(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is on trial in New York City, where he is facing felony charges related to a 2016 hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. It marks the first time in history that a former U.S. president has been tried on criminal charges.
Trump last April pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment his then-attorney Michael Cohen made to Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Apr 22, 5:55 AM Attorneys to present opening statements in historic trial
After a week-long selection process, the jurors in Donald Trump’s New York hush money case will hear opening statements Monday in the first criminal trial of a former United States president.
To prove their case, lawyers for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg need to convince 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump repeatedly falsified records related to unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election.
“This case has nothing to do with your personal politics or your feelings about a particular political issue,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told potential jurors on Thursday. “It’s not a referendum on the Trump Presidency, a popularity contest, or any indication of who you plan to vote for this fall. This case is about whether this man broke the law.”
Trump’s lawyers are expected to focus their efforts on going after the credibility of prosecution witnesses, suggesting the case itself is politically motivated and arguing the former president never intended to commit a crime.
Former President Donald Trump sits at the defendant’s table during his criminal trial as jury selection continues at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 19, 2024 in New York City. (Sarah Yenesel-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — After a week-long selection process, the jurors in Donald Trump’s New York hush money case will hear opening statements Monday in the first criminal trial of a former United States president.
To prove their case, lawyers for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg need to convince 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump repeatedly falsified records related to unlawfully influencing the 2016 presidential election.
“This case has nothing to do with your personal politics or your feelings about a particular political issue,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told potential jurors on Thursday. “It’s not a referendum on the Trump Presidency, a popularity contest, or any indication of who you plan to vote for this fall. This case is about whether this man broke the law.”
Trump’s lawyers are expected to focus their efforts on going after the credibility of prosecution witnesses, suggesting the case itself is politically motivated and arguing the former president never intended to commit a crime.
The trial has thrust alleged illegality into the center of the 2024 presidential campaign, as Trump spends his days in a Manhattan courtroom to fight off one of the four criminal cases against him. The opening statements come the same week as Trump’s lawyers head to the Supreme Court to try to advance Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his federal election interference case.
“This is a giant witch hunt to try and hurt a campaign that’s beating the worst president in history,” Trump said on Friday.
Eighteen jurors have been sworn in to hear the case, and prosecutors plan to present at least 15 days of testimony to prove their case.
What is the prosecution’s theory of the case?
The indictment against the former president focuses on 34 business records — 12 ledger entries, 11 checks, and 11 invoices — that Trump allegedly falsified in order to disguise payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen. According to prosecutors, Trump had labeled the payments as legal expenses, but the payments were actually used in part to repay Cohen for a $130,000 payment to buy the silence of adult film actress Stormy Daniels regarding a long-denied affair with Trump.
Prosecutors allege that the payment was just one example of a broader scheme by Trump to hide information from voters ahead of the 2016 election.
According to prosecutors, the scheme began in August 2015, when Trump and Cohen met with the publisher of the National Enquirer, who agreed to act as the “eyes and ears” of the campaign to identify and kill negative stories.
Months later, the company behind the National Enquirer made a $30,000 payment to a doorman who was shopping around a false story that Trump had fathered a child out of wedlock, according to prosecutors. In June 2016 — one month before Trump became the Republican Party nominee — American Media Inc. made a $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged to have had a lengthy affair with Trump, which he denies.
“That is a scheme to buy and suppress negative information to help Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the election,” Bragg said about the case at a press conference announcing the indictment in 2023.
Prosecutors say the payment to Daniels came as the Trump campaign was struggling with the aftermath of the release of the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump can be heard bragging about grabbing women.
“Indeed, the evidence will demonstrate that the release of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape caused a panic within the campaign about [the] defendant’s electoral prospects and ultimately served as the catalyst for consummating the Stormy Daniels payoff,” prosecutors wrote in a filing last month.
Prosecutors also plan to introduce evidence to demonstrate Trump’s “consciousness of guilt,” including an effort to allegedly intimidate witnesses like Cohen from cooperating with investigators.
