Trump fined $10k after violating fraud trial gag order: Latest

Jenna Ellis is the fourth of 19 defendants to plead guilty in the sprawling election interference case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Other former Trumpworld attorneys Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro took plea deals last week, just days before their trial was due to start in Atlanta.

The newly minted cooperating witnesses in Georgia’s sweeping criminal case targeting Trump and a dozen others could pose a significant legal threat to the former president as he enters several criminal and civil proceedings while he campaigns for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson was instrumental in a Republican-led campaign to keep Donald Trump in the White House after losing the 2020 election.

The Independent’s Gustaf Kilander explains how the man who is now leading the House GOP and is second in line for the presidency pushed the same debunked conspiracy theories that are at the centre of several criminal investigations, lawsuits and a riot in the halls of Congress.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump launched a series of attacks against the judge overseeing his fraud trial, the attorney general suing him, the witness testifying against him, and a reporter who wrote about Trump’s last two days in court.

He claimed Michael Cohen was “chocking [sic] like a dog” on the witness stand and “broke down” in court.

What actually happened in court: Cohen testified that he was “tasked by Mr Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected” for his statements of financial condition, the documents at the centre of the case.

Cohen and convicted former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg were instructed to “reverse engineer the various different asset classes – increase those assets – in order to achieve the number that Mr Trump had tasked us with,” Cohen said.

Asked by counsel for the attorney general’s office what that number was, Cohen replied: “Whatever number Mr Trump told us to.”

Under cross examination from Trump’s attorneys, Cohen agreed that Trump never asked him to “inflate” those figures, but that Trump’s commands were implicit rather than explicit.

“Donald Trump speaks like a mob boss,” Cohen testified. “He tells you what he wants without specifically telling you … That’s what I was referring to.”

Trump also was called to the witness stand to testify – about his out-of-court insults – and he was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order in the case.

“When did I break down?” Cohen wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Is he referring to me laughing at him and his minion of moron lawyers? In fact, Judge Engoron stated ‘I do not find you (Trump) credible’. Meaning…Donald, you’re a f***** liar and perjurer as you were under oath!”

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen called the former president a “defeated man” after offering two days’ worth of testimony in a New York state fraud trial.

“I saw somebody that knows that it’s the end of the Trump Organization,” he told reporters outside the court on Wednesday. “Already found guilty of fraud, the license will ultimately be taken, and now this entire case is merely about how much.”

The Independent’s Eric Garcia writes that newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson is a “zealot of the highest order, someone who worked for the hard-right Alliance Defending Freedom; an ardent opponent of abortion who wants to restrict the rights of LGBT+ people and who served as Donald Trump’s Howitzer in Congress to overturn the 2020 election results.”

In a written order against Donald Trump after finding that he violated the court’s gag order in the civil fraud trial, Judge Arther Engoron wrote that the former president’s testimony in his defense of the statements he made outside the courtroom “rings hollow and untrue”.

In statements steps outside the courtroom on Wednesday, Trump criticised the “very partisan judge” and “a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him,” what the judge determined was a comment aimed at his chief clerk.

Trump claimed under oath that his comments were about Michael Cohen. The judge did not find his testimony credible and fined him $10,000.

“The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘alongside’ as ‘close to the side of; next to.’ Witnesses do not sit ‘alongside’ the judge, they sit in the witness box, separated from the judge by a low wooden barrier,” the judge wrote in a written version of his order posted publicly on Thursday.

“Further, Donald Trump’s past public statements demonstrate him referring to Michael Cohen directly by his name, or by a derogatory name, but in all circumstances, his in unambiguous in making it known he is referring to Michael Cohen,” he added.

Jack Smith’s office has asked the judge overseeing Trump’s election inteference case to reinstate a partial gag order against him, citing his attacks on witnesses in the days since she halted her prior ruling to allow the ex-president to appeal.

In a 32-page filing submitted to the court late on Wednesday evening, prosecutors argued that Trump had taken advantage of the reprieve Judge Tanya Chutkan granted him to attack at least one potential witness against him, his ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg has more:

Donald Trump has lost his final bid to stop a Colorado lawsuit that could see him kicked off state ballots in the 2024 presidential election.

A judge in the state has ruled that the lawsuit that seeks to block the one-term president from the ballot next year can go ahead next week.

The Independent’s Graeme Massie has more:

A federal judicial panel has determined that its hands are tied following requests from members of Congress and news organisations to televise Donald Trump’s upcoming federal trials.

The Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules determined that it has no ability to change existing bands on broadcasting federal criminal trials, as the former president faces cases surrounding his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his hoarding of sensitive White House documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Even if the panel were able to change the rules, they could not go into effect for several years, Politico reported.

Trump’s criminal trial in Georgia, however, will be carried live by the courts and news outlets.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump launched a series of attacks against the judge overseeing his fraud trial, the attorney general suing him, the witness testifying against him, and a reporter who wrote about Trump’s last two days in court.

He claimed Michael Cohen was “chocking [sic] like a dog” on the witness stand and “broke down” in court.

What actually happened in court: Cohen testified that he was “tasked by Mr Trump to increase the total assets based upon a number that he arbitrarily elected” for his statements of financial condition, the documents at the centre of the case.

Cohen and convicted former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg were instructed to “reverse engineer the various different asset classes – increase those assets – in order to achieve the number that Mr Trump had tasked us with,” Cohen said.

Asked by counsel for the attorney general’s office what that number was, Cohen replied: “Whatever number Mr Trump told us to.”

Under cross examination from Trump’s attorneys, Cohen agreed that Trump never asked him to “inflate” those figures, but that Trump’s commands were implicit rather than explicit.

“Donald Trump speaks like a mob boss,” Cohen testified. “He tells you what he wants without specifically telling you … That’s what I was referring to.”

Trump also was called to the witness stand to testify – about his out-of-court insults – and he was fined $10,000 for violating a gag order in the case.

“When did I break down?” Cohen wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Is he referring to me laughing at him and his minion of moron lawyers? In fact, Judge Engoron stated ‘I do not find you (Trump) credible’. Meaning…Donald, you’re a f***** liar and perjurer as you were under oath!”