Judge Merchan has asked the prosecution to work to confirm that the C-SPAN representative can be in court Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.

During a break, lawyer and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz offered his reason for being in court amongst Trump’s allies: “I’m not here to show political support for anybody, but to show strong opposition to the case itself.” In 60 years of practicing law, he says it’s “weakest case I’ve ever seen.”

Todd Blanche argued it will unnecessarily prolong the trial. He said prosecutors are on the verge of resting their case and that the defense may rest its case Monday, too.

The defense plans to call a campaign finance expert, a lawyer who offered to represent Cohen after the FBI raided his property in 2018 and a paralegal.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said he hopes to have the executive director of the C-SPAN archives, Robert Browning, back on the witness stand Tuesday.

Steinglass blamed the defense for prolonging things, saying: “It doesn’t even seem like Mr. Blanche is contesting that they were together so I don’t even see why we’re jumping through all of these hoops, but I understand the rules of evidence apply.”

Before the jury returned from the lunch break, Judge Merchan ruled prosecutors can’t show the jury still images pulled from a C-SPAN video of Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller together at a campaign event at 7:57 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2016 — about five minutes before Cohen called Schiller’s cellphone.

The judge said the photo amounts to hearsay without being authenticated by a representative of the TV network. Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said prosecutors are arranging to have the executive director of the C-SPAN archives, Robert Browning, return to the witness stand. Browning testified earlier in the trial to authenticate videos of Trump campaign speeches in 2016.

Steinglass had said they wanted to show the image to blunt any suggestion by the defense that Trump and Schiller might not have been together at the time in question.

Cohen previously testified that he needed to speak with Trump “to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it” and he knew Schiller would be with him. Cohen wired $130,000 to Daniels’ lawyer two days after the call in question.

Citing text message and telephone records, Blanche pressed Cohen last week on the subject matter of the call, eliciting testimony that the witness was also dealing with harassing phone calls from a person who’d identified himself as a 14-year-old boy.

Costello, whose well-publicized split from Cohen was chronicled in testimony last week, was invited last year to appear before the grand jury that indicted Trump after asserting he had information that undermined Cohen’s credibility.

In a news conference after his grand jury appearance, he told reporters he had come forward to provide exculpatory information about Trump and to make clear he did not believe Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal crimes and served time in prison, could be trusted.

“If they want to go after Donald Trump and they have solid evidence then so be it,” Costello said at the time. “But Michael Cohen is far from solid evidence.”

The move to call Costello is a risky gambit for the defense because it could open the door to additional testimony about what Cohen alleged was a strong-armed effort by the lawyer to keep him in line during the federal hush money investigation and to deter Cohen from cooperating with prosecutors after his home, office and hotel room were raided by the FBI in 2018.

After the jury was excused for lunch, prosecutors said they’re seeking to show jurors a screengrab from a C-SPAN video of Trump and his bodyguard Keith Schiller together at a campaign event at 7:57 p.m. on Oct. 24, 2016, just minutes before Cohen called Schiller’s cellphone.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Judge Juan M. Merchan they wanted to show the image to blunt any suggestion by the defense that Trump and Schiller might not have been together at the time in question. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said he never suggested, nor would he suggest, they were apart.

Cohen previously testified that he needed to speak with Trump “to discuss the Stormy Daniels matter and the resolution of it” and he knew Schiller would be with him. Cohen wired $130,000 to Daniels’ lawyer two days after the call in question.

Citing text message and telephone records, Blanche pressed Cohen last week on the subject matter of the call, eliciting testimony that the witness was also dealing with harassing phone calls from a person who’d identified himself as a 14-year-old boy.

Judge Merchan made the announcement after a bench conference prompted by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger’s question revisiting Cohen’s testimony about a phone call he said he had with Trump on Oct. 24, 2016.

Cohen previously testified that he spoke with Trump about paying porn actor Stormy Daniels, but Trump’s lawyers suggested Cohen was contacting Trump’s lawyer to complain about a prank caller.

Small pro- and anti-Trump crowds gathered there Monday, with the latter group sometimes drowning out the former president’s allies with boos and chants during their news conference.

Several fans waved large Trump flags, and one held a sign reading “Trump = Victim.” On the other side of the political aisle, protesters chanted “Trump lies, Democracy dies.”

