By EFE
May 3, 2024, 7:44 PM EDT
Hope Hicks, who worked on former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and was part of his White House team until 2018, burst into tears this Friday as the former president’s legal team began their questioning in the New York criminal trial.
Seeing Hicks’ emotional state, the judge in charge of the case decided to take a break in this process in which Trump faces 34 charges, including falsifying business documents to help cover up an extramarital affair with a porn actress.
Hicks spoke with Trump and his then right-hand man, Michael Cohen, on the day in 2016 when they learned that the porn actress wanted money in exchange for not telling about their affair.
Prosecutors were the first to question Hicks and, although the former Trump employee said she was nervous, she did not show it in her answers.
During the first part of Hicks’ testimony to the prosecution, Donald Trump carefully watched her statements on the stand.
However, he then went on to see what his former employee was saying on the video screen in front of him and after the lunch break, he was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed for long periods.
On Thursday, the current Republican candidate for this year’s presidential election said on his social network that he did not fall asleep in court, but simply closed his “beautiful blue eyes” to listen “intensely.”
Donald Trump can testify
Judge Juan M. Merchan told former President Donald Trump this Friday that the ‘gag order’ of his criminal trial in New York does not prohibit him from testifying and that he has the “absolute” right to do so if he wishes.
Merchan, originally from Colombia and raised in the Big Apple since childhood, made this clarification after Trump said outside court on Thursday that he could not testify due to the measure.
The judge explained that the ‘gag order’, which prevents Trump from speaking publicly against witnesses, prosecutors and jurors, only takes effect when the former president is outside the criminal courtroom.
Therefore, he stressed that the businessman is guaranteed to testify if he so decides, since it is a “constitutional and fundamental right.”
Before the session began this Friday, Donald Trump also told the media in the hallways of the court that his ‘gag order’ does not prevent him from testifying, although it does prohibit him from responding to people’s criticism; suggesting his statement Thursday was a mistake.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he plans to testify to defend his innocence.
The tycoon faces 34 felony counts of falsifying accounting records in the first degree to cover up an extramarital sex scandal. During the first three weeks of the trial, the prosecution has already presented seven witnesses.
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