Trump warned over posts after setbacks — follow latest

Donald Trump renewed his attacks on Judge Juan Merchan in a Truth Social post on Tuesday morning.

“This conflicted, Trump Hating Judge won’t let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long,” the former president posted just after 8am local time.

“He is running rough shod over my lawyers and legal team. The New York System of ‘Justice’ is being decimated by critics from all over the World. I want to speak, or at least be able respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!”

A few minutes earlier, Trump had posted in all caps: “MY TRIAL IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA!”

Day two of Trump’s trial for allegedly making hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels is due to resume in just over an hour.

Donald Trump is accused of paying hush money to cover up an alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, left, and has been ordered to pay the writer E Jean Carroll, right, millions of dollars for defamation

This is not Trump’s only legal trouble. The former US president faces 40 charges alone in a classified documents case and more in other investigations, including his alleged interference in the 2020 election.

Use our tracker to see where each case stands.

Trump’s tactic of delaying his criminal trials with a barrage of appeals ran out of road and appeared to leave him facing a “disaster” in the Stormy Daniels case, legal experts have said.

Alistair Dawber analyses the implications of the former president’s trial.

The kind of charges brought against Donald Trump are “vanishingly rare”, leading to fears among the ex-president’s opponents that they play into his claims of political persecution.

• Why the Stormy Daniels case is so controversial — among Democrats too

Jane Mulkerrins, an associate editor at The Times Magazine, has known Daniels for five years and was the first journalist to interview her after news broke that Trump would be criminally charged over an alleged hush money payment.

Writing for The Sunday Times on the eve of Trump’s trial, Mulkerrins described Daniels as “warm, witty, bright, mischievous and not a little terrifying”, adding: “I liked her immediately, a fierce, unfiltered force of nature.”

Daniels described the decision to charge Trump with falsifying business records as “vindication” during their interview last March. “He’s done so much worse that he should have been taken down [for] before,” she said hours after Trump was charged. “I am fully aware of the insanity of it being a porn star. But it’s also poetic: this pussy grabbed back.”

A new poll that asked voters whether Trump should be convicted in the hush money case found 46 per cent believe the former president is guilty.

The New York Times/Siena College poll also found that 53 per cent said the former president was guilty of at least one of the federal crimes he has been accused of. Some 39 per cent said they felt Trump was innocent, and 9 per cent said they did not know. The survey was conducted from April 7-11 among 1,059 registered voters nationwide.

In a March poll from Quinnipiac University, 55 per cent of likely voters said the result of the hush money trial would have no impact on how they vote in November.

Trump’s temper flared towards the end of day one of the hush money trial after Judge Juan Merchan refused his request to attend arguments in a Supreme Court hearing next Thursday.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, told the court the former president “very much” wanted to attend arguments in Washington over whether he can claim absolute immunity from prosecution in the subversion case brought by the special counsel Jack Smith.

Prosecutors opposed the request, and Merchan ruled against the former president. He told defence lawyers that, unlike the Supreme Court hearing, Trump was required to attend every day of the Manhattan case as he is a criminal defendant.

Outside court, Trump accused the judge of running a “scam trial”. He also falsely accused the judge of barring him from attending his son Barron’s high school graduation on May 17. The judge said he would rule on that at a later date, and that it depended on how speedily the trial was progressing.

Donald Trump was flanked by his lawyers Todd Blanche, left, and Emil Bove

JABIN BOTSFORD/GETTY IMAGES

Jury selection in the Donald Trump hush money case will resume in a New York courtroom in a few hours.

The first day of the trial featured several hours of discussion over what evidence could be introduced at the trial. Both the defence and prosecution scored partial wins. The judge ruled that the infamous Access Hollywood tapes in which Trump boasted of “grabbing” women could not be played to the jury, but that he would allow testimony from Karen McDougal, who claims to have had a months-long affair with Trump.

In the afternoon, a pool of 96 prospective jurors were screened for any potential biases against the former president. More than half of the group was excused after telling Judge Juan Merchan they could not be relied on to deliberate fairly and impartially.

