WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers are taking turns supporting former president and presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in his trial in Manhattan criminal court, where he is accused of concealing payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Dressed uniformly in navy blue suits and red ties, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, seen as Vice Presidential Candidate in 2024former GOP primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills of Florida entered the courtroom for Trump on Tuesday morning, According to to the reporters present. Outside, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, held a news conference.
The entourage follows Monday’s appearances by U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, another candidate on Vice President Trump’s low list, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, as well as last week’s appearance by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott from Florida.
Tuesday’s show of solidarity came as key prosecution witness and former Trump maniac Michael Cohen took the stand for a second day testify that Trump signed on for falsely reimbursing Cohen for $130,000 of his own money that Cohen paid to Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election.
Jurors again saw checks signed by Trump and heard Cohen’s instructions from Trump associates to submit false invoices for “legal services rendered.” Cohen also described a meeting in the Oval Office in February 2017 during which he discussed reimbursement with Trump: According to reporters in court.
New York does not allow recording in the courtroom, but does allow public recording transcriptions proceedings.
Cohen pursued a high level of detail testimony last week from actress and adult film director Daniels about her alleged affair with Trump in 2006, which he denies.
Trump faces 34 criminal charges for each of the alleged falsified business records related to repaying debts to Cohen – 11 invoices, 11 checks and 12 ledger entries.
‘Fiction’ intended to ‘keep him off the campaign trail’
On the sidewalk, Johnson – second in line for presidential succession after the vice president – he said he wanted to “call out what is a travesty of justice” to reporters.
With a sarcastic chuckle and a gesture to the New York County Supreme Court building on Center Street in Lower Manhattan, Johnson lamented that he had to talk to the media outside “because the court won’t let us talk inside the building. This is just one of the many things that are wrong here.”
It is worth noting that surrogates routinely speak out outside of court.
Johnson summarized what he called a “sham trial” as a plot to derail Trump’s re-election campaign – despite recent New York Times/Siena College polls showing former president leading in several swing states.
“This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this mock trial,” Johnson said. “They’re doing this on purpose to keep him here and keep him off the campaign trail, and I think everyone in the country sees what this is really about.”
The hearing takes place on weekdays except Wednesday.
On Saturday, Trump hit the campaign trail at the rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, where he spoke for 90 minutes, criticizing the New York trial, repeating false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election, calling the “late, great” fictional cannibal serial killer Hannibal Lecter a “wonderful man” and thanking the six justices of the United States Supreme Court—three of whom he appointed—for overturning Roe v. Wade.
“Election interference”
Trump’s allies echoed Johnson’s earlier comments their own He later held a news conference outside the courthouse, calling the trial a “fraud” and a “joke,” according to reporters at the event.
Ramaswamy reportedly compared the courtroom to a “Kafka novel” and called it “one of the most depressing places I have ever been in my life” and said the prosecution’s strategy was to “bore the jury into submission.”
IN video in a press conference he sent to X, the entrepreneur stated that “the criminal justice system should be blind to politics” and accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg of attacking Trump for political reasons.
Burgum characterized the lawsuit as “election interference” in the 2024 race. Meanwhile, Trump’s critics say the trial is only about election interference that occurred in 2016.
Mills said that “what was the Department of Justice, now the Department of Injustice, continues to be used against the American people.”
The charges Trump is currently facing were not brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, but rather the result of an investigation by a New York State grand jury.
Trump’s two federal cases are pending, for example before the U.S. Supreme Court wonders regarding Trump’s claims of complete immunity from criminal charges as he planned to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The second, regarding Trump’s alleged mishandling of secret documents after his presidency, was indefinitely suspended by Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon for Florida.
The trial in New York is expected to resume on Thursday after Cohen is questioned again by Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche.
