Trump trial live: Opening statements set to begin Monday as his legal fees eat into campaign funds

Michael Avenatti, the porn star’s disgraced former lawyer, has said that he is in touch with Trump’s legal defense team and is willing to testify on behalf of the former president at his trial.

“The defense has contacted me,” Avenatti said The New York Post from prison.

“I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defense for the better part of a year.”

Avenatti is currently serving a 19-year sentence for extortion, tax evasion, fraud, embezzlement and other federal crimes at Terminal Island, a minimum-security federal prison in Los Angeles.

You can catch all the latest from Manhattan via the livestream below.

Golden sneakers, Lee Greenwood Bibles and now a customizable “Love & Gratitude” necklace for Mother’s Day – is this a presidential campaign or a home shopping channel?

Here’s Oliver O’Connell on Melania’s return to the campaign trail (well, sort of) on Saturday, which saw her help a conservative LGBT+ group, the Log Cabin Republicans, raise $1m at a Mar-a-Lago dinner.

The defendant complained bitterly last week that Judge Merchan’s requirement that he attend court four days a week was stopping him from traveling to key swing states to campaign for the presidency.

When he finally did get away over the weekend, his rally had to be canceled because of the weather, which might just count as divine intervention (revenge for trying to cash-in on the Bible?)

This is what Trump had to say to his supporters on Truth Social.

Alex Woodward is back outside the court in Lower Manhattan for us once again this morning and reports:

“The gates for the staging area for press are still locked but there’s a line wrapping around the park in the meantime.

“There wasn’t an acknowledgment in court on Friday (probably for the best) of the man who self-immolated a few literal steps from where I’m standing now, and the security and police presence don’t seem to have changed.

“We’re anticipating opening arguments from the prosecution and potentially a first witness, with speculation that it’s David Pecker.

“Justice Merchan will also likely handle any Sandoval business in the morning.”

Alex Woodward reported for The Independent from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan all of last week.

Here’s his look back at exactly what went down.

The New York Times reported last night that former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker is expected to be the first witness called by the prosecution this week.

MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin correctly called the Manhattan DA’s strategy a day earlier when she tweeted: “If I’m telling this story chronologically, the person I’d call first is this guy on the right, former American Media chairman David Pecker.

“According to the Manhattan DA’s statement of facts accompanying the indictment, the story begins with Trump’s infamous ride down the [escalator] in June 2015, when he declared his candidacy for president.

“But ‘soon after,’ in August 2015, Trump and Cohen met with Pecker, who offered to serve as the campaign’s ‘eyes and ears’ to help Trump – and hurt his rivals – through the National Enquirer‘s coverage.

“That American Media made good on its promises is important, especially since it admitted to certain conduct through a non-prosecution agreement with DOJ in 2018 and this ‘conciliation agreement’ with the Federal Election Commission in 2021.

“But even more significant? Pecker can testify that Trump not only understood but heartily endorsed his publication’s offer to ‘catch and kill’ negative stories about him, especially as they pertained to Trump’s alleged extramarital affairs.

“And given how few people outside Michael Cohen directly communicated with Trump about the scheme at issue, Pecker’s testimony could be critical in establishing Trump’s intent and knowledge. FIN.”

Here’s a look at Pecker and the other key personnel likely to take the stand courtesy of Ariana Baio.

Meet the key players in Trump’s hush money trial

From a porn star and a Playboy model to a supermarket tabloid publisher – by way of a lawyer-turned-felon – the cast of characters in the first-ever criminal trial of a former president could hardly be more colourful. Ariana Baio reports

A member of Trump’s legal team yesterday disclosed the defense’s plan to “focus on the facts” to show that the former president did nothing wrong, one day before the opening arguments are set to begin in the landmark hush money trial.

Posts like these seem extremely unlikely to endear the defendant to Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg, but Trump keeps right on “truthing” them anyway.

The first – invoking the right’s favorite liberal bogeyman, billionaire financier George Soros – finds him dabbling in antisemitic conspiracy theories to suggest the Manhattan DA is a puppet of shadowy and sinister forces. Entirely without evidence, of course.

That doesn’t stop him calling, with remarkable gall, for the removal of the gag order imposed on him by the judge.

Elsewhere, he’s been slamming the media for interviewing a former member of his own administration and threatening “non-profits” in a rather vague manner.

Former president Donald Trump’s legal team has used various defenses for — and attempts to delay — his hush money case in which he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records.