Another nine prospective jurors were excused after raising their hands when the judge asked if they had another reason why they could not serve.

Potential jurors will continue to be questioned today on their personal and professional lives, their media consumption and hobbies. Merchan said he would prefer to dismiss jurors immediately if they indicated at the start of questioning that they were biased.

Donald Trump has attacked the judge for not allowing him to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation in comments outside court at the conclusion of the first day of the hush money payments trial.

Trump repeated claims that the trial was a “scam” and a “political witch hunt” as he left the court in lower Manhattan. Judge Juan Merchan said he would rule at a later date on whether Trump can skip the trial on May 17 to attend his son’s event in Florida.

Trump also accused the judge of depriving him from attending a hearing next Thursday before the Supreme Court on his appeal that he is immune from criminal prosecution.

He went on to rail against Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and his political opponents. “That I’m not in Georgia or Florida or North Carolina campaigning like I should be, it’s perfect for the radical left Democrats, that’s exactly what they want,” he said. “This is about election interference. That’s all this is about.”

Donald Trump Jr, the former president’s eldest son, has described Judge Juan Merchan as “pure evil” in a post to social media.

Trump Jr was responding to a post by the right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec, who claimed Merchan had threatened to jail the former president if he failed to attend any days of the hush money trial.

“These people are truly sick,” Trump Jr wrote in a post on Instagram. “Just remember there are no lengths they won’t go to to get or keep power and that has to be put into check. Enough is enough!”

In his post, Posobiec claimed that Trump had been threatened with jail if he attended his son Barron’s graduation. Barron attends the Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is due to graduate on May 17.

Merchan said earlier he would consider a request to adjourn that day, and it would depend on how quickly the trial was proceeding.

The first day has just adjourned.

A potential juror who was excused from serving on the Trump jury was heard saying “I just couldn’t do it” in a hallway outside the courtroom.

The juror, identified by a pool reporter as a woman from Harlem, indicated she could be neutral in deciding the case. But when asked whether she had strong opinions about the former president, the woman responded with a firm “Yes.” She was then released by the judge.

Since then, four jurors have been questioned by Judge Juan Merchan on their family and professional lives, their hobbies and media preferences. The jurors cited The New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and Google as being their primary news sources.

Judge Juan Marchan asked potential jurors if they could raise their hands if they felt they could not serve fairly and impartially, or were unable to take part for another reason.

About half of the 96 raised their hands and were excused by the judge. Of those who were released, more than two dozen were white women, according to a pool report from inside court.

Trump leaving the first day of his trial

JABIN BOTWSFORD/UPI/ALAMY

Donald Trump stood in a corridor on the 15th floor of Manhattan’s criminal court building: a dingy place, ornamented with metal barricades and occupied by a small army of court police officers.

“Nothing like this has ever happened,” he said. He was right about that.

Will Pavia, our New York correspondent, was outside the Manhattan courtroom as lawyers attempted the surely impossible task of finding 12 people who do not already have an opinion on Trump’s guilt.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Trump, is among those who may feature in the trial

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Judge Juan Merchan has asked potential jurors if they are familiar with any of Trump’s key allies.

Merchan has been explaining how the trial will proceed to a group of 96 potential jurors, a standard process before any jury is sworn in. It includes reading the list of charges and asking jurors if they know any of the figures who are likely to feature in the trial.

This list includes the former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s children Donald Jr and Ivanka, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his wife Melania, and several Trump administration appointees such as Kellyanne Conway.

A group of 96 prospective jurors have entered the courtroom and are about to be sworn in.

The potential jurors, all from Manhattan, have been patiently waiting since 9am. They will have filled out a seven-page questionnaire answering a lengthy set of questions on whether they support Donald Trump, their media preferences and whether they can impartially rule on the evidence.

Lawyers for the prosecution and defence will be able to question them before deciding whether to strike them from the potential pool. A total of 12 jurors and six alternates will be selected.

Judge Juan Merchan said he would give Trump’s lawyers 24 hours to submit their final exhibits into evidence. He said they would be precluded from using any exhibits that had not been provided to the court by Tuesday.