“The defendant was attempting to intimidate the likely witnesses against him, but the jury doesn’t even have to work that hard because the defendant himself has publicly embraced the overt strategy of going after his perceived enemies,” Steinglass said Monday.
What is Trump’s defense?
Trump’s lawyers have suggested that one of their main defenses will be highlighting that the former president never intended to commit a crime, including the fact that he relied on lawyers to orchestrate the alleged payments.
“I was paying a lawyer and I marked it down as a legal expense, some accountant,” Trump said last week. “Legal expense — that’s what you’re supposed to call it.”
Trump’s lawyers are also expected to hammer the credibility of the state’s witnesses, including Cohen, who previously pleaded guilty to federal charges associated with the alleged scheme, as well as other charges including lying to Congress in what Cohen says was an effort to protect Trump.
“We are going to be very up-front about the fact that several of the witnesses in this case have what you might consider to be some baggage,” Steinglass told potential jurors last week.
Some of the witnesses, according to prosecutors, have made inconsistent statements about the alleged conduct, have received immunity for their testimony, or have made media appearances to discuss their conduct.
Trump has also suggested on three separate occasions that he intends to testify during the trial in his own defense.
If Trump takes the stand, prosecutors hope to question the former president about a dozen past court findings in an effort to damage his credibility.
Who are the jurors?
After a lengthy jury selection process last week, Judge Juan Merchan swore in 12 jurors and six alternatives to hear the case.
The jury is composed of seven men and five women, the majority of whom have college degrees. They work a variety of jobs, including investment banking, teaching, physical therapy, and corporate law.
If any of the jurors need to be dismissed during the trial, they would be replaced by one of the six alternate jurors, including a woman who works in creative operations for a clothing company, a contract specialist, an audio professional, and an asset manager.
Who are the first witnesses?
Prosecutors have mentioned a long list of potential witnesses — including Cohen, Daniels, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, and others — but have not yet disclosed their first witness, who could take the stand as early as Monday.
Last week, prosecutors expressed concerns that Trump might attack the initial witness on social media if he learned who they are. Merchan declined to order prosecutors to disclose their identity, calling their concerns about Trump “understandable.”
Steinglass ultimately offered a compromise, promising to tell the defense team the name of the first witness on Sunday under one condition.
“If that should be tweeted, that will be the last time we extend that courtesy,” Steinglass said.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a rally, April 2, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Attorneys for Donald Trump are expected back in court on Monday to defend the $175 million bond in the former president’s civil fraud case, days after New York Attorney General Letitia James urged the court to reject the bond and give Trump seven days to find a new one.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the hearing earlier this month after James took exception to the bond and asked the company behind the bond — Knight Specialty Insurance Company — to prove they are sufficiently collateralized to pay the bond if Trump’s appeal of the $464 million judgment fails.
The bond hearing presents a legal double-header for the former president, who is required to attend the opening statements in his criminal hush money trial on Monday morning. Down the street from the criminal courthouse, Judge Engoron will hear arguments that could place the former president in financial dire straits if the bond is rejected.
Trump’s bond saga began in February when Engoron ordered the former president and his co-defendants to pay $464 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest for engaging in what he found to be a decade of business fraud. Trump attempted to delay the fine, telling an appellate court that finding a surety willing to handle a half-billion-dollar bond was a “practical impossibility.”
James vowed to begin seizing Trump’s assets, including his namesake buildings, if he did not pay the judgment in time.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said in an interview with ABC News.
At the deadline for Trump to pay the judgment, New York’s Appellate Division First Department granted the former president’s 11th-hour request to reduce the size of his bond, permitting the him to post a bond of $175 million.
Days later, Trump and his co-defendants posted a $175 million bond collateralized using $175,304,075 held in a Charles Schwab brokerage account controlled by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust.
Because the company behind the bond was not admitted in New York, James filed a notice that requires Knight Speciality Insurance to demonstrate they are capable of paying the bond if needed.
