Trump trial enters decisive phase after Stormy Daniels' shock testimony

A third week of debates ended Friday at the trial of Donald Trump in New York. New York, marked by the raw testimony of pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, before the highly anticipated hearing of the former lawyer turned sworn enemy. of the former American president.

Before the hearing adjourned, one of the prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, indicated that the prosecution intended to call two witnesses to the stand from Monday, without revealing which ones, and indicated that it was “completely possible” that she will be finished in a week.

Most commentators predict that her former lawyer, Michael Cohen, could begin testifying as early as Monday. It was he who made the hidden payments of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels at the origin of these unprecedented criminal proceedings against a former American president.

Michael Cohen, who says he acted at the request of the Republican candidate to ensure the silence of the actress in the last days of the campaign for the 2016 presidential election, won by the wire, has since turned against his former boss.

In the midst of the campaign against outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden, Donald Trump is on trial for 34 counts of accounting falsification for concealing the reimbursement of sums to his lawyer at the time in the accounts of his holding company, the Trump Organization. He risks conviction and potentially a prison sentence, with still incalculable consequences for the electorate.

Donald Trump's legal woes © AFP – Olivia BUGAULT, Sophie RAMIS

Although the facts are less serious than those with which he is accused in the three other criminal proceedings against him, this trial is all the more important as it could be the only one to be held before the poll of November 5.

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Only the federal trial of Donald Trump in Washington for illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election could still begin before this deadline, provided that the Supreme Court quickly rejects the immunity he claims as ex-president.

– Threatened with prison –

The week opened on Monday with a new warning shot from judge Juan Merchan, who after having imposed a series of fines on him for having verbally attacked witnesses and jurors, in violation of his instructions, threatened him with prison in the event of a recurrence.

Former US President Donald Trump (c) speaks to reporters before entering court of Manhattan for his criminal trial in New York on May 10, 2024 © POOL – TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Like every day, the Republican candidate denounced on Friday a “horrible” trial intended according to him to prevent him from campaigning, but declared that he would be at a meeting on Saturday in neighboring New Jersey.

Since its opening on April 15, the trial has alternated pieces of judicial bravura and dry, very technical sequences.

Thus, the dramatic tension subsided afterwards the extensive testimony Tuesday and Thursday of Stormy Daniels, who recounted in great detail the sexual relationship she claims to have had with him in 2006, and fought step by step the defense's attempts to discredit her story.

An affair that Donald Trump, then already married to his current wife Melania, categorically denies.

Friday followed one another at the bar one of his direct assistants at the White House, two specialists from telephone companies, then two legal assistants who read exchanges of messages between protagonists in the affair, relating in particular to the financial negotiations for the exclusivity of the story by Stormy Daniels.

One of the challenges of the debates is to determine what Donald Trump knew about these behind-the-scenes negotiations to buy his silence.

If he were elected again, once inaugurated in January 2025, he could order the abandonment of the two federal proceedings against him, in Washington but also in Florida (southeast), where he is prosecuted for withholding classified documents after leaving the White House.

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