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Trump trial live: Opening statements begin in New York hush-money case - BBC News Trump trial live: Opening statements begin in New York hush-money case - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Kayla Epstein Phil McCausland
Reporting from courtReporting from court
Matthew Colangelo is now laying out the background surrounding the case - the alleged "catch and kill" scheme that Donald Trump, a tabloid publisher, and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen engaged in. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche is a former federal prosecutor, which is where he got most of his trial experience, but he hasn’t had many reps on the defence’s side of the courtroom.
The scheme was to stop damaging stories from coming out during the 2016 presidential election, the court hears. After his time working for the government, Blanche became a partner at a prominent Wall Street law firm.
He explains the prosecution's case that Trump, National Enquirer Publisher David Pecker, and Cohen had entered into an agreement to provide favourable coverage to Trump, attack his presidential rivals, and importantly, keep an ear out for any damaging stories about Trump in order to head them off. He worked as a white-collar defence lawyer, and he largely sorted those legal issues outside the courtroom. He's only gone to trial as a defence attorney once before.
The prosecution says the damaging stories that Pecker and Cohen headed off included a salacious story from a Trump property doorman about an alleged love child, and a Playboy model's story of an affair with Trump. That lack of trial experience is perhaps showing slightly. He’s stumbling a bit in his early remarks and often walks out of range of the microphone.
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