Update – 11:30 am Eastern:
With Douglas Daus still on the stand, Trump attorney Emil Bove drove home the issues surrounding the reliability of information obtained from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s phones.
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Trump attorney Emil Bove says Douglas Daus is looking at evidence from 2016 with all of these intervening events between the files and when he obtained Michael Cohen’s phone in January 2023.
“They present questions about the reliability of the evidence,” Bove says.”It would seem so,” Daus testifies.
And later, on re-cross:
Bove asks, “Did you see gaps in the handling of this data that created risk for such tampering?”
“Yes,” Douglas Daus testifies.
Next, the prosecution called Gina Longstreet, a paralegal from the DA’s office to testify regarding her identification of “publicly available material” relevant to the case, including social media posts, articles, etc.
After a short break and after further review regarding some of the evidentiary objections, Judge Merchan has ruled he will allow a Trump Truth Social post stating, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you” into evidence.
The parties stipulated regarding the date of a Washington Post article regarding the “Access Hollywood” tape (one of the evidentiary issues raised by Trump’s legal team), so the article itself is no longer being offered into evidence.
Prosecutors played a statement made by Trump on Twitter following the release of the tape.
The statement said: “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it. I was wrong and I apologize.”
The video was played while embedded within the Trump tweet on the screen.
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Now the defense team is cross-examining Longstreet.
And now…Hope Hicks has been called to testify…
Update – 10:30 am Eastern:
As trial began Friday morning, Judge Merchan addressed the former president, clarifying an aspect of the gag order, though he did not rule on the additional violations raised by the prosecution and taken under advisement on Thursday:
“The order restricting extrajudicial statements does not prevent you from testifying in any way. It does not prohibit you from taking the stand and it does not limit or minimize what you can say.”
(This, of course, does nothing to remedy the veritable Catch-22 that Trump faces regarding the decision to testify, as explained by Brittany Sheehan recently:
Should Trump Testify? How Harvey Weinstein’s Appeal Can Create a Win/Win Scenario for DJT)
Trump attorney Todd Blanche raised objections regarding some of the evidence prosecutors seek to introduce (several tweets and a Washington Post article), noting that they contain hearsay.
Judge Merchan believes the recent Weinstein reversal does not affect his prior rulings in this matter.
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Witness Douglas Daus retook the stand. On cross-examination, Trump attorney Emil Bove asked Daus about a timing gap in the custody of Cohen’s phone.
There is a gap from January 19, when Cohen signed a form to turn over his cell phone, and January 23, when the cell phone was taken into custody, Daus agrees.
Daus also confirms that Cohen had the Signal app installed on his phone, which is an encrypted messaging app that makes forensic recovery of messages “very difficult.”
There are added questions regarding a “factory wipe” of Cohen’s phone.
Trump attorney Emil Bove is asking Douglas Daus about a “factory wipe” of Michael Cohen’s first phone on October 1, 2016, after the date of the September 6, 2016 audio recording on the phone between Cohen and Donald Trump.
Bove asks Daus if the wipe “raises questions” about that audio file.
“You have to have a look at where that file came from,” Daus says.
Bove has Daus confirm that there was a backup and a sync of the phone in January 2017, when the phone was connected to Cohen’s laptop.
Daus was asked if he knew what was transferred back to the phone.
“That file certainly,” Daus said.
Daus testified there was news coverage regarding the Trump-Cohen phone call in 2018. He also confirmed that the data on the phone does not show a phone call that would have interfered with the recording on September 6. However, he maintains that the metadata would show if the recording was edited and he saw no evidence of this.
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Bove questions Daus about another sync of Cohen’s phone in 2020.
And…we’re back. Ready to wrap up Week Three of the Manhattan criminal trial of former President Donald Trump for allegedly falsifying business records. The prosecution has called multiple witnesses thus far. Court ended Thursday with Douglas Daus, who works for the Manhattan DA’s office, testifying regarding the content retrieved from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s phones. He’ll return to the stand Friday morning.
Judge Juan Merchan advised that court will be ending at 3:45 pm Eastern on Friday to accommodate an appointment for one of the jurors.
We’ll continue to bring you the updates here, so check in and follow along.