“KSIC is a respected, well-capitalized, Delaware-domiciled insurer that has long underwritten surety bonds and other types of insurance placed around the country,” attorneys for Knight Speciality Insurance and Trump wrote in a filing last week.
The filing specified that the bond was secured by more than $175 billion held in a brokerage account controlled by Knight, which independently maintained more than $539 million in their own assets. The filing also stated that the company has access to more than $2 billion in assets through their parent company.
“By any standard, KSIC has therefore provided assurance to the Plaintiff judgment creditor that she can collect the designated amount if the award is affirmed on appeal,” the filing said.
In a filing on Friday, the New York Attorney General argued that the bond itself should be rejected because the defendants failed to prove that Knight could handle “this extraordinarily large undertaking” and that the bond was sufficiently collateralized.
According to James’ filing, Knight does not have the exclusive right to control the money in Trump’s brokerage account, which could become problematic if the value of Trump’s assets in the account dips below $175 million. James also raised issues with Knight’s business practices, which she argued should make the company ineligible to do business in New York.
“KSIC is not qualified to act as the surety under this standard because its management has been found by federal authorities to have operated affiliated companies within KSIC’s holding company structure in violation of federal law on multiple occasions within the past several years,” the filing said.
Don Hankey — the chairman of Knight Specialty’s parent company — declined to comment on the attorney general’s recent filing on Friday.
In an interview with ABC News on April 4, he said he had “no concerns at all” about the bond.
“Seldom do our applications or our bonds get turned down. I imagine it is being scrutinized very carefully, and they’re checking to make sure all the i’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed,” Hankey said. “It’s a large amount for anybody.”
(LOS ANGELES) — A suspected intruder was arrested early Sunday morning after a break-in at the home of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, according to police.
“Around 6:40 AM this morning an individual smashed a window to gain entry into the Getty House while occupied,” the LAPD PIO said in a statement on X.
Bass and her family reside at the Getty House in the Hancock Park neighborhood in Los Angeles.
The mayor’s office tells ABC News Bass was one of the occupants who was at home when the intruder broke in, but did not specify if she had an interaction with the suspect.
“There were no injuries to the occupants during this incident,” LAPD wrote, adding, “The suspect was taken into custody without incident.”
Authorities said late Sunday night that the suspect, who was identified as Ephraim Matthew Hunter, 29, was booked on a felony burglary charge. His bail was set at $100,000.
It was not immediately clear if Hunter had a legal representative.
Police said the investigation is ongoing.
Following the break-in, Bass’ Deputy Mayor of Communications Zach Seidl released a statement, saying, “The Mayor is grateful to LAPD for responding and arresting the suspect.”
For the fifth day, pro-Palestinian students occupy a central lawn on the Columbia University campus, on April 21, 2024 in New York City. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams addressed the ongoing protests at Columbia University, condemning examples of antisemitism and hate speech in a statement Sunday.
“I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus,” Adams said.
Protests over the Israel-Hamas war continued at the University campus in Upper Manhattan for the fifth day on Sunday, which has led to the arrest of over 100 people, according to police.
“I have instructed the NYPD to investigate any violation of law that is reported,” Adams said. “Rest assured, the NYPD will not hesitate to arrest anyone who is found to be breaking the law.”
Mayor Adams called out specific examples of hate speech, such as, “a young woman holding a sign with an arrow pointing to Jewish students stating ‘Al-Qasam’s Next Targets, or another where a woman is literally yelling ‘We are Hamas,’ or another where groups of students are chanting ‘We don’t want no Zionists here.'”
“I condemn this hate speech in the strongest of terms,” Adams said.
Columbia Chief Operating Officer Cas Holloway said in a post on the university website Sunday that the school was boosting “safety measures” on the Morningside campus.
“The gathering of large crowds on campus and around the Morningside perimeter are causing considerable disruption and distress,” Holloway wrote, noting the school would be upping security by 35 additional guards and two additional supervisors per shift; “enhanced perimeter security staffed by additional private security personnel”; and additional coverage at the Kraft Center over Passover.
