Trump tries to block Stormy Daniels from testifying at hush money trial: Latest – The Independent

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Front-runner wins again in Michigan primary as rival cautions conservatives against supporting candidate who is only in the race ‘to pay his legal fees’ and may not be able to beat Joe Biden in November
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Judge Aileen Cannon, the justice presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, has rejected the former president’s co-defendants’ request that they be allowed to view the top secret files they are accused of helping to hide in their employer’s Mar-a-Lago mansion.
Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira had wanted to see the documents in preparation for their trial defences against obstruction of justice charges relating to their boss’s efforts to unlawfully hang onto the documents he kept in his possession after leaving the White House in 2021.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump picked up another win in Michigan’s Republican primary on Tuesday but was attacked by rival Nikki Haley, who told The Wall Street Journal that his candidacy would mean “suicide for out country” in some of her strongest criticism yet of the GOP presidential front-runner.
She also accused him of being in “survival mode to pay his legal fees” alluding to the four criminal indictments and 91 felony charges he faces.
Mr Trump has this week appealed the $454m verdict in his New York fraud trial and sought to have key witnesses Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen excluded from his upcoming hush money trial.
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Republican presidential candidate ordered to pay out more than $500m in two separate judgements
Judge Aileen Cannon, the justice presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida, has rejected the former president’s co-defendants’ request that they be allowed to view the top secret files they are accused of helping to hide in their employer’s Mar-a-Lago mansion.
Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira had wanted to see the documents in preparation for their trial defences against obstruction of justice charges after they were accused of helping their boss conceal the documents he unlawfully kept in his possession after leaving the White House in January 2021.
The decision resolves a protracted battle that threatened to stall a trial in the case, the ruling coming just days before Judge Cannon revisits her calendar to see if Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira can be tried before summer.
After several confidential hearings in her courthouse in recent weeks, including one at which Trump was present, Judge Cannon ruled in favour of Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s office, which argued that the co-defendants didn’t need to actually see the records that were stowed in boxes around Mar-a-Lago.
“The Court finds that the Special Counsel has met his burden to withhold from Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira personally all classified discovery produced to date,” Judge Cannon wrote in her ruling Tuesday, noting one exception pertaining to the case against Nauta.
Judge Aileen Cannon
Here’s Kelly Rissman on Trump’s disgraceful attempt to make political capital out of the brutal murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
Suspect Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, is a Venezuelan citizen who entered the US unlawfully in 2022
It was a pretty vintage evening on Fox…
Here’s Gustaf Kilander on Biden and Trump’s dualling border visits tomorrow.
Biden ‘will reiterate his calls for congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional US Border Patrol agents,’ White House says
Ron DeSantis has told donors to his failed presidential bid that Donald Trump should not play “identity politics” when picking his 2024 running mate.
In an audio recording obtained by NBC News, the Florida governor said: “Now we have a diverse Republican Party. I want everybody in the fold, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want people representing 10, 15 per cent of the party being in the driver’s seat.”
Those on the call included supporters who had committed to serve as delegates for DeSantis at July’s Republican National Convention.
Oliver O’Connell has more.
Florida governor fears former president will play ‘identity politics’ in picking running mate
Donald Trump’s lawyers have submitted arguments as to why certain testimony and evidence should not be admissible in his upcoming criminal trial regarding the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Here’s a sample of why they argue testimony from Daniels, Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani and the airing of the notorious Access Hollywood tape should not be allowed:
“Michael Cohen is a liar. He recently committed perjury, on the stand and under oath, at a civil trial involving President Trump. If his public statements are any indication, he plans to do so again at this criminal trial. The Court should preclude Cohen’s testimony in order to protect the integrity of this Court and the process of justice.”
…
“There was nothing ‘catch and kill’ about the interaction, which is why the People should be foreclosed from uttering those words at trial.”
…
“The Court should preclude testimony from [Stormy Daniels] as unduly prejudicial… Alvin Bragg agrees that such testimony is at the very best peripheral to the charges in this case, publicly stating recently that ‘[t]he case [against President Trump] – the core of it – is not money for sex.’”
