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The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial warned his lawyer on Tuesday that the former president’s repeated cursing in court was verging on witness intimidation as adult film star Stormy Daniels testified at length in front of the jury.
New York state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan called Trump attorney Todd Blanche to the stand for a sidebar during a trial break and warned him about his client’s “audible” swearing, according to court transcripts.
“I understand that your client is upset at this point,” Merchan told Blanche, say the transcripts, obtained by The Washington Post. “But he is cursing audibly and he is shaking his head visually, and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.”
“I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan added. “You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that.”
Blanche had a terse reply, saying: “I will talk to him.”
Trump is facing 34 felony charges related to hush money payments made to Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors say Trump falsified business records to hide $130,000 in payments for a nondisclosure agreement that prevented Daniels from going public with her allegation of an extramarital affair with Trump in 2006.
Trump has vehemently rejected claims of an affair and has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Daniels, a star witness for the prosecution, detailed her claims on Tuesday in court, saying the pair first had a sexual encounter in 2006 during a golf tournament in the Lake Tahoe area. She said Trump invited her to dinner but was wearing pyjamas when she met him at his hotel suite. When she went to the bathroom, she said she emerged to find Trump on the bed, wearing only a T-shirt and boxers.
“That’s when I had that moment when I felt like the room spun in full motion,” she recounted. “And I felt the blood leave my hands and my feet, almost like if you stand up too fast.”
“Next thing I know I was on the bed,” she said, adding the encounter was consensual but there was an “imbalance” of power. “I was staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know how I got there.”
Notable moment in court today where the judge told the defense he could hear Trump cursing:
Judge Merchan: "I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous…I am speaking to you here at… pic.twitter.com/r8ltpBHUip
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 7, 2024
Trump’s attorneys had argued Daniels should not be allowed to share her claims of the sexual encounter and later asked for a mistrial. Merchan rejected that request on Tuesday, although he noted Daniels had shared more than he thought necessary.
“There are some things that are probably better left unsaid,” the judge told them in court. “I think there were some things that I think the witness was a little difficult to control. … It was not easy.”
