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'Is she ready to talk?' Jury shown messages about Stormy Daniels coming forward
Georgia Longstreet is now reading texts between Stormy Daniels’ former publicist, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan Howard, the former National Enquirer editor.
In these exchanges, they talk about Daniels coming forward. On 28 June 2016, Howard asked, “Is she ready to talk?”, and followed it up with a message that reads: “I though[t] she denounced it previously.”
Rodriguez replied: “She said she will do it under 2 conditions.”
She added:
She doesn’t want to go on record about it but will tell the story through a source … She’s had sex with him. She wants 100K.
Howard asks: “Once or ongoing relationship?”
Rodriguez replies:
A couple times and he promised her a condo, a spot on apprentice. She went to the miss America pageant he got her in.
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The prosecution is now calling Jaden Jarmel-Schneider.
He works at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. He’s a paralegal there.
Georgia Longstreet’s direct ended and defense attorney Todd Blanche is doing cross.
He asked whether she just read the text of text messages – but noted, through questioning, that she didn’t have direct knowledge about the veracity of things in them, nor other meaning behind missives.
Blanche asks about whether she’s continuing to review social media posts during the trial. She said yes. If she sees social media posts that might be interesting, how does she alert the team? She said she calls them.
Blanche is done. No re-direct.
Georgia Longstreet is still reading out text exchanges between Stormy Daniels’ former publicist, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan Howard, the former National Enquirer editor.
While the texts have been admitted into evidence before, they serve an important purpose at this part of the trial – they’re firming up the chronology of the alleged Daniels payoff.
Recall: prosecutors contend that Daniels received the hush-money payment right before the 2016 election.
Texts are showing that in late October, Daniels still hadn’t been paid and Rodriguez was telling Howard that she was poised to go public at a press conference.
This was on 26 October 2016. Michael Cohen allegedly paid Daniels’ attorney on 27 October 2016.
'Is she ready to talk?' Jury shown messages about Stormy Daniels coming forward
Georgia Longstreet is now reading texts between Stormy Daniels’ former publicist, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan Howard, the former National Enquirer editor.
In these exchanges, they talk about Daniels coming forward. On 28 June 2016, Howard asked, “Is she ready to talk?”, and followed it up with a message that reads: “I though[t] she denounced it previously.”
Rodriguez replied: “She said she will do it under 2 conditions.”
She added:
She doesn’t want to go on record about it but will tell the story through a source … She’s had sex with him. She wants 100K.
Howard asks: “Once or ongoing relationship?”
Rodriguez replies:
A couple times and he promised her a condo, a spot on apprentice. She went to the miss America pageant he got her in.
Georgia Longstreet is now answering questions about a May 2018 Twitter thread by Donald Trump on the NDA payoff with Stormy Daniels.
...despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018Georgia Longstreet is being asked about Donald Trump’s tweets, in particular this one from August 2018.
I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. “Justice” took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to “break” - make up stories in order to get a “deal.” Such respect for a brave man!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018
Prosecution recalls paralegal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office to testify
The prosecution has recalled Georgia Longstreet, a paralegal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, to the stand. The prosecutor questioning Longstreet is Rebecca Mangold.
Recall: Longstreet locates and saves social media relevant to the case. She says that she also has “many other duties and responsibilities”, not just social media.
Longstreet says that there are other paralegals on the case working on social.
I like to think that we all work as one, we all kind of do the same things.
She says that her other duties for this case have been matching text and call records to things relevant to the case.
Judge Juan Merchan sides with the defense and says he won’t let in the Larry King interview.
Donald Trump has returned to the courtroom, papers in hand once again. He dropped them on the table, and they make a soft thwack.
After jurors left the courtroom for a short morning break, the defense team raised an issue about a prosecution exhibit.
“It’s an excerpt of an interview” with Donald Trump and Larry King in 1999 on campaign finance law, Trump attorney Emil Bove said.
Our position is that that is not relevant with respect to President Trump’s state of mind in 2016 and 2017 …There was substantive revisions to campaign finance laws... Whatever President Trump said in 1999 about campaign finance laws is not probative of his state of mind in 2016.
Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold said:
The corporate contribution ban, which is the one that’s relevant here, has been part of campaign finance law since 1907.
Judge Juan Merchan said he’d decide after the break.
Judge denies Trump subpoena of ex-prosecutor Mark Pomerantz's records
Judge Juan Merchan began the day by rejecting a Trump team subpoena seeking records from Mark Pomerantz, the former Manhattan special assistant district attorney who worked on the hush-money case before resigning in frustration.
Trump’s team had sought documents from Pomerantz’s time at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and some dated after his departure.
Prosecutors asked the judge to reject the subpoena, and Merchan agreed, finding the defendant’s request for a subpoena “impermissibly broad” and “amount to an improper fishing expedition”.
Donald Trump has left the courtroom.
His dress is all-American businessman: He’s wearing a deep blue suit and red tie and white shirt.
He didn’t look particularly enthused while leaving. He carried papers once again.
The court is taking a short break.
Before the break, Jennie Tomalin was asked about call logs for former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.
Madeleine Westerhout, the former Trump White House director of Oval Office operations, also testified on Thursday about Donald Trump’s day-to-day frugality and how Rhona Graff, his assistant at the Trump Organization, once asked if he wanted to approve a roughly $6,500 annual dues payment to a golf club.
Trump’s handwritten note saying “Pay – ASAP, D” showed he paid attention to the minutiae.
Prosecutors effectively suggested to the jury it was implausible that Trump did not closely follow what 12 $35,000 checks, issued to his fixer Michael Cohen, were for.
Daniel Dixon has left the stand.
The next witness, Jennie Tomalin, has taken the witness stand. Tomalin is another custodial witness. She works at Verizon, as a senior analyst in executive relations.
Generally speaking, custodial witnesses are often used to present data to juries that touches on testimony or evidence, but is far more granular – like sheets with dates and lengths of phone calls, records of text exchanges, persons on contracts, etc.
Phone records can obviously bolster a lawyer’s case that people were or were not in communication with one another.
When Dixon was on the stand, defense attorney Emil Bove tried to chip away at the importance of this data. Bove asked:
These records, there’s a lot of data here, but the data has limits?
The AT&T analyst answered in the affirmative.
