In a New York City courtroom where he’s currently handling a trial on criminal charges accusing former President Donald Trump of falsifying business records, Judge Juan Merchan — known in local legal parlance as a Justice — has rejected another request from the Trump defense team to declare a mistrial.
Both requests emerged against the backdrop of trial testimony from Stormy Daniels, a woman who allegedly had a sexual encounter with Trump some years ago and who eventually received related hush money. The records that Trump is accused of falsifying related to repayments for his former ally Michael Cohen, who provided Daniels with the pre-2016 election money.
Legal expert and former federal government lawyer Ryan Goodman suggested in recent public commentary that Trump was already in violation of his gag order — again — over public rhetoric from the ex-president on social media that didn’t name Daniels but seemed to reference her in this same context. The diatribe used language Trump’s utilized for Daniels.
“If you knew nothing, you would know he’s probably talking about Stormy Daniels’ testimony and having to sit back and listen to it, but then if you know about some of the other Truth Social posts that he has put out, including one in which he identifies her as a ‘sleazebag’ who was lying and making misrepresentations,” then the apparent targeting becomes even clearer, argued Goodman in a CNN discussion.
One of the issues in the context of Daniels’ testimony was an anticipated possibility that some of the details she shared get interpreted… specifically by jurors… as suggesting sexual misconduct and/or assault on Trump’s part. Merchan wondered why a lawyer for Trump kept going with that question to such an extent during cross-examination of Daniels. “I don’t know why you went into it ad nauseam on cross-examination,” the judge said, per POLITICO. “You drummed it over and over again into the jury’s ears. I don’t understand the reason for that.”