The judge has also given a list of the names of prospective jurors to the defence and the prosecution. He ordered that the list could not be copied or photographed — and must be returned.

The prospective jurors are now being brought up to the courtroom.

JEENAH MOON-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

Trump gave a thumbs-up to cameras as he returned to the courtroom a few minutes ago after a one-hour lunch break.

Judge Juan Merchan has said he will now hear arguments on an alleged violation of Trump’s gag order next Tuesday, rather than delivering his decision on Monday.

Merchan has issued a ruling on how prospective jurors will be questioned. He says if a juror is to be questioned by either sets of lawyers, he will order the other potential jury members to clear the court so that individuals don’t feel intimidated.

With those orders of business complete, we should be ready to begin jury selection any minute now.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney

SPLASH

Police in New York said they responded to a bomb threat at the home of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.

An NYPD spokesman said they received the threat via a 911 call just before 9am on Monday morning. Police are investigating the incident.

Bragg is the lead law enforcement official in Trump’s hush money trial.

A separate bomb threat was made to the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Monday. The threat was a hoax and there was no disruption to services, a library spokesman told AP.

Trump has been barred from discussing possible witnesses and jurors — and from speaking about the family members of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and Judge Juan Merchan, after he levelled several attacks on the judge’s daughter, who had been employed by a political consultancy that worked for Democratic candidates.

Trump continued to test the limits of that order on the eve of the trial, asking on his social media platform Truth Social over the weekend if one expected witness, “disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen has been prosecuted for LYING?”

Prosecutors also cited a Truth Social post praising Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who was sentenced to a total of 19 years in prison in 2022 for stealing from his clients, including Stormy Daniels.

They also claimed a post Trump made about Daniels had violated the gag order.

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday morning that the order was “unconstitutional”.

Judge Merchan is expected to rule on the alleged violations after the lunch break.

Judge Juan Merchan has been hearing from prosecutors about whether Trump should be sanctioned for allegedly violating several pre-trial gag orders.

Prosecutor Chris Conroy asked that the former president be held in contempt and sanctioned $1,000 each for three separate posts on Truth Social.

Conroy asked that Trump be reminded he could be jailed for further violations of the gag order.

“We think that it is important for the court to remind Mr Trump that he is a criminal defendant. And like all criminal defendants he’s subject to court supervision,” Conroy said.

The court has now adjourned for a lunch break until 6.30pm (1.30pm ET).

More than two hours after the hearing began, Judge Juan Merchan appeared to grow tired of the “minutiae” of the respective lawyers’ pre-trial arguments.

He noted that there were about 500 prospective jurors waiting for jury selection to begin, and called on both parties to work out between themselves a dispute on how motions were to be filed.

Merchan has outlined the rules of the courtroom, such as reminding Trump that he should remain seated while the jury enters and leaves the courtroom. The judge said he would agree to a time limit of 30 minutes for the first round of juror questioning, and 20 minutes for any subsequent rounds.

Michael Cohen’s Trump’s lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over the payment to Daniels

SETH WENIG/AP

After a 15-minute adjournment, pre-trial arguments are continuing. Lawyers for the prosecution and the defence have asked Judge Juan Merchan to clarify what they will be allowed to ask Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, on the witness stand.

In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to several charges including campaign finance violations for making a payment to Daniels. Trump was not charged at the time, although he was identified as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case.

Joshua Steinglass, for the prosecution, asked the judge whether they could discuss Cohen’s guilty plea, arguing: “Michael Cohen is very much like a co-defendant in a robbery case who agreed to testify against his cohort.”

Merchan eventually reiterated his pre-trial order, in which he ruled that the prosecution cannot tie Cohen’s plea to Trump. Cohen’s credibility is expected to come under close scrutiny by Trump’s lawyers.

The Trump campaign discussed planting negative stories about Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz

JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

Prosecutors will be allowed to introduce evidence that the Trump campaign co-ordinated with the National Enquirer to publish positive stories about the former president and negative ones about his political opponents in the 2016 Republican primary, including the senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Joshua Steinglass, for the prosecution, argued the agreement made at a meeting in Trump Tower in 2015 had also sought to prevent harmful information about Trump “from ever seeing the light of day”.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche said the evidence would “do nothing but confuse the jury about the actual crime charged” and would amount to a sideshow. He said Trump’s campaign, in this meeting, did nothing illegal or improper.