One protester waved a homemade sign that said, “Cult Sheep” at the politicians as they left.

The group sought to attack the case, the judge, the judge’s daughter and President Joe Biden.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said Cohen lied to Congress, the news media and the court.

“You’d have trouble finding a single person he has actually told the truth to,” the South Carolina attorney general said.

Kash Patel, who served in Trump’s administration, said Monday’s proceedings marked the first time in six weeks of trial that “we finally have a crime,” because Cohen admitted to stealing money from the Trump Organization.

“We also have a victim. That victim is Donald J. Trump,” Patel said.

Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia called for the U.S. government to withhold any federal money from being used in New York’s court system and Illinois Rep. Mary Miller said “any normal judge would have dismissed this case by now.”

As she questioned Cohen again on re-direct, prosecutor Susan Hoffinger took a dig at the defense’s exacting cross-examination, asking the witness: “I know you might feel like you’re on trial here after cross-examination, but are you actually on trial here?”

“No, ma’am,” Cohen replied after a defense objection was overruled.

Asked to describe the difference between testifying in court against Trump and the 2018 federal case in which he pleaded guilty to various crimes, Cohen said: “My life was on the line. My liberty. I was the defendant in that case. Here, I’m just a non-party subpoenaed witness.”

Cohen’s admitted theft from the Trump Organization came after, he says, his annual holiday bonus was slashed to $50,000 from the $150,000 he usually received.

Cohen testified that Trump owed technology firm Red Finch $50,000 for its work artificially boosting his standing in a CNBC online poll about famous businessmen.

Cohen said he’d paid the company’s owner $20,000 in cash “to placate him for the time being” after Trump had gone months without paying the bill.

Cohen said he later sought reimbursement for the full amount at the same time he was seeking payment for the money he paid Daniels. He said he kept the difference instead of paying Red Finch as a way of making up for his reduced bonus.

“I was angered because of the reduction in the bonus and so I just felt like it was self-help,” Cohen said.

Cohen testified that he shelled out money to a tech firm to help boost Trump’s performance in an online CNBC poll about the most famous businessmen of the last half century.

At the beginning, Trump was polling near the bottom “and it upset him,” Cohen said. So Cohen reached out to Red Finch, who said they could create an algorithm that would get Trump’s name “to rise and rise significantly” in the poll by acquiring IP addresses to cast phony votes.

He said Trump initially wanted to finish first, but the two decided that would be suspicious. Instead they decided to settle for 9. But Trump refused to pay the firm after CNBC decided to nix a second round of the poll featuring the top 10 names. Trump, Cohen testified, didn’t feel he’d gotten his money’s worth.

When he was later reimbursed by Allen Weisselberg to pay back Red Finch, Cohen kept the proceeds for himself – an act of deception that, Cohen admitted earlier in the day, amounted to stealing from the Trump Organization.

But describing his actions to the prosecutor, Cohen defended the move. “I felt it was almost like self help,” he said.

As prosecutor Susan Hoffinger began asking Cohen her second round of questions, she took aim at a point Trump’s defense made during their questioning: that Cohen helped Trump and his family with some legal matters in 2017, when Cohen received $420,000 from the then-president. The sum included reimbursement for the $130,000 Cohen had paid Stormy Daniels, according to testimony and evidence at the trial.

Prosecutors say the $420,000 in payments was deceptively logged as legal expenses to disguise the Daniels deal. Trump’s defense says Cohen was indeed paid for legal work, so there was no cover-up.

Cohen testified that he never billed for the work he did for Trump and his family in 2017. When Hoffinger asked whether the $420,000 was related at all to those 2017 legal endeavors, Cohen answered, “No, ma’am.”

“Notwithstanding everything you’ve said over the years, you have specific recollection of having conversations with then-candidate Donald J. Trump about the Stormy Daniels matter?” defense attorney Blanche asked Cohen.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen answered.

“No doubt in your mind?”

No doubt, Cohen answered, and Blanche said he had no more questions.

Cohen testified he’d be better off financially if Trump isn’t convicted because it would give him more fodder for the podcasts that provide a sizeable chunk of his livelihood.

Cohen was responding to questions from Trump lawyer Todd Blanche asking if he’d benefit financially from a conviction in the hush money case.

“The answer is no,” Cohen said, explaining: “It’s better if it’s not (guilty) for me because it gives me more to talk about in the future.”

