Prosecutors are demanding a $10,000 fine — the maximum allowed — for three weeks of Truth Social and campaign website posts attacking two trial witnesses, Daniels and Cohen.
A Truth Social post from April 10 called both the porn star and Trump’s former fixer “sleaze bags.”
A Truth Social post from April 17, the second day of jury selection, was “very troubling,” Conroy, the prosecutor, told the judge.
It cited Fox News commentator Jesse Watters and claimed that “undercover liberal activists are lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury.”
Trump could be thrown in jail for a maximum of 30 days for each gag violation, but Conroy said Tuesday that a warning that jail is possible if Trump does not stop would suffice — for now.
Other witnesses, beyond Cohen and Daniels, see these posts and are also intimidated, the prosecutor said, calling it “sort of the undertow effect.”
“The defendant is having his day in court,” Conroy said in successfully arguing for the fines and warning levied by Merchan.
“Unfortunately,” the prosecutor added, “he is doing everything he can to undermine this process.”
After the morning hearing, jurors were called into the courtroom to hear the continued testimony from the trial’s first witness, former National Enquirer executive David Pecker.
“I met him in the ’80s at Mar-a-Lago,” Pecker told the five-woman, seven-man jury.
Pecker described the “beneficial relationship” he enjoyed with Trump since taking control of the tabloid in March of 1999.
Stories attacking Trump’s enemies — in particular stories about Hillary Clinton “enabling” her philandering husband — were good for both of them, Pecker said.
The two spoke daily during Trump’s 2016 run for president, he said, when the tabloid’s headlines included “Ted Cruz sex scandal five different mistresses.”
In describing the origin of the tabloid’s “catch-and-kill’ campaign on Trump’s behalf, Pecker offered jurors an important narrative to the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case.
Prosecutors say that just 11 days before the 2016 election, Trump paid $130,000 in hush money to bury Daniels’ story of a 2006 extramarital affair with the then-Apprentice star in 2006.
It was a story that Pecker “caught” when Daniels tried to sell it to the Enquirer and then “killed” by alerting Cohen, prosecutors said.
Cohen, then a Trump Organization vice president, acted as bag man, taking out a home equity loan to pay Daniels’ lawyer the $130,000.
Prosecutors say that in reimbursing Cohen in monthly installments throughout 2017, Trump falsified 34 Trump Organization business documents.
Each of the falsified invoices, checks, and business ledger entries claimed the reimbursements were “legal fees,” rather than what they were, prosecutors allege: illegal campaign expenditures meant to influence the 2016 election.
Pecker’s testimony is expected to continue when court resumes Thursday.
In one of his last bits of testimony before the day concluded Tuesday, the tabloid exec described a June, 2016 phone conversation with Trump.
They spoke about former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who was shopping a story about a year-long affair with the then-candidate.
“I think the story should be purchased and you should buy it,” Pecker said he told Trump.
“He says, ‘I don’t buy any stories,'” Pecker recalled of Trump’s response.
“He said, ‘any time you do something like this, it always gets out.’ I said I still believe we have to get this story off the market.”
Prosecutors allege that the $150,000 McDougal received — out of Pecker’s pocket, not Trump’s — was a precursor to the hush-money at the center of the trial that Daniels received four months later.
