Trump hush-money trial live: judge to hold hearing over gag order before first witness David Pecker returns to stand | Donald Trump trials

Chris Michael

Then it was the defense’s turn for opening statements.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche started by making an effort to humanize Trump, while also repeatedly calling him “President Trump”. “He’s, in some ways, larger than life. But he’s also here in this courtroom doing what any of us would do – defending himself,” Blanche said.

“He’s also a man, he’s a husband, he’s a father, he’s a person who’s just like you and just like me.”

Leaving aside whether Donald Trump is anything like anyone else at all, Blanche then moved on to claiming Trump was unaware about the specifics of the hush-money payments because he left it all to Cohen.

In a moment that caused some guffaws in the Guardian newsroom, Blanche said Trump had nothing to do with the 34 checks other than to sign them.

He added: “There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.” Prosecutors, he said, “they put something sinister on this idea, as if it was a crime. You’ll learn: it’s not.”

Chris Michael

One amusing detail from yesterday – Colangelo using Trump’s famous cheapness as evidence of motive.

The prosecutor noted that even though Cohen paid off Daniels to the tune of $130,000, he was ultimately repaid $420,000. Colangelo alleged that Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg met with Cohen to discuss the repayment, and added $50,000 to the tab for “tech services” – then double that amount “to account for taxes”.

The fact Trump overpaid, Colangelo said, shows he knew the payoff was wrong.

Donald Trump was a very frugal businessman. He believed in pinching pennies … He believed in negotiating every bill.

… Donald Trump’s willingness to [overpay] here shows just how important it was to hide the true nature of Cohen’s [payment] to Ms Daniels and the overall election conspiracy they had launched in August of 2015.

Hush money was ‘election fraud pure and simple’, argued prosecutors during opening statements

Chris Michael

In his opening statements, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told an entertaining and damning tale.

In it, a presidential candidate tried criminally to cover up an alleged affair with an adult film star to keep damaging information away from the American public weeks before the 2016 election.

Specifically, Colangelo said, Trump’s campaign was terrified after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, which revealed Trump on a hot mic bragging that he could sexually assault women because he was famous. His campaign spun that story as “locker room talk”, but should US voters hear about an affair with a porn star (and who said Trump’s behavior in the bedroom was unpleasant), that wouldn’t be “talk” – it would be action.

Colangelo said the effort to manipulate media began from the beginning of the campaign. He said Trump invited his friend and the former publisher of the National Enquirer, Pecker, to a meeting at Trump Tower in summer 2015. Trump had recently thrown his hat into the ring for the 2016 Republican nomination, and Colangelo said Trump, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and Pecker hatched a plan to keep damaging information about Trump out of the press.

According to the prosecution, Pecker agreed to run damaging information in the National Enquirer about opponents – including an item claiming, falsely, that Senator Ted Cruz had family connections to the JFK assassination.

Pecker would also buy up negative stories for the express purpose of preventing them from being published – a “catch-and-kill” campaign that Colangelo said was geared towards helping Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

He mentioned an earlier payment to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. Colangelo said:

Pecker will also testify that $150,000 was way more than AMI would normally pay for this kind of story, but he discussed it with Donald Trump and he discussed it with Michael Cohen, and he agreed on the deal with the understanding what Trump would find a way to pay AMI back … The company coordinated directly with the candidate.

Today, we’ll learn more.

First off today, before we get to Pecker in the witness box, judge Merchan is likely to address whether Trump violated a court-imposed gag order with a series of social media posts about witnesses.

Prosecutors have accused Trump of violating the order 10 times since the start of the trial, and last week filed a motion to hold the former president in contempt of court, and to fine him $1,000 per violation.

Merchan subjected Trump to a gag order before the trial began, covering prosecutors (but not the Manhattan district attorney, Bragg), witnesses, court employees, jurors and their families. Before the trial, Merchan then extended the gag order to cover his own family and Bragg’s family, after Trump posted about Merchan’s daughter, who worked for a company that helped Democratic candidates with digital campaigns.

Trump remains free to criticize Merchan himself, though doing so would be unlikely to win any favors from the judge, who will decide Trump’s sentence should the jury find him guilty.

First witness David Pecker to return to the stand in Trump hush-money trial

Chris Michael

It was a day full of salacious details and outrageous claims yesterday as Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom for opening statements in his hush-money trial – the first ever criminal trial of a former US president.

A 12-person jury in the case of the People of the State of New York versus Donald Trump heard prosecutors and defense lawyers give their side of events.

The prosecution said Trump “orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” in his efforts to cover up an alleged affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels, calling it “election fraud – pure and simple”.

The defense countered that there was no crime committed because paying hush money is not illegal and neither is trying to influence the outcome of an election – “It’s called democracy.” Obviously that’s not quite what the prosecution are claiming, but we now have an early sense of how the two sides want to frame the story.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the alleged affair Daniels just weeks before the election.

The case, brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is the first of four criminal cases against the presumptive Republican nominee to reach trial. It hinges on a $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, made to Daniels to keep her story under wraps. Bragg contends that Trump masked the true nature of the payment in business records, by describing repayments to Cohen as lawful legal expenses.

The prosecution claims the fact he paid the money to influence the election makes it a campaign expense, and by lying about it he violated federal campaign law – causing the fraud to rise from a misdemeanour to a felony.

Court is scheduled to begin at 9.30am ET, and the jury will return at 11am, with the first witness – David Pecker of the National Enquirer, a man at the heart of the alleged crimes – expected to return to the stand after a very brief appearance yesterday.

We’re at the courthouse again today. Stay with us.

Trump’s criminal hush-money trial: what to know