It has come to light that the prosecutors stated on Friday that they plan to call only two more witnesses in Donald Trump’s criminal trial, and they could rest their case by the end of next week via CNBC.
One of those final two witnesses will be Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who is reportedly expected to begin testifying Monday. Cohen’s late-2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels is at the heart of the historic trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.
It has come to light that Trump’s attorneys complained to Judge Juan Merchan that Cohen is regularly insulting his former boss on social media, but the ex-president is prohibited from responding because of a gag order that bars Trump from talking about witnesses in the trial.
“It’s becoming a problem every single day that President Trump is not allowed to respond,” defense lawyer Todd Blanche told Judge Juan Merchan after the jury left for the day.
Lead prosecutor Joshua Steinglass stated that the District Attorney’s office has asked Cohen and other witnesses not to speak about the ongoing trial. However, ultimately, they cannot control the witnesses’ speech.
Merchan told the prosecutors to describe to Cohen that the judge is asking him to refrain from publicly discussing the case. Steinglass said he would convey the message to Cohen.
Merchan has denied a request by Trump on Thursday to revise the gag order so the former president could publicly attack porn star Stormy Daniels after she finished testifying.
“My concern is protecting the integrity of the proceedings as a whole,” Merchan said, explaining his rationale for refusing the request.
Merchan has already held Trump in contempt of court 10 times for violating the gag order. Friday’s testimony featured Madeleine Westerhout, a former top Oval Office operations aide who had an up-close view of how Trump operated in the White House.
Westerhout testified that Trump was “very upset” when the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels first became a major news story in 2018.
“The whole situation was very unpleasant,” Westerhout said during cross-examination by an attorney for Trump.
Westerhout stated taht she spoke with Trump at that time about Daniels, who says she had sex with Trump in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.
Trump “was very upset about it,” Westerhout recalled.
