themselves, before what is expected to be a cross-examination bent on undermining his credibility.Mr. Trump’s legal team, which has taken aim at Mr. Cohen before, is expected to paint him as a rogue actor who caused more problems than he fixed. They have promised to seize on Mr. Cohen’s credibility and criminal record — Mr. Trump is fond of noting that he is a “convicted liar” — and portray him as a scorned underling seeking revenge against the former president.Mr. Cohen does have baggage: In August 2018, he has pleaded guilty to a number of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws with a pair of hush-money payments to women who had said they’d had sex with Mr. Trump.One of those payments, to the porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, is at the heart of the case. Mr. Cohen is expected to offer his firsthand account of how the new president subsequently reimbursed him but falsified records to disguise the reimbursement as legal expenses.While the prosecutors introduced witnesses to corroborate much of Mr. Cohen’s account, they have invited those same witnesses to offer their unflattering views of him.Hope Hicks, Mr. Trump’s former spokeswoman, scoffed at the notion that Mr. Cohen would have made the $130,000 hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels out of the kindness of his heart because doing so “would be out of character for Michael,” an insulting comment that nonetheless supported Mr. Cohen’s story.The intent, it appears, is to suck the air out of the defense’s attacks and turn Mr. Cohen into an object of amusement for the jury. Already, his name has drawn smiles from some of the jurors, who will now evaluate his credibility for themselves.Prosecutors also made sure to enter into evidence the voice of a man who had once found Mr. Cohen essential.“Michael Cohen is a very talented lawyer,” Mr. Trump said, in a recording from a news conference in 2017 that was played in the courtroom. “He’s a good lawyer at my firm.” More

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      Transcript of Trump Manhattan Trial, May 10, 2024

      by

      1
      2
      J. Jarmel-Schneider
      –
      Direct/Conroy
      3217
      And if we could just continue going down January and
      February, those two columns, we talked about the one invoice,
      two vouchers; and is there only one check?
      3
      4
      A
      Yes.
      5
      with?
      How many invoices were there, in total, on this chart?
      Eleven.
      And can you just read which counts they’re associated
      Counts 1, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29 and 32.
      After January and February, is there one invoice for
      each month for the rest of the year?
      Going down to vouchers, same question. Could you just
      read the count number for each of the vouchers?
      ७
      A
      7
      8
      9
      A
      10
      11
      12
      A
      Yes.
      13
      14
      15
      A
      Sure.
      16
      17
      18
      A
      19
      20
      21
      A
      Sure.
      22
      23
      24
      25
      A
      Yes.
      Counts 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30 and 33.
      And is there one voucher for every month in 2017?
      Yes.
      And, finally, in checks, could you read the count
      number for each check?
      It’s counts 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31 and 34.
      And after January and February, is there one check for
      each of the remaining months in 2017?
      Laurie Eisenberg, CSR, RPR
      Senior Court Reporter More

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      Michael Cohen Tells of Being Trump’s Lawyer, Fixer and ‘Designated Thug’

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      He was known by many titles — “lawyer,” “special counsel,” even one he gave himself, “designated thug” — but when Michael D. Cohen’s testimony began Monday morning at the criminal trial of his former boss, Donald J. Trump, he was asked about the most common: fixer. “It’s fair,” the witness acknowledged, before describing the job. He tried to manage what the news media said about Mr. Trump, even the puff pieces — he instructed the National Enquirer, wary of how it would play among women, not to mention that Trump used to date a Penthouse magazine model. Over time, Mr. Cohen became a key player in the catch-and-kill deals described to jurors over several days of testimony thus far. Mr. Cohen said Monday that when he learned of Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump, his response was: “She’s really beautiful.” Mr. Cohen says he warned Mr. Trump that Ms. McDougal was shopping her story, and Mr. Trump told him to “make sure it doesn’t get released.”They enlisted the help of The National Enquirer, whose parent company, American Media Inc., ended up paying $150,000 to buy the rights to her story and then bury it.By then, in the lead-up to the 2016 election, he talked to Mr. Trump every single day, by phone or in person at impromptu meetings that began, “Boss, do you have a second?” he testified. Mr. Trump avoided email, because of a fear of creating a paper trail, potentially for prosecutors, he testified.His work included scouting the occasional deal, including foreign projects that never materialized, like a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More