Prosecutors responded that perfectly legal things, such as renting a car for a bank robbery, could be done as part of another illegal act.

Judge Juan Merchan ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to introduce the evidence, saying that as it was not illegal, it was not prejudicial.

Melania, Barron and Donald Trump in January

THE MEGA AGENCY

Trump’s legal team asked for a break in the trial schedule so that the former president could attend his son Barron’s high school graduation on May 17.

One of Trump’s lawyers also asked for a one-day adjournment to attend his child’s high school graduation.

Judge Juan Merchan said he would consider the requests depending on how quickly the trial was progressing.

Although the court is not due to sit on Wednesdays, the judge said he could change the schedule if there were excessive delays. Merchan also said there would be no court on April 29.

The court is now taking a short break.

• Read more: What the Trump family did next — university, billion-dollar deals and golf

Trump with Karen McDougal

Trump suffered a further setback in court as the judge said he would allow testimony from Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she had a ten-month affair with the former president.

Juan Merchan ruled that the jury could hear from McDougal, who was a fitness model who became an actress and was Playboy’s “playmate of the year” in 1998. She has said she had a ten-month affair with Trump between 2006 and 2007, seeing him about five times a month.

The National Enquirer paid McDougal $150,000 to keep quiet about the relationship in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, a practice known as “catch and kill”.

Trump’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that describing McDougal’s arrangement with AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer, would be prejudicial to the case.

Juan Merchan in his chambers on Sunday

SETH WENIG/AP

Judge Juan Merchan has denied a motion from Trump’s lawyers to recuse himself from the trial.

Before jury selection began, Merchan told the court there were two pending motions for recusal, one before him and another before a state appellate court. He said Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche had cited an interview the judge had done with the Associated Press about preparing for the trial as evidence of bias against Trump.

Merchan gave short shrift to the filings. He said it was the court’s opinion that Trump was using a “series of inferences, innuendos and unsupported speculation”. He added that he would not consider it again until the appellate court makes a ruling.

Trump looked straight ahead, biting his bottom lip as the judge rejected the motion.

Who is Juan Merchan?

Merchan, 61, was born in Bogota, Colombia, and came to the US with his family at the age of six.

After graduating from law school in 1994, he became a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, then a family court judge and since 2009 has presided over criminal trials in the state’s supreme court.

One of these was a tax fraud case against the Trump Organisation in which a jury convicted the company and Merchan fined it $1.6 million, the maximum penalty allowed. During the 2020 election campaign Merchan gave $35 in political contributions to Democrats, including $15 to Joe Biden. His daughter is an executive at a Democratic consulting firm that worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign.

For these reasons Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to recuse himself. An advisory committee said the case did not concern the judge’s daughter, or her business, or any of her interests, and Merchan himself ruled that he could be “fair and impartial”.

He was assigned the hush money case against Trump randomly, via a court rota.

Trump with Todd Blanche, left, and Emil Bove, right

JABIN BOTSFORD/GETTY IMAGES

The lawyers at Trump’s defence table are Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, a former prosecutor who is in Blanche’s law firm, and Susan Necheles. Trump could be seen chatting animatedly with Blanche, as the lawyer went through a large file of papers. Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung is seated at the back of the room.

Across from Trump is the team of prosecutors led by Matthew Colangelo, who previously worked for the New York state attorney general in its civil investigation of Trump. Behind them is Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney. Trump did not look over his shoulder at him but Bragg was seen glancing in his direction.

Judge Juan Merchan is expected to hear motions, including one to remove himself from proceedings, which is expected to fail, before the court begins picking a jury.

Five hundred people have been summoned as potential candidates: 12 are needed, along with six alternates. They are expected to be brought into the public gallery of the courtroom, where they will be asked if there is any reason why they cannot be impartial in this case.

