On Monday, a New York judge denied Donald Trumpformer attorney Michael Cohen and adult movie star Stormi Daniels sought to prevent the former president from testifying in his 2016 criminal trial. silence payment.
Judge Juan Mercan gave both Cohen and Daniels the green light to take the stand, but placed some restrictions on Daniels’ testimony, namely that he cannot testify about the crime. lie detector test he stated in 2018 that he was correct in his comments about Trump.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s lawsuit against Trump alleges he falsified business records to hide the money he paid. Cohen to refund him the $130,000 the attorney paid him Daniels In the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels claimed that she had sex with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied sleeping with Daniels, but he has admitted paying Cohen.
In a filing last month, Trump’s attorneys argued that neither Cohen nor Daniels should be allowed to testify because they “liars.” Cohen admitted he lied under oath during his testimony in Trump’s civil fraud trial, but the judge presiding over the case found Cohen’s testimony “credible” despite his confession.
In Monday’s filing, Merchan said he also placed some restrictions on another witness who has alleged ties to Trump — former Playboy model Karen McDougal — and that the “exact restrictions” will be discussed in court before a jury is selected in the case. Trump, who does not plead guilty, denied having a relationship with McDougal.
The former president was more successful in presenting another piece of evidence that Merca claimed should have been kept out of court: “Enter Hollywood” tape. In 2005, Trump was heard on a hot microphone saying he could raise his hand to women without their consent. The audio surfaced after Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016, and the DA’s office alleged that bad publicity prompted him to pay Daniels.
Merchan said prosecutors can testify that the tape “contains sexually suggestive comments that the defendant fears could harm his presidential aspirations,” but “the tape itself does not have to be introduced into evidence or played for the jury.”
But in another setback for Trump, Merchan did not sign off on his request to use the partial “advice of counsel” defense.
In a filing last week, Trump’s attorneys said they planned to argue that their client did not think Cohen did anything wrong by kicking back the transactions, which were billed as legal fees, because he knew the attorneys were involved in a criminal case. speaks. They said Trump was not formally advising prosecutors on attorney protections, which would give prosecutors the right to access more information about his communications with his attorneys.
On Monday, the judge said he rejected that defense, which otherwise would have allowed Trump to benefit from the “advice of counsel” defense without further liability.
“The result would undoubtedly be to confuse and confuse the jury. This Court cannot approve such a tactic,” Merchan wrote.
NBC News has reached out to Trump’s lawyers for comment. Bragg’s office declined to comment.
It is still unclear when the trial will begin. It was scheduled for March 25, but Merchan pushed it back at least until Friday mid-April After federal prosecutors in Manhattan belatedly turned over more than 100,000 documents related to Cohen’s role in the case. He also scheduled a hearing for next week to discuss the matter, and did not rule out that the hearing could affect the trial’s start date.