Trump fraud trial resumes as 14th amendment case threatens 2024 bid: Live – The Independent

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US District Judge Tanya Chutkan reinstated gag order on Mr Trump in federal case, as 2024 disqualification trial gets underway in Colorado and New York fraud trial enters fifth week
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Trump claims he wasn’t referring to clerk when he violated fraud trial gag order
While Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial continues in New York another potentially more significant Trump trial is underway in Colorado.
A lawsuit seeking to block Mr Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot based on the 14th Amendment and its ban on insurrectionists running for office is being heard by Denver District Court Judge Sarah B Wallace throughout the week.
Similar efforts are underway in other states and on Tuesday the former president filed a lawsuit to keep his name on the ballot in Michigan.
Back in New York, Mr Trump’s sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump will testify in the fraud trial this week, with the former president and Ivanka Trump taking the stand the following week.
Meanwhile, the judge in the federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith has reinstated a gag order on Mr Trump. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued the ruling in early October, banning him from making statements about prosecutors and potential witnesses but it was paused on appeal.
Finally, in the federal classified information case, the former president is reported to be reviewing sensitive documents entered as evidence at a secure location in Miami.
The wife of newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson removed a website for her company the day after a report revealed that documents posted on the site compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest.
Kelly Johnson removed the site for Onward Christian Counseling Services after HuffPost reported on the documents on Friday. The site linked to an operating agreement from 2017, which stated that according to the company’s bylaws, the firm, which offers pastoral counselling, is based on the notion that sex is offensive to God unless it’s between a man and a woman who are married to each other.
Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington, DC:
Company bylaws state that ‘adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God’
David Orowitz, formerly senior vice president of acquisitions and development at the Trump Organization is asked about the refinancing of Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. This was (again) done with funds from Deutsche Bank.
The Trump International Hotel Washington, DC in the historic Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue is then discussed. Deutsche Bank made the redevelopment of that property possible with a $170m loan, personally guaranteed by Mr Trump, with covenants requiring that he maintain a net worth of at least $2.5bn (as we heard earlier in the trial).
The NYAG says that when that deal was made Mr Trump’s net worth was between $1.2bn-$1.4bn in the 2013-14 period.
Deutsche Bank was shown statements of financial condition that satisfied the terms of the loan and overstated his net worth by billions of dollars, according to the suit filed by the AG.
There is an objection from Trump attorney Christopher Kise that the statements of financial condition used in the Washington, DC deal were from 2008-2011 but the case concerns those from 2011-2021.
Judge Engoron overrules the objection and court adjourns for the day.
Proceedings begin again at 10am ET.

Per The Detroit News:
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have asked a court in Michigan to ensure the Republican’s name will appear on the state’s ballots next year as ongoing lawsuits attempt to block him.
The suit, which was dated Monday and listed Trump as the plaintiff, says the Michigan Court of Claims should issue a judgment stating that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has “no authority to refuse to place President Trump’s name on the ballot and enter an injunction stopping her from doing so.” Benson, a Democrat, is the defendant in the case.
Trump is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in November 2024. Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, in both the popular vote and Electoral College.
In Michigan and other states, opponents of Trump have filed lawsuits, arguing the former president should be disqualified from having his name on primary and general election ballots under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News after Rupert Murdoch felt he had gotten “too big for his boots”, and had alienated “large swathes” of the company, a new book has claimed.
Despite claiming to have enjoyed a close relationship with the media mogul and his son Lachlan Murdoch, Carlson was forced out over a litany of concerns, according to Brian Stelter, author of Network of Lies.
Carlson, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, was dismissed in April despite his status as the most-watched cable TV personality.
In an excerpt from the book, published in Vanity Fair, Stelter says that the “abrupt” firing with little explanation allowed conspiracy theories to “fester”.
Mike Bedigan reports from Los Angeles.
The right-wing conspiracy theorist was dismissed in April despite his status as the most-watched cable TV personality
Returning from lunch, the court hears from a new witness: David Orowitz, formerly a senior vice president of acquisitions and development at the Trump Organization.
He is questioned by Eric Haren of the New York Attorney General’s office and is asked about the purchase of Trump National Doral Golf Club, formerly Doral Resort & Spa, out of bankruptcy in 2012. The purchase price was $150m.
In a November 2011 email, Meridian Capital, a real estate services firm, tells Mr Orowitz and Ivanka Trump that Citigroup was unlikely to extend a loan for the Doral purchase. Other possibilities were then explored.
These included financing the deal through Inbursa, the financial services firm owned by Carlos Slim; CSG Investments Inc, an affiliate of Beal Bank; and Deutsche Bank, which had worked with the Trump Organization before.
Mr Orowitz is asked about an internal email exchange about Deutsche Bank and how the institution was planning to securitise any loan to the Trump Organization and sell it off to other lenders.
He says he had concerns that the bank didn’t want their debt on the books.
A lawyer who formerly represented Donald Trump has made a stunning prediction: his former client may well be jailed over violations of his gag orders.
Ty Cobb, a former White House attorney who defended Mr Trump during the Mueller investigation, told CNN that he believes Mr Trump will continue violating his gag orders in two ongoing trials unless either judge decides to jail him in response — a possibility he sees as likely.
Now a privately-practising attorney, Mr Cobb was a White House counsel from 2017-2018. He defended Mr Trump during the investigation into connections between his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives, a case whose merits he later defended despite Mr Trump deriding it as a “witch hunt”.
John Bowden reports from Washington, DC.
Ex-president has twice been found in violation of New York gag order
Former president to conduct first known review of classified papers at centre of federal case against him
Read the latest from Eric Garcia, reporting for The Independent from Capitol Hill.
Republicans want to cut IRS funding and separate support for Israel from Ukraine. These will be nonstarters in the Senate
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Donald Trump attends the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, in New York
REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
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