As he spoke, Trump looked directly at the witness box, his arm draped over his chair.

Asked about his recent claim that he might run for Congress because he has “the best name recognition out there,” Cohen insisted he hasn’t built his profile on Trump’s back.

“My name recognition is because of the journey that I’ve been on. Is it affiliated to Mr. Trump? Yes. Not because of Mr. Trump,” he testified.

“Well, the journey that you’ve been on,” Blanche noted, “has included near-daily attacks on President Trump.”

“My journey is to tell my story, yes, sir,” Cohen said, eventually acknowledging his frequent criticisms of Trump.

Pushed before the morning break to describe his lucrative Trump-related side businesses, Cohen told defense attorney Todd Blanche “there is a television show” in the works.

Tentatively titled “The Fixer,” the show is based on Cohen’s own life and career. A producer on his podcast is currently shopping the show to studios, but it hasn’t been picked up yet, Cohen testified.

The ex-lawyer said he’s made about $4.4 million from his books and podcasts since 2020, the year he was released from prison to home confinement. Cohen was freed from home confinement in 2021.

Cohen also noted that he makes some income from a real estate rental property. Before pleading guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and other charges, Cohen made about $4 million in 18 months, he testified. That money came largely from corporate consulting deals, plus the $420,000 he got from Trump to reimburse the Daniels payout and a technology expense, cover taxes and provide a bonus.

Jurors remained largely engaged with Cohen’s testimony, though some appeared to be dragging as his testimony stretched into a fourth day.

Several jurors stifled yawns while peering at the witness and looking at monitors in front of them as emails and other evidence were displayed. A few continued to take notes. Others sat back and took in the testimony, occasionally peering at the gallery of reporters and public observers.

Defense attorney Blanche grilled Cohen about his initial public denials that Trump knew about the Daniels payoff.

After The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2018 that Cohen had arranged the payout to the porn actor more than a year earlier, Cohen told journalists, friends and others that Trump had been in the dark about the arrangement.

So until April 2018, “you had told anybody who asked that President Trump knew nothing about the payment at the time?” Blanche asked.

“That’s what I said, yes,” Cohen acknowledged.

In April 2018, federal authorities searched Cohen’s home, office and other locations tied to him. Four months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance violations and other charges and told a court Trump had directed him to arrange the Daniels payment.

Cohen testified he made $4 million from six clients, including AT&T, which was attempting to acquire Time Warner at the time.

Cohen said he was paid $50,000 a month by the company and had around 20 contacts with its representatives – a sum equal to about $30,000 a contact.

Another client was Columbus Nova, an investment management that paid him $80,000 a month. Novartis, a pharmaceutical company, paid him $100,000 a month for a year.

Cohen was among a long list of former Trump aides and confidantes who raked in large sums of money as consultants after Trump won the White House as companies and countries scrambled to understand and influence the new reality star-turned-president.

In the final stretch of the cross-examination, Blanche accelerated his questioning, lurching back and forth in time as he pushed Cohen on his past lies and shady dealings.

At times, Cohen seemed disoriented by the approach, asking the defense attorney to rephrase his questions or calling them “confusing.” But Cohen has also largely kept his cool on the witness stand so far, offering short and dispassionate replies to Blanche, who he addressed as “sir.”

Blanche asked Cohen about some legal matters he helped Trump handle — including by finding outside lawyers — in early 2017, when he began getting $35,000-a-month payments that reimbursed him for the Daniels payout and covered some other things.

It’s a point the defense wants to hammer home in order to counter prosecutors’ argument that the monthly payments were deceptively logged as legal expenses in order to disguise the Daniels deal. The defense, and Trump himself, have argued that the checks to Cohen were properly categorized because he was indeed working as a lawyer for Trump.

Cohen admitted he stole from Trump’s company when he pocketed tens of thousands of dollars that was earmarked as a reimbursement for money he said he’d shelled out to a technology firm.

The Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen for the technology costs under the same arrangement as his repayment for the $130,000 hush money payment he made to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

Cohen had claimed he’d shelled out $50,000 to the tech firm, Red Finch, but on the witness stand Monday, he testified that he gave a company executive just $20,000 in cash — which he’d stored in a brown paper bag — and never forked over the other $30,000 Red Finch was owed.