On Thursday, demonstrators had occupied Columbia’s south lawn for over 30 hours “in violation of the university’s rules” and did not leave despite “numerous warnings,” Mayor Adams said at the time.
NYPD arrested 108 people for trespass without incident, officials said Thursday. Among those, two were also arrested for obstruction of governmental administration, officials said.
The protests, which began on April 17, followed Columbia University president Minouche Shafik’s testimony to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about antisemitism on college campuses.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik called for Shafik’s resignation on Sunday, saying Columbia University “failed to enforce their own campus rules and protect Jewish students on campus,” in a post on X, formally known as Twitter.
“While Columbia’s failed leadership spent hundreds of hours preparing for this week’s Congressional hearing, it clearly was an attempt to cover up for their abject failure to enforce their own campus rules and protect Jewish students on campus,” Stefanik wrote.
“President Shafik must immediately resign. And the Columbia Board must appoint a president who will protect Jewish students and enforce school policies,” Stefanik wrote.
In his statement Sunday, Adams acknowledged how the ongoing conflict in the Middle East “has left many of us grieving and angry.”
“New Yorkers have every right to express their sorrow, but that heartbreak does not give anyone the right to harass or threaten others or to physically harm someone they disagree with,” Adams said.
Mayor Adams recognized the heightened tensions in New York, as the Jewish community celebrates the beginning of Passover on Monday.
“As Mayor of the city with the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, the pain these protests are causing Jews across the globe is not lost on me, especially as we start Passover tomorrow evening,” Adams said, noting, “I also see and hear the pain of those protesting in support of innocent lives being lost in Gaza.”
Concluding his statement, Adams said, “In this moment of heightened tension around the world, we stand united against hate.”
(CHICAGO) — A Chicago police officer heading home from his shift early Sunday was shot and killed, the “victim of the type of crime he was working against,” the Chicago police superintendent said.
The slain 30-year-old officer was shot multiple times and had his car taken, Chicago Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling said during a news conference Sunday morning.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson identified the slain officer as Luis M. Huesca, saying his death was the result of “an act of unconscionable gun violence in our city.”
“I met with Officer Huesca’s mother and uncle this morning and assured them that they have my full support as they deal with this unspeakable loss. Our city is grieving, and our condolences go out to their entire family as well as Luis’ fellow officers and community,” Johnson said in a post Sunday on X.
The mayor said Huesca worked in the police department’s 5th District as a member of the Priority Response Team.
Huesca was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.
Snelling said detectives are working to determine if the officer was gunned down during a carjacking.
“We can’t confirm that right now, but detectives are working through it. What we do know is that the officer’s vehicle was taken,” Snelling said. “But to get to the total motive of what happened, we need more information and the detective division is working on that.”
No arrests were announced.
The shooting unfolded around 2:53 a.m. on West 56th Street near South Kedzie Avenue in the Gage Park neighborhood, according to a police statement. Officers responding to a gunshot detection alert found the mortally wounded officer lying outside on the ground suffering from several gunshot wounds, according to the statement.
Snell said the officer, a six-year veteran of the CPD, was in his uniform, but with a jacket over it at the time he was shot.
“Our officer was headed home after his tour of duty,” Snelling said. “While returning home, the officer was shot multiple times.”
CPD said the shooting happened in the 8th Police District on the Southwest Side of the city.
“He was working hard out there to keep communities and to keep people safe, and today that officer was a victim of the type of crime that he was working against to keep people safe in this city,” Snelling said. “There’s a lot of violent crime out here and there are people who are brazen and cowardly in the way they go about their days and carry out these violent acts against the decent hardworking people of this city, who are just trying to live their lives the right way. It has to stop.”
Snelling said the officer is survived by his mother and an uncle.