They must fill in a questionnaire, with 42 questions about themselves, the newspapers they read, the podcasts they listen to, whether they or a relative has worked for Trump and whether they happen to be a member of the alt-right group Proud Boys, or a follower of QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy group.

They are also asked if they have read one of Trump’s books, or one of the various memoirs of Michael Cohen, a key witness in the case.

Donald Trump insisted last week he would testify in his own defence at the trial.

In comments to reporters at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, on Friday, Trump said: “I’m testifying. I tell the truth. I mean, all I can do is tell the truth. And the truth is that there’s no case. They have no case.”

Trump’s lawyers mounted a final, last-ditch effort on Friday to have the historic trial postponed after arguing that it had attracted too much publicity for him to receive a fair hearing. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed the appeal, writing in response that the idea was “not tenable”, adding that Trump had drawn a lot of this publicity himself with frequent social media posts.

Donald Trump leaving Trump Tower this morning and outside the courtroom, below

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP

ANGELA WEISS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Trump said his hush money criminal trial was an “assault on America” in comments outside court this morning.

He told reporters that the case was a politically motivated attack on him orchestrated by President Biden, his rival in the 2024 election.

“This is an assault on America, nothing like this has ever happened before, there’s never been anything like it,” he said. “Every legal scholar said this case is nonsense, it should have never been brought, it doesn’t deserve anything like this. There is no case and I’ve said it people that don’t necessarily follow or like Donald Trump said this is an outrage that this case was brought.

“This is political persecution this is a persecution like never before, nobody has ever seen anything like it and again it’s a case that should have never been brought, it’s an assault on America and that’s why I am very proud to be here, this is an assault on our country and it’s a country that’s failing, it’s a country that’s run by an incompetent man and is very much involved in this case.

“This is really an attack on a political opponent, that is all it is, so I’m very honoured to be here, thank you very much.”

Supporters, detractors and impersonators were out in force for a momentous day

SPENCER PLATT/GETTY

Donald Trump has arrived at court before jury selection. The former president made the four-mile journey from Trump Tower in Midtown to the Manhattan criminal court, where he arrived just after 9am.

He was greeted by dozens of protesters waving signs such as “election interference is a crime”, and “not above the law”.

A protester stands outside the courthouse in New York ahead of Donald Trump’s trial

SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS

The criminal court building at 100 Center Street has occasionally hosted famous or powerful defendants.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, was brought there in May of 2011, accused of raping a hotel maid. He was brought into a courtroom to be arraigned alongside a man who worked in a fried chicken restaurant who faced drugs charges. Strauss-Kahn denied the charges and the criminal case against him was eventually dropped.

This morning, a media camp was pitched at the edge of the park across the road from the courthouse and reporters queued from the early hours of the morning. A reporter from Business Insider arrived bearing an enormous sack of bagels that she distributed to the journalists.

Two early-morning protesters arrived in the park to have their picture taken — one bearing a sign a that said: “Convict Trump Already” and another, made in the style of a Trump campaign banner, that read: “Loser”. At 8.59am local time Trump’s motorcade was seen pulling up.

Donald Trump criticised a gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan hours before jury selection begins in his criminal hush money payments trial.

In a post on Truth Social at 8am local time, Trump wrote: “I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional! The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!”.

Donald Trump is the first former president to face a criminal trial. This mugshot was taken for a separate case in Georgia

REUTERS

In a separate post, the former president wrote: “Why didn’t they bring this totally discredited lawsuit 7 years ago??? Election Interference!”

He also blamed President Biden, his likely rival in the 2024 presidential election, for orchestrating the charges against him.

“As virtually every legal scholar has powerfully stated, the Biden Manhattan Witch Hunt Case is, among other things, BARRED by the Statute of Limitations. This “trial” should be ended by the highly conflicted presiding Judge.”

The Times’s Will Pavia, who is covering the case from the Manhattan criminal court, writes that Trump is expected commute daily from his flat in Trump Tower to the courthouse, staging press conferences at his building on Wall Street and weekend rallies in nearby states, while his supporters gather in the small park across the street from the court building.