Sex, Lies and NDAs: Nine memorable moments from Donald Trump’s hush-money trial

livemint.com:

It was the political trial of the young century, a salacious, high-stakes drama starring a former U.S. president vying to reclaim the White House. Manhattan prosecutors’ hush-money case against Donald Trump spanned more than a month and featured more than 20 witnesses.

A 12-person jury on Thursday found the former president guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records for covering up a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. Daniels had alleged a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which he denied. Here are some key moments from the trial.

Prosecutors alleged Trump broke the law to cover up a sex scandal, but their opening statement framed the case as a story about a plot to corrupt the 2016 election. “It was election fraud, pure and simple," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors. Their approach sought to package a complex narrative and cast of characters into a simpler story about a politician pulling the wool over the eyes of voters, even though there were no actual election fraud charges in the case.

It was a risky strategy, and it paid off. The presiding judge, Justice Juan Merchan, issued a gag order restricting the former president from making public statements about potential witnesses. Trump attacked the order as an unfair muzzling of his political speech and was fined thousands of dollars for violating it.

“Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction," Merchan told Trump. The judge wasn’t the first to threaten him with jail time for violating a gag order, but the brinkmanship between the two added suspense to the proceedings. Daniels told jurors about a night in 2006 at a Lake Tahoe hotel suite where she allegedly spanked Trump with a rolled-up