Contention flowed at former President Donald Trump’s trial on allegations he falsified business records, but for once Trump was not the focus of Judge Juan Merchan’s ire.
It was the defense team’s star witness.
Witness Robert Costello was on the stand on Monday when his obvious dissatisfaction with rulings that blocked the defense from asking him the questions it sought to ask was quashed by Merchan.
The core of Costello’s testimony was that prosecution witness Michael Cohen had said that Trump never knew about payments to porn star Stormy Daniels that are at the heart of the case.
“I swear to God, Bob, I don’t have anything on Donald Trump,” Costello said Cohen told him, and that he paid Daniels “on his own.”
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Cohen has said he was battling a “pressure campaign” by Trump and his supporters into working with Costello. Defense lawyers tried to pursue that line of thought but were blocked by Merchan.
“I’m not going to allow this to become a trial within a trial about a pressure campaign and how it affected Cohen,” Merchan said, according to NBC.
After Merchan spiked one question at the behest of the prosecution, according to USA Today, Costello exhaled “Jeez!”
“Sorry? I’m sorry?” Merchan snapped.
“Strike it,” Costello said.
Merchan informed Costello only the judge has the power to order testimony to be stricken, according to USA Today.
“Do you understand that?” Merchan asked.
He then took issue with Costello’s eye movement.
“Are you staring me down right now?” he demanded.
Has Judge Juan Merchan handled this trial fairly?
Merchan then cleared the courtroom of jurors and the media for a talk with Costello about “decorum.”
According to a transcript published by USA Today of what took place while the courtroom was cleared, Merchan scolded Costello.
“The fact that I had to clear the courtroom and that the court officers, including the Captain, had great difficulty clearing the courtroom, and that there was argument back and forth between the press and including counsel for the press, goes to why I had to clear the courtroom in the first place,” Merchan said.
“And that is, sir, your conduct is contemptuous right now. I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous. If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.
“I will strike his entire testimony; do you understand me?”
“Yes, Judge. I understand,” Emil Bove, a Trump lawyer, replied, according the transcript.
“Listen to the question and answer the question,” Merchan said.
“Can I say something, please?” Costello said, according to the transcript.
“No. No. This is not a conversation,” Merchan replied.
After court, Trump told reporters Merchan was doing the prosecution’s bidding to block his attorneys from asking questions.
“Nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump said, according to NBC.
In a Truth Social post published just after midnight Tuesday, Trump called for the trial to end immediately.
“Judge Juan Merchan, who has thus far been the exact Conflicted Democrat Operative his Comrades expected, has a chance to take a real step toward rehabilitating both his Reputation and the Justice System of New York by dismissing the Biden Election Interference Witch Hunt brought by Soros funded D.A. Alvin Bragg,” Trump wrote.
“Every serious Legal Expert and Scholar is unequivocally stating that the ‘prosecutors’ have not come close to putting on a case, THERE IS NO CRIME, which means that the right thing to do is to END THIS SCAM NOW AND FOREVERMORE. It would be a Big, Bold, Beautiful, but Highly Unexpected, yet BRILLIANT, step toward Justice in New York, and our Nation as a whole!” Trump wrote.
