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Judge Juan Merchan, presiding over Donald Trump\u2019s hush money trial, warned the former president\u2019s lawyer about his client\u2019s \u201ccontemptuous\u201d behaviour as the former president was \u201ccursing audibly\u201d while adult film star Stormy Daniels testified in court.<\/p>\n
MS Daniels spoke for more than four hours in the Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, walking the jury through her a sexual encounter she claims to have had with Trump after meeting him at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in 2006.<\/p>\n
Trump has been charged with allegedly falsifying business records as part of an alleged bid to hide hush money payments to Ms Daniels totalling $130,000 just weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Trump denies all the charges against him and the alleged affair with Ms Daniels.<\/p>\n
As Ms Daniels was relaying in court her alleged encounter with Trump nearly 18 years ago, the former president was cursing out loud and shaking his head, something Judge Merchan warned Trump\u2019s defence attorney, Todd Blanche, about in a mid-morning break.<\/p>\n
Stormy Daniels exits the courthouse at Manhattan criminal court in New York onTuesday (AP)\u201cI understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that\u2019s contemptuous,\u201d Judge Merchan told Mr Blanche after he was called up to the bench. \u201cIt has the potential to intimidate the witness, and the jury can see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Blanche responded to the judge, saying he would talk to his client.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to speak to him. I won\u2019t tolerate that,\u201d Judge Merchan added after saying he was speaking to the attorney at the bench because he didn\u2019t want to \u201cembarrass\u201d Trump.<\/p>\n
Again, Mr Blanche said he would talk to Mr Trump.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Susan Necheles examining Stormy Daniels in court on Tuesday (AP)\u201cOne time I noticed when Ms Daniels was testifying about rolling up the magazine, and presumably smacking your client, and after that point [Mr Trump] shook his head, and he looked down. And later, I think he was looking at you, Mr Blanche, later when we were talking about The Apprentice, at that point he again uttered a vulgarity and looked at you this time,\u201d Judge Merchan said.<\/p>\n
Mr Blanche said he would talk to Mr Trump about this during the break.<\/p>\n
Ms Daniels spoke in front of the court about how she swatted Mr Trump \u201cright on the butt\u201d with a rolled-up magazine after she thought he was being arrogant during a conversation with him, and after that, he was \u201cmuch more polite,\u201d according to Ms Daniels.<\/p>\n
She also said they discussed Mr Trump\u2019s hit NBC series, The Apprentice, but doubted that even Trump would be able to convince the network to hire an adult film star for the reality show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington email Judge Juan Merchan, presiding over Donald Trump\u2019s hush money trial, warned the former president\u2019s lawyer about his client\u2019s \u201ccontemptuous\u201d behaviour as the former president was \u201ccursing audibly\u201d while adult film star Stormy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n