Trump lawyers argue special counsel’s legal filings are too long: LIVE

Donald Trump is set to take the stand in his $250m civil fraud trial in New York on Monday.

The former president’s testimony is expected to also conclude on Monday, but it may continue on Wednesday following the court’s election day closure on Tuesday, CNN notes.

The trial may determine the future of Mr Trump’s business empire in New York – state Attorney General Letitia James is seeking damages and to bar the ex-president from doing business in the state.

His daughter Ivanka Trump is set to testify on Wednesday.

At the end of October, Mr Trump filed four motions to dismiss the federal case against him on statutory and constitutional grounds.

Mr Smith first asked Judge Chutkan to allow the prosecution to exceed the 45-page limit before they submit their response to Mr Trump’s motions.

But the ex-president’s team says it is unnecessary and believes Mr Smith should file four separate responses to the motions to dismiss in order to “avoid confusion over the application of any arguments to the parties’ respective briefing.”

Donald Trump went after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in their shared home state with a new insult, calling him “a wounded falling bird from the skies”.

Both Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis attended the Florida Freedom Summit at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee outside Orlando on Saturday. They were joined by some of their fellow 2024 presidential candidates – former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and biotech entrepreneur turned anti-woke campaigner Vivek Ramaswamy.

The candidate increasingly seen as the only non-Trump alternative able to possibly take on the former president, former South Carolina Governor and Trump UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, didn’t attend.

After each of them filed to be on the ballot in the 2024 Florida primary, the candidates addressed the gathered audience of GOP adherents.

Mr Trump, who is expected to win the Republican nomination even amid his deepening legal woes, predictably garnered the most attention at the event.

“My people said, ‘Sir, don’t hit him,’” Mr Trump said regarding the Florida Governor and his former ally turned adversary. “‘He’s a Republican.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if he’s a Republican.’ And we hit him hard and now he’s like a wounded falling bird from the skies.”

Although more than three months remain before the 2024 Iowa caucus kicks into gear, former President Donald Trump has already begun accusing his political rivals of cheating.

In a video posted on the Republican frontrunner’s Instagram page on Tuesday evening, Mr Trump said, “You know the other side does cheat, and we’re not gonna let that happen.”

He encouraged Iowa caucus-goers to “do whatever is necessary” on 15 January to “make America great again.”

“If you do, we will win. We will win big and that’s what you have to do,” the former president added.

Mr Trump is no stranger to bogus election fraud claims.

Judge Arthur Engoron snapped at Trump attorney Christopher Kise, who mentioned the judge’s chief clerk, the subject of disparaging comments from Mr Trump that prompted a gag order he subsequently violated twice.

“Do not refer to my staff again,” the judge said. “If there’s any further reference to anyone on my staff … I will include a standing gag order to include [attorneys].”

Judge Engoron suggested that there’s a “bit of misogyny” that fuels the comments against his female clerk, which Mr Trump’s attorneys flatly denied.

An order from Judge Arthur Engoron on 3 November arrived one day after he assailed Mr Trump’s attorneys for openly criticising the judge’s principal law clerk for advising him throughout the trial.

The judge imposed a gag order earlier this month that blocks any parties from making comments about the court’s staff after the former president made a series of false and disparaging remarks about her outside the courtroom and on his Truth Social account.

After hours of testimony from Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump this week, which lawyers for the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James said were “extremely” favourable in their case targeting the Trump Organization, lead attorney Christopher Kise launched into a tirade on Friday about the clerk’s perceived “bias”, allegations outlined in a right-wing news website, and what he feels like are “two adversaries” on the bench.

The case was brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and of the four criminal indictments with former president Trump at the centre, it is the most sprawling, encapsulating multiple plots to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.

Ms Ellis pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, however, she was sentenced under the First Offender Act to five years probation.

This could come to an end after three years of good behaviour and she would not have a criminal record.

Crucially for prosecutors, Ms Ellis agreed to cooperate with the case going forward. This potentially makes her a star witness against fellow defendants including the former president and Mr Giuliani.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment contains a Civil War-era provision that disqualifies a person from holding office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking the oath of office. However, it does not define insurrection or what it means to engage in one.

Attorneys for former president Donald Trump have asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn a district court order barring him from attacking or disparaging witnesses and other figures connected to the election subversion and conspiracy case pending against him in Washington.

In court papers filed late Thursday with the appellate court, Mr Trump’s legal team argues that the gag order imposed by Judge Tanya Chutkan on 16 October was inappropriate and an infringement on his right to free speech because he is “the leading candidate for President of the United States”.

At the time she entered the order, Judge Chutkan acknowledged Mr Trump’s status as a candidate and said her order would not bar him from “criticising the government generally … or the Justice Department” or statements characterising his prosecution as “politically motivated”.

But she said she would prohibit anyone involved in the case from “targeting” court personnel, prosecutors, or their families.

She also prohibited statements about witnesses or potential witnesses, or about their testimony and noted that the ex-president’s past conduct and the tendency of those targeted by him to receive threats and harassment figured prominently in her decision to impose the order.

Donald Trump Jr was called to testify in a New York fraud trial this week, and took an unusual step to protect his image; he reportedly asked a courtroom sketch artist to “make me look sexy.”

Once his testimony was finished, the court took a break, and Mr Trump Jr rushed over to a sketch artist, Jane Rosenberg, who was there on assignment for Reuters.

Graig Graziosi has the story.