Donald Trump’s hush money trial enters its fourth week Monday following the Star Wars Day weekend, which was seized on by both Republicans and Democrats alike as an opportunity for some pop culture-infused PR for their respective presidential candidates. Joe Biden posed alongside actor Mark Hamill in the White House, while the North Carolina Republican Party depicted Trump as “A New Hope” in a Star Wars-themed post (which drew mockery for seeming to inadvertently cast him as a villain).
But the “Hope” that will be on the mind of jurors at the beginning of the 12th day of Trump’s trial is Hope Hicks, his former senior aide who broke down into tears on the stand while testifying Friday about how the campaign responded to the explosive emergence of the Access Hollywood tape—in which Trump boasted about groping women—on the eve of the 2016 election.
Hicks said she knew the tape was “going to be a massive story” and that it would be “a damaging development.” The infamous recording had also figured earlier in the week in the testimony of lawyer Keith Davidson, who said it had had a “tremendous influence” on the interest in claims being made by his client, porn star Stormy Daniels, of an alleged affair with Trump.
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Trump denies having sex with Daniels and has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors claim Trump’s business falsely recorded as legal expenses payments to Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen that were actually reimbursements for a $130,000 payment Cohen had made to Daniels in order to buy her silence about the affair.
The first weeks of testimony in the trial have seen the prosecution attempt to establish that Trump used hush-money payments to prevent damaging stories from coming to light in order to protect his 2016 bid for the White House and therefore unlawfully influence the election.
Trump’s defense team, on the other hand, has worked to undermine the theory that Trump was behind a conspiracy to protect his campaign and have questioned the credibility of some of the witnesses in the case.
It’s not yet clear who could take the stand this week, but some key expected witnesses have yet to testify. They include Daniels and Cohen, two of the figures at the heart of the prosecution’s case.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, could also rule at any time on allegations that Trump has continued to breach his court-imposed gag order.
Merchan has already hit the former president with a $9,000 fine for nine violations of the order, which is intended to stop Trump from intimidating witnesses, jurors, and others closely connected to the proceedings. Prosecutors on Thursday sought further penalties over another four alleged breaches of the order.
Merchan has even threatened Trump with jail if the violations continue. The 2024 GOP presumptive nominee could face similar admonitions if a ruling on the latest alleged breaches does come this week.