…
“Similar to Cohen, she seeks to tell contrived stories with salacious details of events she claimed occurred nearly 20 years ago, which have no place at a trial involving the types of charges at issue. … [Daniels] has also stated publicly that she will testify at the upcoming trial, adding: ‘I’ve been asked to kind of behave. I’m biting my tongue so fucking hard right now.’… [Prosecutors] appear to have recognized the risks of presenting this irrelevant and untrue testimony by warning their witness, but they also appear poised to take the chance in order to try to secure a conviction in this high-profile case. Justice requires more than that, and the Court should preclude [her] inflammatory testimony.”
…
“Giuliani’s statements are inadmissible hearsay and do not satisfy the requirements of any hearsay exclusion or exception… There was no agency relationship between President Trump and Giuliani when Giuliani made these statements.”
…
“Giuliani was not authorized to make statements concerning Stormy Daniels; nor did Giuliani make the statements within the scope of an agency relationship. Rather, to the extent that any agency relationship existed, it had not yet started, its scope was ‘limited’ and did not extend beyond Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.”
…
“Given the Access Hollywood recording’s inherent prejudice and extremely limited probative value, the Court should preclude evidence regarding the recording at trial.”
A frustrated bench of defence attorneys for Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia came up short in a hearing they hoped would extract bombshell evidence in their case to disqualify the district attorney’s office prosecuting them.
Instead, Terrence Bradley said he was only “speculating” about his knowledge of a relationship between Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, the prosecutor she hired to lead the sprawling election interference case against the former president and his allies.
Wade’s former law partner – and former divorce attorney – was ordered to return to the witness stand on Tuesday after the judge overseeing the case determined that what he could say about their relationship was outside the bounds of attorney-client privilege.
Alex Woodward reports on what happened in court yesterday.
Terrence Bradley says he was only ‘speculating’ about a relationship that now threatens an election interference case in Georgia
Donald Trump picked up another win in Michigan’s Republican primary on Tuesday but weathered a further attack from rival Nikki Haley, who told The Wall Street Journal that his candidacy would mean “suicide for out country” in some of her strongest criticism yet of the GOP presidential front-runner.
“This may be his survival mode to pay his legal fees and get out of some sort of legal peril, but this is like suicide for our country,” she the former UN ambassador of the man she served as president, who now faces four criminal indictments and 91 felony charges.
“We’ve got to realise that if we don’t have someone who can win a general election, all we are doing is caving to the socialist left.”
Haley has repeatedly pointed to polling that indicates she could beat Joe Biden in November, whereas the contest between the president and Trump is too close to call.
On her decision to stay in the race despite having no obvious path to victory, she pointed to the lack of public appetite for a rematch of the 2020 election by saying: “I’m doing what I believe 70 per cent of Americans want me to do.”
Certainly not everyone in Michigan is keen for more Trump.
Here’s Eric Garcia on last night’s primary.
Former president won yet another state – but relatively poor numbers in the suburbs left a path of attack open to his challenger

Australia’s former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that former US President Donald Trump was like a 12-year-old boy in awe of his hero whenever he met Russia’s Vladamir Putin.
Speaking on Australian broadcaster ABC’s Q+A, Mr Turnbull said that Mr Trump’s possible return to the White House posed a “terrifying” threat to democracy, because of his embrace of autocratic leaders.
“He is attracted to dictators and tyrants like [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping and he threatened to undermine or pull out of America’s longest standing alliances,” Mr Turnbull said, referring to Mr Trump’s recent threat to pull out of NATO.
Dan Gooding has the story:
Malcolm Turnbull said he was concerned for world security should Trump regain the White House
President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday and was faced with questions about his age, Gaza, all the way to the Taylor Swift conspiracy theory.
Seth Meyers donned a suit and tie as he welcomed the president, who was also a guest on the first-ever episode of the show, along with Amy Poehler, who also came back and introduced Mr Biden.
Meyers put forward a question to the 81-year-old president about his age, asking him how he can address many voter concerns over his seniority.
Amelia Neath reports:
“It’s about how old your ideas are. Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back”
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Donald Trump
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