The Trump Organization repaid Cohen $50,000 and then doubled that payment in a practice known as “grossing up” to cover taxes he’d incur by declaring the money as income rather than a tax-free reimbursement.

“So you stole from the Trump Organization,” Trump lawyer Todd Blanche asked.

“Yes, sir,” Cohen admitted.

Blanche noted that despite Cohen’s guilty pleas in 2018 to federal charges including a campaign finance violation for the hush money payment and unrelated tax evasion and bank fraud crimes, he’d never been charged with stealing from Trump’s company.

“Have you paid back the Trump Organization the money you stole from them?”

“No, sir,” Cohen responded.

Trump, who had been slouched back in his seat with his eyes closed for much of the testimony, looked directly at the witness stand as Cohen made the admission about stealing.

Eric Trump, Trump’s son, who is in court, posted on X: “This just got interesting: Michael Cohen is now admitting to stealing money from our company.”

After walking Cohen through a list of personal business dealings and Trump-related responsibilities he was juggling in the lead-up to the late October 2016 payment to Daniels, Blanche pointedly asked Cohen about what the witness has said were two key phone calls in which he apprised Trump of the impending payout.

“You do have a specific recollection that, on those two phone calls, you just talked about the Stormy Daniels deal — that’s it?” Blanche asked.

Yes, Cohen said, because it was personally important to him. He was about to shell out $130,000 from his own account to keep Daniels from selling her story publicly.

“My recollection is that I was speaking to him about Stormy Daniels because that is what he tasked me to take care of and that’s what I had been working on,” Cohen added.

The charges against Trump — falsifying business records — center on the way he ultimately reimbursed Cohen for the Daniels payment. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Under cross-examination, Cohen testified that he was extremely busy in the weeks before he paid Daniels — and not just with trying to silence the porn actor.

Cohen testified last week that there was a significant urgency to resolving the Daniels situation after the October 2016 leak of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump was heard boasting about grabbing women without permission. That tape became public just weeks before election day.

Cohen testified Monday that his attention was divided at the time by several other matters, including a real estate transaction involving an investment property he owned with his brother, a restructuring of his taxi medallion investments, securing an endorsement for Trump from one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s relatives, unrelated litigation and an issue involving photographs and a potential extortion attempt of one of Trump’s children.

Defense attorney Blanche asked Cohen a series of questions about personal business deals and other Trump-related tasks Cohen was juggling in the weeks before the payout to Stormy Daniels.

The questions seemed aimed at showing that he wasn’t solely focused on the Daniels matter, despite its urgency at the time.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche resumed his questioning of Cohen by asking how many reporters he’s spoken to since Thursday, when he was last on the witness stand.

After a brief pause, Cohen replied: “I didn’t speak to reporters about what happened last week.”

Pressed again by Blanche, Cohen clarified that he has spoken to reporters, just not about the details of last week’s testimony. “I’ve spoken to reporters who called to say hello, to see how I’m doing, check in, but I didn’t talk about this case,” he said.

Michael Cohen has returned to the courtroom for his fourth day of testimony Monday.

He nodded to a court officer but didn’t look at Trump or the defense table as he made his way to the witness stand.

Trump turned his head and looked in Cohen’s direction as he was taking the witness stand.

Judge Merchan declined Monday to broaden the scope of testimony the defense can elicit from a potential expert witness, Bradley A. Smith, a former Bill Clinton-appointed Republican Federal Election Commission member.

The judge echoed his pretrial ruling that, if called, Smith can give general background on the FEC — its purpose, background and the laws it enforces — and the definitions of such terms as “campaign contribution.”

But Merchan rejected the defense’s renewed efforts to have Smith define three terms in federal election law, saying it would breach rules preventing expert witnesses from interpreting the law. Nor can Smith opine on whether the former president’s alleged actions violate those laws, Merchan said.

If Smith were to testify about those issues, the judge said, the prosecution would then be permitted to call an expert of its own. That would result in a “battle of the experts,” the judge said, “which would only serve to confuse and not assist the jury.”

Smith is a law professor, and there often are guardrails around expert testimony on legal matters, on the basis that it’s up to a judge — not an expert hired by one side or the other — to instruct jurors on applicable laws in a case.

Judge Merchan cited scheduling issues in giving the May 28 date.