“He was just a great officer, a great human being and his family is dealing with a lot right now. My condolences go out to the family. We really need to keep the family, his mother in our prayers,” Snelling said. “These are senseless, senseless crimes that are taking the lives of our community members. Today, one of our officers.”
(LOS ANGELES) — A tram crash at Universal Studios Hollywood injured 15 people on Saturday night, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.
The crash at the theme park “resulted in multiple minor injuries,” a spokesperson for the Studio City park said in a statement.
“We are working to support our guests and understand the circumstances that led to the accident,” the spokesperson said.
Fifteen people were transported to local hospitals with minor injures, fire officials said. First responders were dispatched to the park at about 9 p.m., officials said.
The California Highway Patrol will lead an investigation into the crash.
(BALTIMORE) — A man was transported to the hospital with injuries after a fire and an explosion at a house in the suburbs east of Baltimore City, Maryland, a fire official said.
Fire crews responded to the two-alarm fire late Saturday, the Baltimore County Fire Department said in a statement on social media.
The house on Ridgemoor Road in Essex, Maryland, appeared in photos shared by the department to have been completely destroyed by the blast.
Crews were expected to be on the scene for “an extended period of time,” the department said. Hazmat and fire investigators had been on their way to the scene, officials said.
The injured man was transported to a local hospital with non life-threatening injuries, Lt. Twana Allen said in an email to ABC News.
(GREENBELT, Md.) — Five teenagers were injured after gunfire rang out at a large gathering of high school students taking part in a senior skip day in Maryland, police said.
Officers from several law enforcement agencies were responding to help control a crowd of 500 to 600 students who had gathered in Schrom Hills Park in Greenbelt Friday afternoon when they heard multiple shots ring out, according to Greenbelt Police Chief Richard Bowers.
Five male victims ranging between the ages of 16 and 18 were located with gunshot wounds, Bowers said. All five victims were transported to local hospitals.
Three victims were released from the hospital and the sole victim listed as critical has been upgraded to stable condition, Greenbelt Police said Saturday.
A suspect in the shooting is believed to have fled the park when the crowd dispersed following the gunfire and has not been located at this time, Bowers said. Police believe there was only one shooter, he said.
The police chief called the shooting a “horrible, tragic, senseless act.”
“These were kids on senior skip day who were looking to have a good time in a local park, and to have something like this occur is just maddening,” Bowers said.
The students had initially gathered in Bowie, Maryland, for senior skip day and were asked to disperse by local law enforcement, a Greenbelt Police Department spokesperson told ABC News. Many of those students then moved to Schrom Hills Park, where they participated in a large water gun fight prior to the shooting, police said.
Greenbelt Mayor Emmett Jordan said the gathering was “informally organized” on social media.
“We don’t condone skipping school, but it’s the senior skip day,” Bowers said. “It’s just a tragedy.”
Students from multiple high schools in the area are believed to have been at the park, the chief said.
A motive remains unclear.
The shooting remains under investigation. Bowers urged anyone with footage from the incident to reach out to police. Investigators will also be looking over body-worn camera footage, he said.
“We know that the person involved is definitely on a camera somewhere,” Bowers said.
(PARKLAND, Fla.) — Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris toured Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, site of a 2018 mass shooting, with families of the 17 victims of the massacre and vowed to do more to curb gun violence.
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the shooting, was one of the parents who pushed for elected officials to take the tour and meet with the families about tackling gun violence.
He spoke with ABC News’ Rachel Scott shortly after the visit.
ABC NEWS LIVE: I do want to start with you telling me about your push to get the vice president here. Where did that come from?
FRED GUTTENBERG: I guess about 10 months ago, when the building was turned over from the state attorney to the school district, one of the other dads, Max Schachter, had this idea of walking through political people to see what’s happening in that building, or what happened in that building.
The blood is still there, the DNA is still there. The shards of glass are still there, the books and all the coursework, it’s still out there on the desks as if the kids just went out for a fire drill. It’s all still there. And we wanted to walk people through so that they could receive the lessons of why something like this happened. And a day of mass carnage, leading to 17 dead and 17 injured, but not only why it happened [but also] what kinds of things can we do to stop the next one.
And I reached out to the Office of Gun Violence Prevention folks, which are an amazing group of people, and the vice president’s office, and I told them what we were doing. And I said, “I’d really like you all to come.”
This was scheduled to be a three-hour day. She was here, not three hours, [but] almost five.
Because she wanted to know about those we lost. She wanted to know about the work that we’re doing.
Today was an incredibly consequential, meaningful day.
ABC NEWS LIVE: You told me that this building is going to be demolished.
GUTTENBERG: Yeah.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And that this was sort of the final chapter.
GUTTENBERG: The final lesson.
ABC NEWS LIVE: The final lesson.
GUTTENBERG: Yeah.
The vice president can now go forward and talk specifically about what she saw in this building and relate it to what she needs to do [and] what we need to do as a country. Whether it’s on gun safety policy, whether it’s on school construction, any of those things. She saw it today. She can talk about it now.
ABC NEWS LIVE: What do you believe needs to be done? We know that the president signed the most comprehensive gun safety legislation into law in decades. But still, that did not go as far as the president and the vice president were hoping.
GUTTENBERG: I wish we could have gone further. And I hope people vote in the next election to ensure we get to go further. But it went, and it got a lot of things done. I’ll give you this. I’ll just tell you this, for the first time in months, the homicide rate related to gun violence, for the first time in years, is trending down. I was just at the FBI facility in West Virginia, where they conduct threat assessment and background checks last month. And they’re doing the new enhanced under 21 background checks which are a part of that legislation. And they were talking about the abundance of young people now that they’ve been able to stop from getting a weapon because of that new enhanced under-21 background check.
Red flag laws save lives. Let me be clear, had a red flag law been in place in Florida before February 14, 2018, in all likelihood, this shooting never happens. Had a red flag law been in place before February 14, 2018, I’d be visiting my daughter at the University of Florida, not at a cemetery.
ABC NEWS LIVE: I do want to ask you about your daughter and just what we should know about her and how you have been able to cope with the loss of a daughter so young.
GUTTENBERG: My daughter will forever be the toughest person I ever knew. And if you saw the way she died on the third floor, running down the hallway for her life, because she got locked out of a room – knowing there was a shooter at her back with an AR-15. And she made it to within 1 second of her life, turning into the stairwell.
It does not surprise me that she was fighting for her life that way. She’s the toughest person I’ve ever known. I get through every day because she stands on my shoulders pushing me forward. I get through every day because I know no matter how hard this fight is, I will never ever, ever have anything as hard as what she did running down that hallway.
I am her voice now. My daughter was 14 when she was killed. Forever 14. She should be 20 now.
And I have a dream now of ending gun violence in America and I’m dedicating my life to it.
ABC NEWS LIVE: You’ve been through that building. You’ve walked that hall. What was that like for you?
GUTTENBERG: When you walk through it, you see the blood of the victims still there. You see DNA of the victims. It’s still there.
I sat in the spot where my daughter took her last breath. And for me, it’s something I’ll never ever get over, I’ll never comprehend how it was possible. I’ll never forgive those who failed to deal with the reality of gun violence, because we were listening to too many of the wrong people. And I will do everything I can to ensure we fire every single elected person who continues to fail on this issue. All I want to do is stop the next one.
ABC NEWS LIVE: We are now in a critical election year. What do you want Americans to know heading into this election year?
GUTTENBERG: What I want America to know is there is only one president and vice presidential candidate – they’re the ones running for re-election, President [Joe] Biden and Vice President Harris, who stand for doing something about gun violence
So here’s what I want America to know. This is not an election to sit home. If you’re any of the many people across this country who think I’m gonna stay home on my couch, I don’t need to vote. Yes, you do. Let me be clear: If there’s anybody in your life that you love, and because of that, you want to reduce gun violence, you know how to vote and you know you need to vote.