After the scheduling update, the discussion turned to prosecutors’ objections to a planned defense exhibit. This kind of legal wrangling isn’t uncommon before a day’s testimony. The jury was not yet in court.

Trump walked into the courtroom holding a folded piece of paper in his left hand, surveying the gallery crowd as he made his way to the defense table.

His lawyers and supporters followed up the aisle. Many were wearing blue suits and red ties, the look the pro-Trump contingent has adopted for sojourns to court. Among them: lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Bernard Kerik. The former NYPD commissioner and others were relegated to the back row of the courtroom because there wasn’t enough space in the gallery rows immediately behind the defense table.

A court officer reminded the visitors to put away their cellphones.

The former president began his remarks to reporters outside the courtroom by noting that Judge Juan M. Merchan had decided to start Monday’s proceedings early.

He then read out quotes from pundits who have criticized the case, as he often does, and hit on other familiar talking points, including critiquing the judge and the temperature of the courtroom.

Trump did not respond to questions about whether his lawyers have advised him not to testify or whether he’s afraid of doing so.

Trump plans to be joined at court by retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Will Scharf both of whom have served as his lawyers. There’s also Kash Patel, a top ally who also served in Trump’s administration, and Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who worked for Rudy Giuliani around efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 loss.

The group also includes South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, a Trump backer and also son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, both of whom advised Trump’s early primary bid in their state.

Last week, former President Donald Trump used a day off from his hush money trial to headline a Republican fundraiser in Minnesota, a traditionally Democratic state that he boasts he can carry in November.

Trump took the stage late as he headlined the state GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner in St. Paul after attending his son Barron’s high school graduation in Florida.

Declaring his appearance to be “an official expansion” of the electoral map of states that could be competitive in November, Trump said, “We’re going to win this state.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has said it will rest its case once Cohen is done on the stand, though it could have an opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses if Trump’s lawyers put on witnesses of their own.

The defense isn’t obligated to call any witnesses, and it’s unclear whether the attorneys will do so.

Trump’s lawyers have said they may call Bradley A. Smith, a Republican who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton to the Federal Election Commission, to refute the prosecution’s contention that the hush money payments amounted to campaign-finance violations. Defense lawyers said they have not decided whether Trump will testify.

To convict Trump of felony falsifying business records, prosecutors must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that he not only falsified or caused business records to be entered falsely, but that he did so with intent to commit or conceal another crime. Any verdict must be unanimous.

Prosecutors allege that Trump logged Cohen’s repayment as legal expenses to conceal multiple other crimes, including breaches of campaign finance law and a violation of a state election law alleging a conspiracy to promote or prevent an election.

Last week, Donald Trump’s lawyers accused the star prosecution witness in his hush money trial of lying to jurors, portraying Trump fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen as a serial fabulist who is bent on seeing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee behind bars.

As Trump looked on, defense attorney Todd Blanche pressed Cohen for hours with questions that focused as much on his misdeeds as on the case’s specific allegations and tried to sow doubt in jurors’ minds about Cohen’s crucial testimony implicating the former president.

Whether the defense is successful in undermining Cohen’s testimony could determine Trump’s fate in the case. Over the course of the trial’s fourth week of testimony, Cohen described for jurors meetings and conversations he said he had with Trump about the alleged scheme to stifle stories about sex that threatened to torpedo Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Former President Donald Trump urged gun owners to vote in the 2024 election as he addressed thousands of members of the National Rifle Association, which officially endorsed him just before Trump took the stage at their annual meeting in Texas on Saturday.

“We’ve got to get gun owners to vote,” Trump said. “I think you’re a rebellious bunch. But let’s be rebellious and vote this time.”

On Saturday, Trump also brought up the criminal cases against him as his hush money trial heads into the final stretch next week and accused Democrats of being behind these cases because he is Biden’s opponent.

Testimony in the hush money trial of Donald Trump is set to conclude in the coming days, putting the landmark case on track for jury deliberations that will determine whether it ends in a mistrial, an acquittal — or the first-ever felony conviction of a former American president.

Jurors over the course of a month have heard testimony about sex and bookkeeping, tabloid journalism and presidential politics. Their task ahead will be to decide whether prosecutors who have charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Here’s a look at what we’ve learned so far as the two sides have argued and what to watch for as it wraps up.